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Co-Moderator: Pranay Patwardhan
Creative Director at Animal (recently ranked 15th on Adweek's 100 fastest growing agencies worldwide) and director on the Alumni Advisory Board for NFFTY, Pranay's recent projects include art direction + animation for film, advertising and branding - for Google, Facebook, Adidas, UNICEF, Amnesty International, Budweiser, Netflix and Uniqlo.
His short films have been featured by the Vice Creators Project, Vimeo Staff Picks, Fubiz, Design Taxi and screened at the Seattle International Film Festival, Clermont Ferrand (France), TBS Digicon (Tokyo), Mumbai International Film Festival (India), VH1 Sound Nation (India) and ITFS (Stuttgart), winning a bunch of accolades along the way.
A self proclaimed foodie, he enjoys taking short naps, reading fiction, refreshing webpages, debating trivial matters and collecting/listening to records . . . often all at the same time.
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Co-Moderator: Dennis Kim
Born in Seoul but growing up in New Jersey, Dennis spent much of his middle school science classes drawing and designing fantastical creatures and characters; to this day he is still trying to compensate for his neglected classes by creating absurd works in science fiction. While studying Fine Arts and Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, he has directed a number of animated short films which have been featured on notable online platforms including Short of the Week, Vimeo Staff Picks, DUST Sci-Fi, Omeleto, and received recognition in festivals internationally.
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Panelist: William Alexander Boyd III
William an award-winning Writer/Director. His Nigerian rooted shorts have been well received in the UK & USA, qualifying for both Oscar & BAFTA consideration. He has a BA & MA from The Met Film School in Ealing Studios, alongside experience working in the UK and Nigeria.
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Panelist: Omar A Rashed
An award winning filmmaker with 10 years of experience. Omar started out his career making short films and documentaries then started exploring the advertising sector by directing commercials, this is when he was introduced to creative directing which ultimately became his new passion. Since 2015, Omar has been both creative directing and directing.
In 2017, Omar co-founded Flink Studios a creative production house that through was able to grow his experience and started executive producing. His portfolio includes projects for UNICEF, Expedia, Vodafone, JSC Documentary, UNFPA and more.
Omar aims to connect two world’s together through film by introducing stories from his region to the entire world.
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Panelist: Giulia Gandini
Giulia Gandini is a London-based writer/director originally from Italy. Her latest short film My Time was long-listed for the Academy Awards 2020 and was featured on Refinery29, Yahoo, Reuters and others. Her documentary mini-series Home Stream (supported by the UN and BFI Future Film, distributed by NowThis and Real Stories) quickly reached more than 8 million organic Facebook views. Most recently she has directed the third season of the award-winning TV teen-drama series Jams for Italian State Broadcaster RAI. She graduated with an MA in Directing from MET Film School (based in Ealing Studios, London) and she is represented for commercial work at Snapper Films.
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Workshop Presenter: Morgana McKenzie
Morgana McKenzie is an award winning cinematographer and director based in Toronto. Most recently, Morgana received two nominations from the Canadian Society of Cinematographers for her work on “Wild” (Dramatic Short Cinematography), and “Lost Time” (Robert Brooks Award for Documentary Cinematography). Her short films have garnered over 40 awards from international festivals, including Best Director and the Canada 150 award for Best Film from TIFF Jump Cuts Next Wave. As a cinematographer and colorist, Morgana is currently working on a number of narrative and documentary projects in Toronto, Tokyo, Kentucky, and Seattle.


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