6 minute read
Meet the Filmmakers
OCTOBER 31, 6:00PM
Azizi is the author of The Shadow Commander: Soleimani, the US and Iran’s Global Ambitions. His writings on cinema, politics, and history have appeared in outlets including the New York Times. He has written and produced movies and covered every Cannes Film Festival since 2016.
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Arash Azizi | HOLY SPIDER
NOVEMBER 1, 6:00PM
Byron Hurt is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, writer, lecturer, activist, Emmy-nominated TV show host, and an adjunct professor at Columbia University. Hurt is also a short video content creator for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Forward Promise program.
Byron Hurt | HAZING
NOVEMBER 2, 6:00PM
An educator, filmmaker, and founding member/ co-executive director of Youth FX, a media arts organization focused on empowering young people of color in Albany, NY and around the world by teaching them creative and technical skills in film and digital media .
Bhawin Suchak | OUTTA THE MUCK
Fritz Bitsoie is a Diné Director from Gallup, New Mexico and a graduate of the film program at the University of New Mexico. In his first short film, The Trails Before Us, Bitsoie aims to reclaim the Western film genre as a way to share contemporary stories about the Native American experience.
Sachs is an American experimental filmmaker and poet based in Brooklyn, New York. Strongly committed to a dialogue between cinematic theory and practice, she searches for a rigorous play between image and sound, pushing the visual and aural textures in each new project.
They are civil rights leaders whose life and love is a force behind LGBTQ+ equality in the heart of the country. Their iconic gay bar, Sidetrack, has helped fuel movements and create community for decades in Chicago. But, behind the business and their historic activism exists a love unlike any other.
Lynne Sachs | SWERVE
Art Johnston and Pep Peña | ART AND PEP
Mercedes Kane | ART AND PEP
NOVEMBER 3, 6:00PM | PRIDE ON SCREEN
Mercedes Kane is forever fascinated by the human experience and the many ways to explore and express that experience. She most recently directed What Remains: The Burning Down Of Black Wall Street (2021) about the 1921 Tulsa race massacre.
Martine is a nonfiction filmmaker, producer, video journalist, and an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Connecticut. She has worked as a documentarian, producer, editor, video journalist, and educator.
Meet the FIlmmakers & guests
Shirin Barghi is an Iranian journalist, audio producer and documentary filmmaker based in Brooklyn, New York. She currently works as a Senior Producer for BRIC TV, where she covers issues of social justice, immigration, inequality and more.
Shirin Barghi | NO SIREN LEFT BEHIND
NOVEMBER 4, 6:00PM
He worked in the cultural industries, from GogolFest Contemporary Art Festival to Molodist Kyiv IFF, Odesa IFF and Toronto IFF. He started working as 1st Assistant Director in commercials, TV series and films. In 2021, he started his career as a producer focusing on creative documentaries.
Ido Glass is a graduate of the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in Jerusalem (1994). He has been creating, editing, writing scripts and working as a freelance director. He specializes in documentaries dealing with social, human and historical issues surrounding Israeli society.
Mykyta Kozlov | KLONDIKE
NOVEMBER 4, 8:00PM
Ido Glass | DEAD SEA GUARDIANS
Shaina Feinberg is a filmmaker from New York City. She specializes in micro-budget filmmaking. Her first film, The Babymooners, blends documentary and narrative fiction and was picked up for distribution by Screen Media.
NOVEMBER 5, 1:30PM
Arno was a leader of a worldwide racist skinhead group and a lead singer of the hate-metal band Centurion, which is still popular with hate groups today. Single parenthood, love for his daughter, and the forgiveness shown by people he once hated all helped to turn Arno’s life around.
Arno Michaelis | REFUGE
Mubin Shaikh is a deradicalized former extremist turned undercover human source for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and police agent with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET - Toronto).
Mubin Shaikh | REFUGE
NOVEMBER 5, 3:30PM
Kristal is a young, ambitious Philadelphian driven to keep families connected to their incarcerated loved ones. But when her father and brother return from prison, she confronts the ultimate question: can she reunite her own family?
Kristal Bush | A WOMAN ON THE OUTSIDE
Award-winning reporter and independent filmmaker whose stories explore how money, power and policy shapes the lives of everyday people. Her investigative and enterprise work has appeared across NBC News platforms, on BuzzFeed News, The Guardian U.S., Lifetime/A+E Networks and WNYC Radio.
Meet the FIlmmakers & guests
NOVEMBER 5, 6:00PM
Tom Whitehead, Kari Whitehead, and their daughter Emily are founders of the Emily Whitehead Foundation, which raises funds and awareness for pediatric cancer immunotherapy research.
Emily, Tom, Kari Whitehead | OF MEDICINE AND MIRACLES
For twenty years Keith Wasserman has made and delivered elaborate art mail packages-all in the hopes of befriending his muse. Dear Ani explores what can happen when you present your truest self, and risk total failure. It is an intimate account of psychotic mania, personal mastery, and creative triumph.
Keith Wasserman | DEAR ANI
In 2006, Micah founded the creative content studio, Movie Magic Media, where he and Keith have collaborated on dozens of short films, music videos and feature films. Together they made their Tribeca Film Festival debut in 2015 with the climate themed sci-fi short film, Grow.
Micah Levin | DEAR ANI
NOVEMBER 5, 8:00PM
MFA in Film, is a nationally recognized writer, director and professor. His narrative and documentary work has appeared in almost 200 film festivals across the globe and has been broadcast on national public television, where he won two international television awards.
NOVEMBER 6, 11:00AM
An experimental filmmaker living and working in Columbia, SC where she teaches at the University of South Carolina. Her work focuses on hybrid methods of both film and video that examine the intersections between gender, sexuality and camouflage.
Carleen Maur | TRACES
Matt Whitman is an artist and filmmaker working primarily with 16mm and Super8 motion picture film. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York and has taught at Parsons School of Design since 2014.
Matt Whitman | THAT WAS WHEN I THOUGHT I COULD HEAR YOU
A 2021 Guggenheim Fellow in Fine Arts, is a multidisciplinary artist, experimental filmmaker, and writer of Black, Filipinx, and Chinese descents. Campbell finds complexity in public secrets— fragments of information known by many but undertold or unspoken.
Crystal Z Campbell | FLIGHT
NOVEMBER 6, 1:00PM
Emmy Award winning film, television and commercial director. Mader co-directed a television series for Discovery+ based on his film, Booger Red. In 2022, the comedy documentary he co-directed, Chop & Steele, premiered at 2022 Tribeca Film Festival. Cofounder of a production company, The Bear.
Meet the FIlmmakers & guests
Chauncey’s career in the arts has spanned more than 20 years. He works as a writer, director, producer, actor, singer & dancer. No matter his role, Xander is a passionate storyteller and approaches the material from the inside out; connecting the emotional truth of the piece to his audience in every moment.
Xander Chauncey | THE MOLOK
NOVEMBER 6, 3:00PM
Jorge Antonio Guerrero (born June 28 1993) is a Mexican actor. He is most noted for his performance as Fermín in the 2018 film Roma, for which he was an Ariel Award nominee for Best Supporting Actor at the 61st Ariel Awards in 2019.
Jorge Antonio Guerrero | WE ARE LIVING THINGS
A filmmaker based in New York.Films he produced have screened at festivals around the world including official selection at Cannes, SXSW, Deauville and Toronto IFF. He and his work have received fellowships from Producers Guild of America, EAVE, and IFP. Currently, he’s in production on Pet Shop Boys and developing feature film projects.
Andrew K. Li | WE ARE LIVING THINGS
Professional filmmaker with over a decade of handson experience across multiple industries. He currently teaches in the Department of Cinema & Television at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA. His debut short documentary film, The Tides That Bind, screened at over 25 festivals and won numerous awards.
