Meet the 2025 Jury

Celia Beasley is a French-American filmmaker based in Seattle, Washington. After studying photography in NYC and working in television in Paris, she moved to Seattle where she has spent the last two decades editing independent films including OUTSIDE IN (directed by Lynn Shelton), LANE 1974 (directed by SJ Chiro), and I'LL SHOW YOU MINE (directed by Megan Griffiths). She edited the episodic series PENELOPE (created by Mel Eslyn and Mark Duplass) which premiered at the Sundance 2024 Film Festival.

Daniel Garber, ACE, is a filmmaker based in Brooklyn, NY. He primarily works as an editor and subsists on a steady diet of his homemade ice cream. He won Best Editing at the Film Independent Spirit Awards for How to Blow Up a Pipeline. He has also been included in Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film, DOC NYC’s 40 Under 40 list, and Berlinale Talents and has been nominated for Cinema Eye Honors award for his nonfiction editing.

JoeBill Muñoz is a documentary filmmaker and director and producer of The Strike (PBS). He has directed short films for Independent Lens (Maletero and Evidence Lost) and NBC (Follow the Sun), and produced feature films and television series, including The Grab (Hulu), The Circus (Showtime), The New York Times Presents (Hulu) and Celtics City (HBO). His work has been supported through fellowships from the Sundance Institute, New America, Firelight Media, and Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. JoeBill was recently named to DOC NYC’s 40 under 40 list of emerging filmmakers. Originally from Texas, he resides in New York City.

An LA-based director, Leo Pfeifer is obsessed with pushing the boundaries of character-driven nonfiction storytelling. His films have played festivals around the world and received millions of views in publications like The New Yorker, Mother Jones, Directors Notes, GLAAD, Billboard, and Grammys.com

Katelyn Rebelo is a documentary and experimental filmmaker whose work uses intentionally slow processes such as handcrafted animation, analogue manipulation, and rhythms found in nature to explore personal stories that question systems of power. Her work has been supported by The National Endowment for the Arts, Tribeca Film Institute, and Jacob Burns Film Center, among others, and has been awarded at festivals worldwide. Her first film “Mizuko” was nominated for Best Documentary Short at the 2020 IDA Documentary Awards and is now streaming on The Criterion Channel.

Originally from Kansas, Sav Rodgers is a filmmaker, screenwriter, and pop culture documentarian whose feature directorial debut CHASING CHASING AMY (Tribeca ‘23) explores the complicated legacy of Chasing Amy (1997) and its profound impression on his life. The TED Talk he gave in 2018 kickstarted this filmmaking journey, and spurred the writing of scripts that center on highly specific, surprising stories about queer people. His screenplays have been recognized by GLAAD, Outfest, ScreenCraft, among others. Named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Media List in 2024, Sav is also the Founder and Executive Director of the Transgender Film Center, a nonprofit aiming to help trans creators bring finished films to audiences around the world.

Lucas Marchi is a storyboard artist and 2D animator. He graduated from Art Center College of Design’s Entertainment Design department through the Animation track. Through his school and freelance work, Lucas has directed and collaborated on festival-worthy short films, music videos, and video game projects. He currently teaches Storyboarding, 2D animation, and animated short films as an instructor at Cornish College of the Arts. As an instructor, Lucas is eager to teach the tools and techniques that students can use to bring their ideas to life.

Barb Hoffman is an emerging filmmaker/animator based in Seattle Washington. She has had a strong passion for film ever since her small directorial debut of Weird Al Yankovic parody music videos that she created with friends in elementary school. More recently, Barb has had the pleasure in playing at NFFTY for the past 3 years with her animation What We See In the Clouds, winning an audience award at NFFTY 2020. Her films have also played at festivals such as the Seattle International Film Festival and Destiny City Film Festival. Barb looks forward to creating more work in the future, incorporating both her love of animation and experimental filmmaking.

Hannah Baek (any pronouns) is a film curator, educator, and marketer. With special interests in Asian cinema, queer cinema, and animation, they teach film classes for adults and have curated for various film festivals, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Harvard Film Archive. Currently, they work full time for the Seattle International Film Festival engaging the community through cinema. They are also the cofounder and head of programming for the new Sea Slug Animation Festival.

Tiffany Lin is a Taiwanese-American filmmaker born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, currently based in Los Angeles. A graduate of USC’s film production program, Tiffany has worked extensively across live action and animation. As a writer and director,  her work has been recognized by film festivals including the Student Academy Awards, Urbanworld Film Festival, and the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival; her editing work has played at festivals like SXSW, Tribeca, and Slamdance. She was previously a Film Independent Project Involve LAIKA fellow and currently works at Titmouse Inc. on shows like The Mighty Nein and Royal Crackers. Through her work, she aspires to tell emotionally honest stories in unconventional ways.

During her animation studies at Gobelins, Gabrielle co-directed Goodbye Jérôme!, a short film selected at Sundance and the Berlinale. She continued her studies at La Poudrière animation directing school, where she created her first solo short film, La Mort du Petit Cheval. She is currently working as a director and animator in Paris.

Johanna Xue is an NYC-based animator and storyboard artist with a passion for crafting emotional stories that explore the essence of what makes us human. Her films, including Dumplings, I DRAW ON EVERYTHING and Little Rabbit, have been featured at NFFTY, the Academy Award-Qualifying New York International Children’s Film Festival, and the BAFTA-Qualifying Aesthetica Film Festival. A firm believer in the boundless potential of animation, Johanna enjoys connecting with fellow animators to discuss their processes and dedication. In her free time, she finds inspiration in the works of Cartoon Saloon, reading, and attending plays.

Isidore Bethel edits, directs, and produces films that focus on geographic displacement, aging, unconventional intimacy, and art-making’s therapeutic potential. One of Filmmaker’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film” and DOC NYC’s “40 Under 40,” he directed Liam (Paris LGBTQ+ FF) and Acts of Love (Hot Docs). Isidore has edited and produced a dozen films, including Of Men and War (Cannes), What We Leave Behind (SXSW), Hummingbirds (Berlinale), and “Some Kind of Intimacy” (Sundance London). A graduate of Harvard, the École Normale Supérieure, and SAIC, he has taught at La Fémis, UT Austin, and Parsons Paris.

Kamila Kuc is a Polish-born filmmaker, based between London and Seattle. Set within the realm of social choreography, her work considers complex ways to relate to one another through embodied, care and trust-building practices that foster collaboration and co-creation. She is the Founder and Director of Dark Spring Studio, a London-based production company dedicated to the creation and distribution of artist moving image works that are committed to social change. Her previous film, Her Plot of Blue Sky (2023) had its European premiere at the 27th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival and it is the winner of the 2024 British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies Practice Research award in Short Film category and the winner of the Jean Rouch Award at the 2024 Society for Visual Anthropology Film & Media Festival, Tampa, Florida. Her films have screened at many festivals and galleries worldwide: the Edinburgh International Film Festival, CROSSROADS, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives New York; Studio Gallery, Warsaw; Whitechapel Gallery, BFI, ICA, London, National Gallery, Washington, DC. She is also the author and editor of numerous books and articles on experimental media, including Visions of Avant-Garde Film (Indiana University Press). Recently, her work has been extensively reviewed by a leading documentary film scholar, Dara Waldron in the 10th edition of Found Footage Magazine (October 2024).

Shayna is co-owner and co-programmer of The Beacon Cinema in Columbia City.

Leonardo Pirondi (b. São Paulo, Brazil; 1999) is a filmmaker and artist who lives and works between Los Angeles, Porto and São Paulo. His films build and inhabit alternative worlds that move between reality and fiction; his filmmaking practice challenges traditional narrative structures that emerge from the fabulation of sociopolitical resonances within culture, history, technology, image-making, and orality. His films have been exhibited in various festivals worldwide, including the Toronto International Film Festival, the Tiger Short Competition in Rotterdam, the New York Film Festival, Viennale, Mar del Plata, BFI London, Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, Edinburgh, Melbourne, Guanajuato, Ambulante, Media City and many others.

His work has been presented in art centers such as CCCB, the Wexner Center for the Arts, and REDCAT. He has had solo exhibitions at Galeria Mola (Portugal) and Spectacle Theater (New York). Some of his 35mm films live in the UCLA Film & Television Archive collection; some digital ones exist in the Cinematheque of the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro and The Film-Makers' Cooperative in New York City. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees in film from the California Institute of the Arts and is a Sundance Institute Fellow. His work has been supported by Portugal's Instituto do Cinema e do Audiovisual, the Allan Sekula Social Documentary Fund, San Diego Underground Arts, and the Tim Disney Prize for Excellence in the Storytelling Arts. His debut feature-length film Fractais Tropicais, produced by Bam Bam Cinema, is currently in post-production.

Philip Thompson is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker, listed as one of Filmmaker magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film” in 2023, and a Sundance x Adobe Ignite and NYFF Artists Academy Fellow in 2024. His work investigates popular media’s influence on culture and the one-sided “looking” relationship between audiences and image subjects. He is the co-founder and co-programmer of the Ithaca Experimental Film Festival, and his last film “Living Reality” won the Audience Award for Experimental Visions at NFFTY 2024.

Aileen Ye is an award-winning filmmaker and visual artist from Dublin. Her work combines multiple mediums, exploring contemporary subcultures, movement practices, and diasporic histories. Her films have screened at BAFTA and BIFA-qualifying festivals like BFI London Film Festival and Aesthetica, as well as spaces including the BFI, Barbican, NOWNESS, and LUX. She holds an MSc in Sociology from Erasmus University Rotterdam, specialising in decolonial aesthetics and autoethnographic cinema.

Maria Akay is an NYC-based producer and industry professional. As the Marketing Manager at Spotlight Cinema Networks, she curates the CineLife Preshow Short Shorts Program in collaboration with film festivals nationwide. Maria has produced short films which have premiered at festivals such as Cannes, TIFF, BFI London, among others, and currently serves as the Lead Programmer for the New York Latino Film Festival presented by Warner Bros. Discovery.

María Alvarez is an internationally recognized Cuban-Dutch filmmaker. She graduated from USC with a BFA in Film & Television Production. A Rising Voices fellow (Hillman Grad/Indeed/271 Films), she directed and co-wrote the short film “Last Days of the Lab,” which premiered at Tribeca, screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, and was Oscar-qualified for Best Live Action Short at the 2024 Academy Awards. María is a freelance director and photographer working across narrative films, music videos, and commercials for clients like Nike, Converse, and Netflix. As a Sundance Institute Latine Collab Scholar, she is developing “Guava Tree,” her feature film exploring themes of cultural identity, family, and belonging.

Jonah Haver is a VMA and Juno nominated Polish-Canadian director living and working between Toronto and Los Angeles. Jonah’s directorial work spans multiple genres across music video, commercial, and narrative. He has worked with a myriad of amazing talent, including Platinum recording artist Tate McRae, Tinashe, Maisie Peters, Washed Out, and countless others. His projects have aired on North American broadcast networks and on the biggest late-night shows on the continent: Jimmy Kimmel Live and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. His commercial and fashion work extends to multibillion-dollar brands like Microsoft, Bayer, Claritin, Kappa, The Toronto Raptors, The Toronto Maple Leafs, TurboTax, GoDaddy, Fiverr, hydraSense, OLG, RBC, UBC, and many more.

Hadley Hillel is a Los Angeles-based writer-director, originally from Seattle, who tells darkly comedic stories set in surreal fantasy worlds. He loves magical realism and is a firm believer that a little taxidermy never hurts. His narrative shorts have won more than 40 jury and audience awards, gained international distribution and earned him the ‘Directing for Drama’ Student Emmy at the College Television Awards. His award-winning music videos for Grammy winner Chappell Roan have amassed over 45 million views and screened at SXSW 2024. Hadley is currently developing his first feature and has a number of other upcoming projects in the works.

Sky Iraheta is a visual artist who focuses on live shows, music videos and immersive art installations. She has worked on a variety of projects including ODESZA's The Last Goodbye tour and Blackpink’s Born Pink tour. Her work centers around creating visuals that amplify live performance.

Neema Sadeghi is a commercial, narrative, and music video cinematographer. He has worked with such brands as Nike, M&Ms, GQ, and Crocs.

Francisco Cabrera-Feo is a Gen-Z bisexual, bilingual, and bittersweet TV & Film writer/producer raised by an activist mother in Venezuela before emigrating to South Florida at age 11. He recently finished writing on Season 4 of Eugenio Derbez's ACAPULCO (Apple TV+) as a Co-Producer and is currently adapting a YA novel for SONY PICTURES TV, as well as developing a pop culture-infused romantic comedy feature with Sue Kroll’s KROLL & CO. (Birds of Prey, A Star is Born) producing. His previous writing credits include: GENTEFIED (Netflix, Peabody-Nominated), GORDITA CHRONICLES (Hulu, LA Times' Top TV Show of 2022), Season 3 of ACAPULCO (Apple TV+, 100% on RT), and others. The Los Angeles Times recently called him both "a writer on the rise" and "thirsty on Twitter" -- he cannot confirm or deny either. He writes for the closeted chubby kids who wore t-shirts in the pool and were forced into Catholic school even if the body of Christ compelled them, and despite PEOPLE MAGAZINE calling him “The New Promise of Latino Cinema," his mother still thinks he's a gringo.

Sam de Ceccatty is a French-American writer and director with experience in graphic design, animation, and live-action filmmaking. He has created short films for clients such as Fujifilm and the Paralympics and was a winner of the competitive BBC Comedy Writers’ Room. His projects have appeared in numerous international festivals, including Oscar and BAFTA qualifiers. His adult comedy animation "LILITH & EVE" premiered as an official selection of the Tribeca Film Festival and received a Vimeo Staff Pick. He has worked on the script team for "The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon" and sold a mini-series to AMC set in the Walking Dead universe. Currently, he is developing the adult comedy animation series "SHAMAN THERAPY" with Silex Films, a project selected for Cartoon Springboard 2023, and directing "MARE THE MERMAID," a 10x22min adult comedy animation series for France TV, due in 2026.

Kayla Yumi Lewis is a Korean-American writer from the CA Bay Area with a BFA in Film & Television from NYU Tisch. While at NYU, Kayla wrote a YA drama pilot called PARKED IN AMERICA, which world premiered at SXSW in March ‘21 in their episodic pilot competition and won the SXSW Pitch-a-thon. After SXSW, PARKED screened at NFFTY, SeriesFest, Atlanta Film Festival, and Nashville Film Festival, among others. At SeriesFest, Kayla won the Best Writer (Drama) award as well as the Level Forward Impact Award, sponsored by Abigail Disney’s company Level Forward. Kayla continues to develop PARKED for series with Level Forward while working on new projects. She currently works in development at Uzo Aduba’s production company Meynon Media. 

Fiona is a Tanzanian-American writer-director working as a Writer’s Assistant on Netflix’s TV Show Bridgerton S3/S4. She previously worked at Google's Creative Lab in NYC, Bad Robot, Annapurna, NBCUniversal, Meta, and Media Res. In 2024, her romcom feature screenplay, I'm Begging You to Date Me, advanced as a Finalist for the 2024 Nashville Film Fest, Semifinalist for Flicker's Rhode Island, second round ISA Fellowship Fast Track Program, Quarterfinalist of the Los Angeles International Screenplay Awards, Quarterfinals of Finish Line, and is currently advancing into Blue Cat’s 2025 screenwriting competition. Her TV pilot, The PR Team, also charted at the top of Coverfly’s Red List after it advanced in Screencraft's 2024 Comedy Pilot Competition, leading her to sign with her manager. She is now gearing up to direct her short film script, Two-Timing Gemini, which placed as a Semifinalist for Outstanding Screenplays competition. Additionally, Kida completed a rewrite of her pilot, The PR Team, which she is set to take out with her manager spring of 2025. She's a USC Film & TV Production graduate who specialized in producing and directing. Her last short film Blue Hour won a 2021 WAVE Grant. The same year, Blood, her drama feature screenplay, got into the 2nd round of Sundance's 2021 Development Track. Kida is a creative force. Outside of filmmaking and writing, she is a talented guitarist, plant mom, and exceptional chef.

Writer and story editor Kat Montagu is the Head of Department for the Vancouver Film School Writing for Film, Television and Games program. Kat has taught screenwriting for over twenty years. Her Career Launch class has prepared countless VFS graduates to work on feature films, in the writers rooms of TV series, and in video
game studios. Her students rave about her enthusiasm, wealth of knowledge, and the high standards she inspires. It’s no surprise that she’s been named a VFS Instructor of the Year three times.

Maya Vyas writes coming-of-age stories that center around family, cultural identity, and loving the body you are given. She started her career on The CW’s WALKER, then moved to Amazon Prime’s WE WERE LIARS (2025) and LEVERAGE: REDEMPTION as a staff writer. Her other credits include a YouTube series for Pixar's Cars, CARS OF THE WILD, and her short film, LEGALLY BROWN: THE MUSICAL THE SHORT, which screened at Austin Film Festival and Hollyshorts, where it received the Stage 32 Grand Prize Award. Maya graduated from USC for Writing for Screen and Television in 2021, where she received the distinction of Jon Chu Scholar. She is a Humanitas, Scriptapalooza, CAPE and Disney Writing Fellowship Semifinalist. Currently, Maya is a story editor on season two of We Were Liars on Amazon Prime.