Claire Imler is an award-winning French-American filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Growing up as a competitive dancer, Claire had a love for storytelling through movement, but it wasn’t until she joined the FilmEd Academy of the Arts program that she discovered her passion of storytelling behind the camera. Since then, Claire has never stopped creating and her work has been screened and awarded at over 60 film festivals around the world. She was recognized as a 2018 National Young Arts finalist in Cinematic Arts and named Orange County Register’s 2017 Artist of the Year in film. Combining her love for film and travel, Claire has worked internationally in 9 countries creating both documentaries and branded work for travel agencies and non profit organizations. She is passionate about creating both documentaries and narrative films about important topics in our society. She strives to continue to create films that can impact, change, and inspire those who watch them.

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Georgina Cahill, NFFTY ’16 & ’20, discovered her passion for animation in high School. Georgina began using animation and film as her medium of choice to create public service announcements and short films that appeared in film festivals worldwide. She continued to pursue animation at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts where she graduated in 2020 with a B.A. in Animation and Digital Arts. She currently works in Chicago, Illinois as a motion designer and illustrator. When she’s not animating, you can usually find her running, cooking, or creating illustrations for Instagram @figisisters.

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Originally from Kansas, Sav Rodgers is a filmmaker and writer whose work often centers on telling highly specific, surprising stories involving queer characters. He is the director of Chasing Chasing Amy, an upcoming feature documentary about the controversy of Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy among LGBTQ+ people and the profound, lasting impression on his own life. Sav delivered a TED Talk on the subject titled, “The rom-com that saved my life.” In 2017, Sav graduated from the University of Kansas. He is an alumnus of the Outfest and the LA LGBT Center’s OutSet Fellowship, TED Residency, and the Telluride Film Festival Student Symposium. His short films have screened at festivals like Slamdance, the Cleveland International Film Festival, and the American Pavilion Emerging Filmmaker Showcase. Sav is 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.

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From an early age we had artistic inclinations and interest in storytelling. Michael had an almost unhealthy relationship with television from a young age, which gave way as he got older to DVD collecting and a hobby of information sponging. He’d recreate movies with action figures or write his own stories while he played. Christian on the other hand developed a more technical appreciation of video making after discovering his parents’ miniDV camcorder and shooting skateboarding videos with his friends around the neighborhood.

The two of us met at the beginning of our junior year at Cal State Long Beach. Being in the same film production-based track of classes, we were inevitably going to meet in some way, shape, or form, but interestingly enough it’s our last names that kick started the process. Since O’Keefe and Priestley happened to be next to each other on the roll sheet, we were paired together for all of the assignments in our editing class that year, which adds up to a lot of hours to talk over interests.

Immediately there was a shared sense of humor and taste in music that made conversation effortless, but also an unusual comfort in our ability to open up with each other about deeply rooted creative driving forces and individual experiences. To this day it’s still that dynamic of comfort and trust that keeps us continually putting the next best foot forward in every opportunity that comes our way. We've worked on many projects together throughout our time at school (and beyond), and have done so in a variety of different creative roles, swapping out directing, producing, DPing, editing, etc. Eventually we decided to give that dynamic a concrete name, and that's how OVERLAY began.

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From an early age we had artistic inclinations and interest in storytelling. Michael had an almost unhealthy relationship with television from a young age, which gave way as he got older to DVD collecting and a hobby of information sponging. He’d recreate movies with action figures or write his own stories while he played. Christian on the other hand developed a more technical appreciation of video making after discovering his parents’ miniDV camcorder and shooting skateboarding videos with his friends around the neighborhood.

The two of us met at the beginning of our junior year at Cal State Long Beach. Being in the same film production-based track of classes, we were inevitably going to meet in some way, shape, or form, but interestingly enough it’s our last names that kick started the process. Since O’Keefe and Priestley happened to be next to each other on the roll sheet, we were paired together for all of the assignments in our editing class that year, which adds up to a lot of hours to talk over interests.

Immediately there was a shared sense of humor and taste in music that made conversation effortless, but also an unusual comfort in our ability to open up with each other about deeply rooted creative driving forces and individual experiences. To this day it’s still that dynamic of comfort and trust that keeps us continually putting the next best foot forward in every opportunity that comes our way. We've worked on many projects together throughout our time at school (and beyond), and have done so in a variety of different creative roles, swapping out directing, producing, DPing, editing, etc. Eventually we decided to give that dynamic a concrete name, and that's how OVERLAY began.

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Kendra Ann Sherrill is a filmmaker and the Festival Director for the Children’s Film Festival Seattle, which is the largest festival on the West Coast dedicated to children’s films. She lives and breathes film festivals and has been involved with organizations such as the Seattle International Film Festival, the Spokane International Film Festival, and NFFTY - where she serves on the Industry Advisory Board.

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Colin Levy is a writer/director based in Los Angeles, currently developing his original sci-fi series SKYWATCH for NBC’s Peacock, with Seth MacFarlane attached as Executive Producer. His 2018 documentary MY GRANDFATHER'S MEMORY BOOK was published as a NYTimes Op-Doc, and his animated shorts for the Blender Animation Studio have amassed 15M+ views online. Previously he worked at Pixar Animation Studios, where he contributed to seven projects including INSIDE OUT and FINDING DORY.

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Renée is an Australian writer and director whose work is rooted in powerful, narrative-driven visual storytelling. Renée began directing branded and short form content in New York shortly after attending NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts for Film and TV Production. Before that, she spent several years living in Beijing, China, a background that has strongly shaped her distinct perspective and creative style.

In 2021 Renée will direct a yet to be announced original dark comedy mini-series for Kojo and SBS, with support from Screen Australia and the SA Film Corporation. Renée is also developing her first feature film; an adaptation of Anna Spargo-Ryan’s acclaimed novel THE GULF, which she will write and direct for James Brown and Robyn Kershaw.

Renée’s short form works have been featured by numerous publications including Huffington Post, Dazed magazine, The Hammer Museum, Booooooom TV, Director’s Notes and Vimeo Staff Picks. Her short film, THE LAST LINE, premiered at the 2018 Austin Film Festival and played in festivals such as the Oxford Film Festival, Manchester Film Festival and the Miami Short Film Festival. Her other recent short film THE MAKING OF PANTHERA received the audience award at the 2019 Nitehawk Film Festival and a Vimeo Staff Pick, played at NewFest and Palm Springs LGBTQ+ Film Festival and was a Webby Award Honoree.

Renée is proud to have been involved in films that promote important positive messaging, including fierce and emotional anthem spots for The Woman’s Hospital of Texas and March of Dimes, as well as collaborations with non-profit organizations such as Make-A-Wish, Meals on Wheels, Educated Little Monsters and Brave. Whether working with real people or actors, Renée’s work achieves authenticity combined with rich, beautiful cinematography and impeccable attention to detail.

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Growing up in Hong Kong, Tokyo, and New York City, Lukas first fell in love with filmmaking by studying architectural spaces and finding ways to bring the subtle details to life. As his career developed, he found a natural pull towards design-oriented content and telling the stories of those who go above and beyond for perfection.

Lukas has directed films and interviews with artists, designers, and architects around the world including Bjarke Ingels, Björn Ulvaeus (ABBA), Roy Choi, Kengo Kuma, and many more. Through his branded documentary work he developed a passion for making non-actors feel comfortable being themselves on camera to tell their stories.

Lukas is currently based in Los Angeles, and directs narrative and documentary content for leading brands.

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Cole Bacani is a writer/director who grew up in the Chicago suburbs. In 2020, he graduated from USC and is now based in Los Angeles. In 2016, Cole received a National Student Production award for cinematography from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Since then, he’s had his work featured on Netflix, YouTube Originals, Omeleto, DUST, NoBudge, CryptTV, Film Shortage, and screened all around the world. He’s been awarded/nominated at Palm Springs International ShortFest, HollyShorts, LA Shorts International Film Festival, LAAPFF, NFFTY, and more. He's currently directing and developing new digital series at Jubilee Media and is developing his first feature film. On the side, he founded a small production company called Violet Hill Pictures that produces independent narrative short films with award winning directors, and has its sights set on long form projects.

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Bri Castellini is the Film Community Manager for Seed&Spark, a graduate-level adjunct professor for digital media, an independent filmmaker, and, regrettably, a podcaster. She's known for the 2017 short film Ace and Anxious (writer/director, 150k views on YouTube) and for her podcasts Burn, Noticed and Breaking Out of Breaking in, covering the USA television show Burn Notice and practical filmmaking advice, respectively. She has been described by collaborators as a "human bulldozer" and is honestly kind of flattered.

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King Louie Palomo is a Queer, Filipino-Canadian, producer-director committed to uncompromising visions that challenge conventional paradigms. He works to encourage dialogue and foster community through producing films and other media forms. Over the past five years, King created short films that have been screened at local and international film festivals.

As a producer, King's credits include SALVA NOS, which premiered and won an audience award at NFFTY 2016, CROSSROADS, which was acquired by Viddsee, and LOST BENEATH THE STARS (Warsaw 2018, Edmonton 2018), which was bought at Cannes Film Market by RTE Ireland for network and online distribution and secured European theatrical and online distribution with Sofy TV. He also produced THE GIFT (currently on the festival circuit) and THE LONELIEST BOY IN THE WORLD (featured on Directors Notes, Booooooom TV).

As a writer-director, King's credits include NENE (currently on the festival circuit) and MISMATCHED, which was created for and acquired by the largest streaming platform collection of gay-centric entertainment DEKKOO.com.

King Louie also works in the VFX industry as a Coordinator and currently working at FuseFX. His recent credits include DEBRIS - S1 (NBC), THE MIGHTY DUCKS - S1 (Disney+), THEM (Amazon Prime), and RAISING DION - S2 (Netflix).

Currently, King Louie is in production on his third directorial short film, STAY, and developing his first feature-length film of the same name.

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In the arts realm, Hannah Bonecutter is an actress, model, spoken word poet, and filmmaker. Specifically, within filmmaking, she has served in the roles of Executive Producer, Writer, Director, Actress, Costume Designer, and Production Designer. She has acted on several film projects here in Chicago, films ranging from major network television series to independent narrative features. Yet Hannah has also executive produced several of her own film projects, one being a feature-length documentary entitled Live As The Majority and another being an award-winning experimental short film entitled Minstrel vs. Puppet. She engages her poetry skills by performing original spoken word poetry throughout the Chicagoland area at various venues, for specific organizations’ events, and during open mic gatherings.She balances her artistry among her other careers as a licensed educator, public health professional, public speaker, and professional organizer with her own business entitled BoneClutter – We Organize to the Bone. Also in the mix is her activism, where Hannah serves in diverse leadership roles of four separate nonprofit organizations in the Chicagoland community. Whether teaching students in a classroom, professionally organizing a client’s home, or acting on the television screen, she strives to always be achieving this mission and improving this world to become a much better place.

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Recently at Cannes Film Festival’s Short Film Corner with “Maeve in the Dark”, Kasia is a London based filmmaker and published author. Toiling as a production manager on feature films to cover the scandalous London rent by day, by night she works on a slate of original sci-fi projects and feature-length screenplay commissions. Originally from the Polish seaside, she took her first filmmaking steps flooding both University of Westminster’s studios with cherry scent washing liquid based home made fake blood, then built up more set life stamina working at the fast paced, for ever dancing, for ever singing Bollywood shoots all the way in Mumbai. Two years of incessant Delhi belly struggles later, she returned to London to do her MA in Screenwriting at the Royal Holloway and graduated with Distinction. Her feature-length hard SF thesis script “Maa” was subsequently selected for the 2018 Talent Demo at the Camerimage Film Festival. In her spare time Kasia enjoys marveling at its very existence, catching up with latest science discoveries to inform her scripts, and experimenting with defying gravity suspended in an aerial yoga hammock.

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Max Mir began his filmmaking journey at the age of 8, making stop motion videos with his toys. He later started directing his own shorts, and even jumped into theatre for a while. After obtaining his BA degree at the Met Film School, Mir travelled around the world with his latest short film "Bittersweet", screening in over 20 festivals and taking home 14 awards, including the Audience Award at NFFTY. Meanwhile, Mir has produced shorts that have been screened at Pinewood Studios London and Raleigh Studios, Los Angeles. Having recently worked at Netflix's "Cathedral of the Sea" as a third assistant director, Mir now has all his attention on developing his first drama series as well as producing his first theatre play.

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Charlotte is a filmmaker from London who grew up making low budget music promos for local rappers and has created over 200 to date. Her first short film 'Standby' premiered at TIFF and went on to be nominated for a BAFTA and win a Sundance Award and her second short 'Fry-Up' screened at BFI LFF, Sundance and Berlinale. Her third short 'Dodgy Dave' played at TIFF and BFI LFF. Charlotte has just finished shooting her first feature 'Scrapper' which was supported by the BBC and BFI and produced by Theo Barrowclough. She is a Sundance Ignite Fellow and a BFI Future Film and New Talent award winner. She was recently commissioned by The Guardian and the Doc Society to create her first short doc 'No Ball Games' which focuses on kids in working class areas during the summer holidays.

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Katie McCullough graduated from Bournemouth Media School with a degree in Scriptwriting for Film & TV and is also a graduate of the London Royal Court Young Writer’s and Invitation Only Groups. For seventeen years and counting she has provided strategy and submissions support to filmmakers worldwide, resulting in creating the consultancy brand Festival Formula in 2014. As an active member of the Short Film Conference and the Film Festival Alliance, Katie is also a key spokesperson on festival issues with coverage in The Hollywood Reporter and Screen Daily regarding suspect and fraudulent film festivals.Previous speaking engagements include: Sundance, SXSW, HollyShorts, Heartland Film Festival, BFI Flare, Encounters Film Festival, Flickers Rhode Island Film Festival, and many more.

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Carol Nguyen is a Vietnamese Canadian filmmaker based in Montreal. Her films often explore the subjects of cultural identity, family and memory. Her most recent film “No Crying at the Dinner Table” premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and had its international premiere at IDFA 2019, where she was additionally invited as the Opening Night speaker. In 2020, “No Crying” also received the Jury Prize for Short Documentary at SXSW. Carol is a 2018 Sundance Ignite fellow, Adobe Creativity Scholar and a TIFF Share Her Journey ambassador, where she strives to empower diverse voices and women through her own stories and personal experiences in the film industry. Today, Carol is working towards developing her first documentary feature as well as an animated short.

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Alex Bohs is a Los Angeles based filmmaker. As an editor, he has helped bring to life many documentary projects that convey what it’s like to be queer. Whether it be expanding upon pre-Stonewall history with the feature film, P.S. Burn This Letter Please, highlighting the power of collaboration between gay men of varying generations in Conversations with Gay Elders or episodically breaking down the Iranian queer community with the series, Thirst For Love, Alex has committed through various aspects of film to helping tell the rich stories of his fellow LGBTQ+ community that have so often been overlooked or underutilized.

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Jihee Nam is an independent animator and filmmaker based in Los Angeles.

Her film ‘Knife Hanging From A Tree’ has been screened internationally and received the Lejf Marcussen Award at VOID 2020 and the First Flight Prize at Indie Anifest.

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MarBelle is the Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of independent film curation and interview platform Directors Notes. Since its formation in 2006 DN has been regarded as one of the web's leading curatorial platforms for independent film, working with filmmakers to create in-depth feature articles which reveal the painstaking development and production stories behind their award winning work for a worldwide audience of industry professionals, festival curators and dedicated film fans.

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Claudette Godfrey is the Senior Film Programmer at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas and is responsible for feature film programming, overseeing the short film curation team and managing the organizational details for the event.

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Ina Pira is a Senior Curator at Vimeo with over eight years of programming experience at festivals such as the Hamptons International Film Festival, Montclair Film Festival, and the Sarasota Film Festival.

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Lauren Meyering is a writer and director based in LA, and despite her love of writing, she abhors writing bios.

She holds a BFA in Cinematic Arts with a minor in Screenwriting and is repped by Kaplan/Perrone Ent. and UTA.

In 2020, Lauren's feature screenplay HORSEGIRL was featured on the Black List, an industry insider poll of the best un-produced scripts floating around Hollywood. Lauren will be making her directorial debut with the film in 2022 with producer Alix Madigan (Winter's Bone, Girl Most Likely).

Aside from writing and directing, Lauren also works as a high school film instructor in the LA and Orange County area in order to pay her bills and provide the best life she can for her cat.

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A Baltimore-native, Cal Justin Tivo Moreno is a filmmaker obsessed with the absurdities of life. After realizing the East Coast was too humid, Cal traveled west to study film at the University of Southern California. There, Cal directed films such as A DINNER WITH DEATH, and an episode of the Student-Emmy winning series, CON. Cal’s latest film, NUMBER 2, was awarded the Panavision New Filmmaker Grant and took home the Audience Award during the All Hours Absurdity program at NFFTY 2020. Cal is currently developing his first feature film and looking for strangers’ dogs to pet.

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Ethan Seneker is an American writer, director, and producer. His films have received more than 80 awards around the world, premiering at festivals such as Tribeca, Oldenburg, TIFF, SIFF, Palm Springs, and Mill Valley. Ethan has been featured on Variety's Top Students to Watch list and is the Founder and Executive Producer of Spark Medium, a creative agency that produces commercial work for Costco Wholesale, Proctor & Gamble, and General Mills among many others.

His most recent short, Enough, was an Official Selection at Tribeca 2021 and feature film, Anchorage, made its World Premiere at the 2021 Stony Brook Film Festival where it went on to receive the Grand Prize.

Ethan grew up in the Snoqualmie Valley of Washington State and is grandson of Chief Phil Lane Jr. of the Chickasaw and Ihanktonwan Dakota First Nations.

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Ien is the Chief Creative at Mindset // DIVE Studios, an audio storytelling platform where celebrities such as Eric Nam, Tablo, Amine, jxdn and more - reveal the more vulnerable and humanizing stories of their lives and normalize vulnerable discussions of the human experience. Previously, he was the Creative Director of Jubilee Media where he led the creative team to make some of YouTube's most popular shows such as Middle Ground, Spectrum, Odd Man Out, and Versus 1 which collectively have garnered 1B+ views and 5.5M+ subscribers. He has also created works for NASA, Apple, Nike, The New York Times, NBC Asian America, and Youtube among others. He is an INFP, and officially the world's 11th best whistler (as of 2012).

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Anna Proulx is the Director of Admissions for the American Film Institute Conservatory, a top ranked masters film program. She has an extensive background in both arts and higher education management. Previously, Anna managed the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, creatively supporting and working with international and domestic documentary filmmakers. Anna’s passion lies in finding, developing and supporting future storytellers through education – formerly at Loyola Marymount University’s School of Film and currently at AFI.

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Kasi Gaarenstroom (She/They) is a Public Engagement Producer at the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, WA. There, she oversees the film programming and acts as coordinator for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Film Festival. Through their watchalong series at MoPOP with themes like “So Bad, It’s Good”, “The Keanuverse” and currently “The Comeback”, she aspires to spread the joy and community that film brings to folks all over. She was recently on the screening committee for the Seattle Queer Film Festival, and hopes to continue her work to be a better member in the Seattle film community.

Wynter Rhys has been writing, directing and editing since the age of 14 when her debut short film premiered at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. With an unquenchable interest in real people and real stories, Wynter’s pieces may be technically fictional - but are rooted in what has happened, and what will happen again.

After receiving a full ride scholarship to Savannah College of Art and Design, Wynter is one quarter away from her BFA and is currently in pre-production for her debut feature film The Ugly Laws. This film includes a lead character who suffers from the same disability Wynter herself has - one which will keep her in and out of a wheelchair and crutches her entire life, but will never keep her from her dreams.