Meet Our Jury

Flavio Alves

Flavio is a Brazilian film writer, director, and producer. His debut feature film, THE GARDEN LEFT BEHIND (2019), premiered at SXSW, where it won the Audience Award. In 2018, Flavio received The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Artist Academy fellowship, and in 2019, he was selected to Ryan Murphy’s HALF Initiative Directing Program, aimed at creating equal opportunities for minorities behind the camera. Flavio is the co-founder of Rakoom, a PR company promoting independent films.

Skye Borgman

Skye is an award-winning director and cinematographer of narrative and documentary films all over the world. Her global experiences guide her vision, thought and approach to film-making. She has filmed rock-stars, prime ministers, drug addicts, environmentalists, Academy award winners, Buddhist nuns and anarchist chocolate makers.

Nancy Cohen

Nancy was raised in Lewistown by a father who owned the town’s movie theatre. Thus, her love for film. Currently, she is in post production of WOODSTOCK: A SNAPSHOT IN TIME, and a film about people who get musical messages from John Lennon, SOMETHING ABOUT JOHN. Nancy has also been a judge at The School for Visual Arts in New York and the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. She is also a member of New York Women in Film. And loves dogs.

Niav Conty

Niav is an active freelance director, cinematographer and screenwriter in New York City. Her award-winning films have traveled to festivals worldwide. SMALL TIME, her 2020 feature shot in rural Pennsylvania over five years has won 9 awards, including Best Feature and Best Director several times over. She is currently in post-production on her newest feature, PERSON WOMAN MAN CAMERA TV, about an interracial couple disintegrating during the 2020 pandemic.

Tim Gordon

Film Critic, Association President, Festival Director, Film Historian, Radio Host, Film Festival and Award Show Founder, Adjunct Professor, Executive Director, Brand Creator, and lover of all things film, Tim remains a cinema innovator seeking to educate future generations and alter the perspective of African-American portrayals on the screen and in the executive suites of Hollywood. In 2018, he fulfilled a life-long dream, launching the Lakefront Film Festival.

Mandy Looney

A graduate from the Specs Howard School of Broadcast Media in Michigan, Mandy’s ability to visualize concepts, understand and create an approach into a new film project from script to screen brings along a unique, individual and often very humorous vision. She brings amazing talent both in front of and behind the scenes, most recently as Director of the short films WATCH NIGHT and EMERGENCY ALERT both seeing success on the film festival circuit with 20+ acceptances throughout 2019.

Mike Madigan

Mike began his film career as director of the short film CAUGHT, filmed in Chicago, which screened at 11 film festivals in the US He saw continued success with dramatic shorts THE CANDLE, DEMETER and the smash follow-up hit DEMETER: SURRENDER, with the film’s trailer receiving 700,000+ Youtube hits to date. In 2010, the romantic comedy “4 Pictures” was released, a highly stylized short that received accolades including Best Comedy and Best Director.

Kevin Mambo

Known for his recent work on MARVEL’S LUKE CAGE, the CBS Daytime serial GUIDING LIGHT, and the Broadway production of the musical FELA!, Kevin Mambo’s range is vast. Upon completion of earning a BFA at the School of Dramatic arts at USC in Los Angeles, Mambo gained critical acclaim on GUIDING LIGHT: three consecutive nominations and two consecutive Emmys for Outstanding Younger Actor in Drama Series. His career has been a reflection of his range and prowess since.

Tim Naylor

Upon receiving his MFA from New York University’s Graduate Film Program, Tim went on to work as a cinematographer, shooting numerous features, documentaries and TV shows, including Steve McQueen’s SHAME and INSIDE AMY SCHUMER as well as winning Best Cinematography at the 2019 Madrid IFF. In the past few years he’s directed a slate of short films, notably BURIED DEEP (Palm Springs FF and Urban World FF) and CHRISTMAS MISSION: SIERRA LEONE (Lincoln Center).

Peter Nickowitz

Peter is a screenwriter, playwright, poet, and literary critic. His first feature, JONATHAN, premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival. Peter’s plays have been produced or developed at The Lark, Dixon Place, The Cherry Lane, and The Blank Theater in Los Angeles. His books include Cinema Vernacular, a collection of poems, and Rhetoric and Sexuality: The Poetry of Hart Crane, Elizabeth Bishop, and James Merrill. Peter lives in New York City and teaches at New York University.

Traven Rice

Traven is a New York City-based filmmaker devoted to telling stories about the extraordinary moments that make up our everyday lives. She recently completed the pilot for DIVISION STREET, which was featured in the FilmShop collective’s Breakthrough Series and screened in competition at SeriesFest 2019, where it won a development award from the Caz Matthews Fund. Rice studied film at FAMU, in Prague, Czech Republic. She is currently developing her feature film, RED ROCK FALLS.

Lili Rosen

Lili is an actress and consultant who specializes in the Yiddish language and culture of pre-war Eastern European communities and contemporary Hasidic society. Dubbed by Airmail magazine “Hollywood’s Yiddish Consultant,” she served as the script consultant, translator, language coach and art consultant on numerous projects for theatre, film and TV, including most recently Netflix’s UNORTHODOX, Amazon’s UNDONE and MINYAN.

Eric Seals

Eric works as a photo & video journalist at the Detroit Free Press, where he’s been since 1999. Eric has been recognized for his photo and video storytelling with a national Edward R. Murrow award, a national Webby Award, multiple Michigan Press Photographer Association Multimedia Photographer of the Year awards, several POYi awards & eleven regional Emmys.

Ya’Ke Smith

Known for his unflinching and veracious style of storytelling, Ya’Ke’s films have received worldwide acclaim, screening and winning awards at over 100 film festivals. The Director’s Guild of America, the Student Academy Awards, HBO, Showtime, the City of Buffalo, NY, and the City of Cincinnati, OH, which proclaimed October 6, 2019 as Ya’Ke Smith Day, have honored him. He received his M.F.A. from the University of Texas at Austin’s film program, where he is currently an Associate Professor of film.

Louis Spiegler

Louis started as an apprentice editor before landing at Dimension Films/Miramax, where he oversaw films directed by Wes Craven, Guillermo Del Toro, and Robert Rodriguez. Currently he’s working with producers Katrina Wolfe (HBO’s “Nightingale”), Shannon McIntosh (Tarantino’s “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood”), Christian Bruun, and Adam Pincus on film, documentary, and podcast projects both factbased and fictional.

Wilna Julmiste Taylor

Wilna is an actor, writer, producer and art administrator who investigates the intersections of art and culture, and highlights her Haitian heritage. Her work has been presented national and internationally at venues such as the Manhattan Repertory Theatre and the National Black Theatre Festival. She has been published in the Caribbean Writer where she is noted as an up and coming voice.

April Wright

April is an award-winning filmmaker who brings a fresh and creative approach to her documentary and narrative projects. Working as a narrative programmer for the Sundance Film Festival for the past 15 years, Sundance has been her film school. April’s latest film STUNTWOMEN: THE UNTOLD HOLLYWOOD STORY won Best Documentary of 2020 from the Women Film Critics Circle.

Matt Zettell

Director/Producer Matt has spent over 20 years in the entertainment industry. He began his career in the theatre, directing across the country and building two pre-professional actor training programs. He has worked as a director and producer on over 35 feature films, 100’s of infomercials and corporate videos and 22 television series. He has worked on big budget features, independent films, documentaries and commercials.

Liliana Bauman

Penn State University

Odis Johnson

Penn State University

Demi Olorunnisola

Young Scholars of Central PA Charter School

Kevin Sohn

Penn State University

Mackenzie DeArment

Penn State University

Shreya Narsinghani

Penn State University

Tragedy Plaisance

State College Area High School

Hayley Weber

Penn State University