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Morgan is a multidisciplinary Director & Creative Director with a background in design, animation, and illustration. She initially entered the film world through music videos, and has since expanded to narrative and branded content.

In the midst of the pandemic she launched her creative studio, GRÜER, in an effort to bring more humanity into the digital world. GRÜER's work focuses on combining digital media with analog practices, highlighting and celebrating the beauty of human imperfection and individuality.

Morgan's directorial work has garnered 3 Vimeo Staff Picks and has been featured in Rolling Stone, The New York Times, VICE, Refinery29, Variety Magazine and Billboard. She has created content for musicians including Lana Del Rey, Sara Bareilles, mxmtoon, Louis the Child, and The Decemberists and brands such as Georgia Lottery, Red Bull, Skechers, Paper Source, and the City of New York.

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When Tanne was 14 years’ old, she was accepted into the Youth Film School Station Next in Copenhagen, Denmark. At the age of 18 she graduated and began to teach in filmmaking whilst and writing & directing a lot of short films. She made the popular "animal-trilogy", a dark humor comedy shortfilm trilogy featuring the films "A Horse Named Allan", "Rabbit" and "Holy Hen". All the films have been nominated and won several film festivals such as Venice Shorts, Vesteräs Film Festival, Indie Shorts Cannes and Ekko Shortlist Awards. Tanne has just finished shooting her first TV-series, the comedy-road"movie": "Sperm" and she is soon going to shoot a pilot-episode for her next series with Netflix.

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Sade Abiodun is a filmmaker of Nigerian and South African descent. She graduated from Duke University with a degree in Neuroscience, finding her passion for filmmaking later in her path. Her first short film — Godspeed — received high praise, garnering multiple festival selections and awards, a Directors Notes 'Top 10 Films to Watch at NFFTY 2020', and a finalist spot in the 2020 Sundance Ignite Short Film Challenge. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, focusing her research on neurocinematics - the neuroscience of film and visual media. She hopes to bridge the gap between the worlds of film and science, specifically through the study and practice of creating intentional, narrative-driven visual experiences

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Ghanaian-British filmmaker Curtis Essel is an award-winning director.

As a recipient of awards such as Vimeo Best Of The Year, BFI Future Film Festival, Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY, and a range of nominations from TriBeCa, Blackstar Film Festival, and many more; He consciously desires to leave his audience with a little more knowledge than when they began.

Specializing in abstract storytelling - Imparting viewers with insight while illustrating nuanced personal human experiences is an integral part of his work. With his works predominantly set in Africa, his focus is to amplify voices from the continent, truly embodying Pan-Africanism ideals to the world.

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Tom Teller, founder of motion design studio, Frame 48 (https://frame48.com), is most known for his dark cinematic style, driving science fiction narratives into many popular music and advertising campaigns. Originally from the Pacific Northwest and now based out of Los Angeles, he is represented as a director through Summercamp (https://summercamp.la) and is in development on his debut feature amongst other narrative pursuits and commercial projects.

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Jules Chin Greene (she/they) is an award-winning filmmaker, animator, and journalist based in Los Angeles. Her films, The Hammer and the Lamb and Night-Riders, have screened at festivals around the world.

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I make short narratives, music videos, documentaries, and video essays.

Art allows me to interpret and communicate my experiences. I have found the camera to be my favorite tool to do this. Through filmmaking and photography, I’m able to express emotion, abstraction, and story.

Making films is the most honest and direct way I can share and realize what I find most meaningful and true. Through film, I want to express to others something that couldn't be conveyed any other way.

My work has been accepted and won awards in multiple film festivals and events, including TED Talks TED2020, and the National Film Festival for Talented Youth.

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Christina Xing is an award-winning Chinese American director based in Los Angeles. Christina's work spans both the narrative and branded space, having grabbed the attention of clients such as Tinder, Snapchat, Crayola and major music labels such as Terrible Records and Sony Music for her unique style of storytelling rooted from her background in theater and her coming of age experiences. Her work has been recognized by Paper Magazine, Billboard, the FADER, TIDAL'S: Video of the Week, OUT Magazine and The Gay Times. And she hopes to make Cassavetes for people of color. She also hopes to keep her nose clean and to eat more veggies.

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Creative Director at Animal, New Delhi, India,

President, NFFTY Alumni Advisory Board.

Creative Director at Animal (ranked 15th on Adweek's 100 fastest growing agencies worldwide) and president of the NFFTY Alumni Advisory Board, Pranay's recent projects include art direction and animation for Google, UNICEF, Amnesty International, Facebook, Adidas, 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 web pages, debating trivial matters and collecting/listening to records . . . often all at the same time.

www.patapanda.com

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Natalie A. Chao is a filmmaker and cinematographer who completed her B.A degree in Film Production at USC in Los Angeles. Born, raised and currently based in Hong Kong, she is interested in bridging the gap between realism and poetry in order to tell stories through a more engaged and intentional gaze, one that can map out our memories, not draw lines between camera and subject, identity and politics. Natalie is a 2020 Sundance Ignite x Adobe Fellow. Her documentary short, TO KNOW HER, premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.

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Jeffrey Prosser is a director and multimedia artist from the small town of Visalia, CA where he grew up doing theatre. In recent years he has partnered with commercial brands like Goldenvoice, Zappos, Conde Nast and Nike. In 2018 his music video WARRIORS for the indie artist TOO MANY ZOOZ garnered over 1.5 million views and won the Audience Choice award at NFFTY. He now lives and works in Los Angeles and frequently volunteers for the non-profit OMG EVERYWHERE! to produce creative arts workshops for kids in underserved communities.

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Talia Shea Levin is an LA-based Director, Writer, and Producer for film, theater, and virtual reality. She uses speculative storytelling and non-naturalistic narrative techniques, from dance to science-fiction, to get closer to human truths. Her dance films have been featured across international platforms and festivals including Short of the Week, Booooooom.tv, Dance Magazine, Source Creative, The Cut Magazine, and the LA Dance Film Festival. Her short film Next Time took home an Audience Award at the Academy Award-Qualifying Nashville Film Festival and also screened at the HollyShorts Film Festival. She holds a degree in Screenwriting and Directing from Carnegie Mellon University.

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An LA-based director, Leo Pfeifer is obsessed with pushing the boundaries of character-driven nonfiction storytelling. With a focus on finding the great stories of real life, his films have played festivals around the world and received hundreds of thousands of views online in publications like Directors Notes, GLAAD, Billboard, and Grammys.com. Recently, his film HAVEN IN THE BOOTH was shortlisted for a Young Director Award.

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Azul M. Quetzalli is a first generation Mexican artist and educator residing in unceded land of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe. Her creative work ranges from narrative illustration to graphic design, and centers around themes of identity, heritage. Azul's passion also lies in education and trauma-informed restorative practices. She currently works as Program Manager at BAYCAT Academy, a non-profit organization that educates and employs youth and young adults facing economic barriers and who aspire to bring meaningful change and representation to the media industry.

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This young and exciting directing/writing duo have made a name for themselves with their inventive, heartfelt, and energetic style. They have directed numerous award-winning shorts, commercials, and music videos including the viral sensation “Turn Down for What” for DJ Snake and Lil Jon.

The creative duo expanded into feature film when they wrote and directed SWISS ARMY MAN, starring Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe. Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in 2016 (where they go on to win the award for Best Direction), the film was acquired by A24 and went on to be nominated for both Indie Spirit and Gotham Awards.

They recently wrapped their latest film EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE, a Sci-Fi Comedy Adventure film that they also wrote for A24, starring Michelle Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis.

To be honest, Daniel does most of the work.

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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.

Vivian Hua 華婷婷 is a writer, filmmaker, and organizer. As the Executive Director of Northwest Film Forum in Seattle and Editor-in-Chief of theinterdisciplinary arts publication, REDEFINE, much of their work unifies her metaphysical interests with her belief that art can positively transform the self and society. They regularly shareshuman-centered stories through her storytelling newsletter, RAMBLIN’ WITH VEE! In 2021, she will begin production on a BIPOC metaphysical comic series entitled Reckless Spirits. Learn more about their work at vivianhua.com.

Julia Jones is a crazy little redhead, martial artist, and wannabe superhero who always knew her future was in telling darkly comedic and sometimes uncomfortably violent tales. Her spirit animal is the fox and she watches far too much anime. Her directorial debut short film, BUCKETS, won Best Narrative at NFFTY, premiered at Tribeca, was picked up for Amazon Prime.

Since he was a kid, he was always compelled by storytelling. He immersed himself in the world of mythology, and the history of storytelling excited him. He has always wanted to be a storyteller, but he didn’t know what stories he wanted to tell. When he was 14, he watched The Darjeeling Limited in the movie theater, and he realized what he wanted to do, and the stories he wanted to tell. He started writing scripts, and learning from them. He took inspiration from filmmakers, like Godard and Kurosawa all the way to current filmmakers as Gondry and Jonze. He graduated in Film from Santa Fe University of Art & Design, to which he was awarded the Robert Redford Milagro Initiative Scholarship. In his time there he worked on many projects under many titles. Making films such as Hello World and 1-900 in his time there. 1-900 had the pleasure to be accepted into The El Paso Media Fest and The National Film Festival For Talented Youth and is still being considered for a few other festivals.

Passionate writer and director, Ewurakua recently graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. During her time in school, she noticed disparities in representation on and off-screen. In 2020 she launched The Melacast Network, a platform focused on connecting BIPOC actors, directors, and crew of color with the opportunities, talent, and resources needed to tell culturally rich & diverse stories in film. Her work has been recognized in numerous film competitions, including Fusion Film Festival, Raindance Festival, Cinequest, Toronto Black Film Festival, NFFTY, and the Tony Hawkins Award for Excellence in Sound Design. In August of 2020, her short film “To the Girl That Looks Like Me” was named a finalist in the Alternative/Experimental category of the 2020 Student Academy Awards.