NashFilm is pleased to present the Jury for the 53rd Nashville Film Festival.
NARRATIVE FEATURES
Lauren Lukow is the Manager of Producing & Artist Support for the Sundance Institute’s Feature Film Program where she focuses on discovering and amplifying the work of emerging independent filmmakers in fiction features. In her role, she oversees the Feature Film Producers Track and works closely with the Feature Film Program team to provide year-round creative and strategic support for screenwriters, directors, and producers working on their current feature film. Before Sundance, Lauren worked on the development team at Pixar Animation Studios, and has also held positions at the Virginia Film Festival, Arvold Productions, and Mockingbird Pictures. An independent producer herself based in Los Angeles, Lauren’s projects have screened at festivals around the world including the Sarasota Film Festival, Pan African Film Festival, and LA Shorts Film Festival. An alum of the University of Virginia, she continues to give back as a Board Member for the UVA Entertainment Club of Los Angeles.
Brighid Wheeler (she/her) is a programmer, producer, and film festival consultant. Brighid is passionate about creating community through film exhibition and has dedicated most of her career to uplifting the stories of Southern filmmakers. She currently serves on the Board of Film Impact Georga and is the Program Director of the Tampa Bay Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. As a dedicated member of the LGBTQ+ community, Brighid is a vocal advocate for historically underresourced filmmakers. When she is not in a movie theater, serving on a festival jury, or on set, you will find Brighid cuddled up with her sweet blind Rottweiler, Biggie.
Daniel Crooke (he/him) is the Programs Manager at Outfest, where he has served in various programming capacities including lead Shorts Programmer since 2016. He programs Narrative Features at the Atlanta Film Festival, and has worked with the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, AFI Fest, NewFest, Palm Springs ShortFest, and TCM Classic Film Festival.
DOCUMENTARY FEATURES
Kiyoko McCrae is Director of Documentary Programming and Filmmaker Labs at the New Orleans Film Society. She strives to connect Southern filmmakers to resources and relationships, often inaccessible in the region through the Emerging Voices Directors Lab and Southern Producers Lab. She is an award-winning film and theater director. Her films have screened at AFI Docs, Calgary, Hot Springs, Flickers Rhode Island, IndieMemphis, Cucalorus, Milwaukee and has been supported by Center for Asian American Media, Firelight Media, Reel South, World Channel, and Southern Documentary Fund. Her theater work has been supported by MAP Fund, New England Foundation for the Arts, National Performance Network, Alternate ROOTS, New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation, Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans. She is a 2017-2018 Intercultural Leadership Institute Fellow, a 2020 John O’Neal Cultural Arts Fellow and former Managing Director of Junebug Productions. She received her BFA in Theatre Arts from NYU’s Tisch School. She is happy to call New Orleans home with her husband Jason and their two children, Manami and Koji.
Andy Peterson is a senior creative media executive at the forefront of marketing film & television content to cause conscious & specialty audiences. In the past 15-years Andy has been involved in launching dozens of independent and studio feature films and TV series’ including projects from A24, Abramorama, Disney+, Focus Features, National Geographic, Neon, Paramount Pictures, Participant Media, Sony Pictures, AMC, FOX, and IFC Films among others. Andy is the founder of Docs/ology, an initiative for curating, promoting and supporting ‘praise-worthy’ documentary films, true stories and other non-fiction content — which has included work on the films Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, The Biggest Little Farm, Strange Negotiations, Jump Shot, Social Animals and the Oscar winning feature documentary Free Solo. In 2012 Andy created the Justice Film Festival, a film experience that promotes social justice and celebrates emerging filmmakers from around the world. The 11th Justice Film Festival will take place next February in New York City. Andy has lived in Nashville for over 25-years with his wife and three children.
Nick Bruno cut his teeth, like many film programmers of his generation, behind the counter of multiple video stores, first as the manager and film buyer for Five Star Video in Berkeley, California and then as a clerk at Portland, Oregon’s Video Verite. He spent much of the past decade promoting and curating for the Portland International Film Festival and Northwest Film Center where, as the sole programmer for the festival’s PIFF After Dark sidebar and the year-round Genrified: Cult & Other Curiosities series, his programmatic focus leaned heavily on genre cinema. From 2019 until the pandemic interrupted the art house landscape, Nick served as the Public Cinema Programs Manager for SIFF Cinema and as a programmer for the Seattle International Film Festival. In September of 2021, Nick joined the Film Festival Flix team as Director of Communications & PR for their virtual festival hosting platform and streaming services. He holds a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies with a focus in Film Production, Social Philosophy, and Media Studies from Marylhurst University.
MUSIC DOCUMENTARY FEATURES
David Chilsom grew up in Memphis, but has been in Austin for the last twelve years. He’s done programming work for the Austin Film Society and the Alamo Drafthouse, and currently programs for RiverRun International Film Festival in Winston-Salem, NC. When he’s not watching movies, he’s reading comics with his two kids, cooking with his partner Stephanie, walking his dog, or attempting to write critical essays on the X-Men. If you would like to keep up with all the terrible film watching decisions that he makes, you can find him on Letterboxd at https://letterboxd.com/iamhrothgar/.
Heather Cook, Director of Marketing & Brands at peermusic & Sr. Music Event Producer at The Nashville Film Festival. Starting her career in music 20 years ago at The Voice Studio in Boston, MA, she later finished her degree in Music Business at Belmont University and went on to start and run her own music publishing and artist management company for 3 years. She has served as the Administrative Director for AIMP Nashville and SOLID Alumni President, and is currently a Recording Academy Professional Member & Mentor. In her position at peermusic she is responsible for the marketing, promotion and pitching of peer music’s 90+ year legacy catalog of hit songwriters, producers and artists as well as new emerging talent including Donovan, David Foster, Corey Hart, Poo Bear, Salaam Remi, James Poyser, Taboo and apl.de.ap of The Black Eyed Peas, S.O.S., Black Violin, BJ The Chicago Kid, Andrew Simple, The Royal Foundry, The Undercover Dream Lovers, The Weeks and many more. She has placed songs in commercials for Target, Apple, IKEA, Payless, Marriott, Rooms to Go, Kellogg’s Raisin Bran, KIWI Shoe Polish, Kay Jewelers, Pandora, Nordstrom, JCPenney, Hershey’s, and ESPN among others. She is currently completing her Master’s Degree in Music Business at Berklee College of music. In her spare time, she enjoys kayaking, genealogy, candle making and spending time with family.
Shanna Strassberg is a consummate television and music industry professional. She currently holds the professional title of VP of Music and Talent at CMT, part of the MTV/Viacom/CBS family. Having spent the last 18 years in TV production as both Talent Booker and Producer, Shanna has successfully worked with artists/celebrities on a multitude of series, live events, music specials and red carpets. Shanna has booked over 4,500 musical guests as well as celebrities from film, television, comedy and sports, on various networks and online properties. In the past few years Shanna has worked on the Dolly Parton Telethon “Smoky Mountains Rise: A Benefit for the My People Fund”, The Loretta Lynn Birthday Celebration at Bridgestone Arena and the original Documentary on the legendary Bluebird Café “Bluebird – The Movie”, and Ken Burns “Country Music Live at the Ryman”, among other things. She has great instincts for recognizing talent and getting the best version of that person to reveal themselves on camera. Shanna also spends time creating her own video series, dreaming up documentaries, and executing terrible recipe ideas in the kitchen. Also…she won an Emmy!
GRAVEYARD SHIFT FEATURES & SHORTS
Isabella Price is a local artist and activist who has made Seattle her home since 2015. She has made her lifelong love of film her career as a speaker on media at conventions around the country, as a programmer for organizations like the Northwest Film Forum, as an educator for SIFF and Blanket Fort Films, and served multiple years on the board for Women in Film Seattle. She hopes to continue spreading her passion and enthusiasm for movies as the Film Programs Manager at Langston.
Doug Mallette’s films have screened at festivals across five continents including Dragon*Con, HorrorFest, Horrible Imaginings, Tromadance, Crypticon, and the Nashville Film Festival. Mallette’s first feature-length film, WORM (based on the Best Film-winning 48 Hour short of the same name) was released on DVD and VOD by Synapse Films, one of the country’s longest running cult film distributors. Mallette currently resides in Los Angeles where he serves as lead costumer for MARVEL STUDIOS.
Bears Rebecca Fonté is a transgender filmmaker, festival programmer, and journalist. In 2021, she became the Artistic Director of aGLIFF/PRISM, the oldest film festival in Austin TX, making her the first Transgender Artistic or Executive Director at any major film festival in the world. Previously, she founded Other Worlds Film Festival, and served as the Director of Programming for Austin Film Festival from 2012-14. Her SciFi shorts ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE, PRENATAL, and THE SECRET KEEPER have played 150+ festivals including Fantasia, SciFi London, Boston SciFi, FilmQuest, Austin Film Festival and Dances With Films. Her LGBTQIA Horror short CONVERSION THERAPIST made is world premiere at Inside Out in Toronto and US Premiere at aGLIFF. Her feature thriller iCRIME, which she wrote and directed, was released on DVD, VOD and streaming by Breaking Glass/Vicious Circle Films in 2011. Bears Rebecca was also one of the producers on the Sundance Jury-Award Winning short THE PROCEDURE. She has written for Hammer to Nail and AMFM Magazine since 2014, covering independent film, including regular coverage of Sundance, SXSW, Fantasia, and Fantastic Fest. Prior to arriving in Austin, she self-produced two web-series which were seen by a combined ten million viewers, wrote coverage for independent producers and coverage services in LA and placed in nearly every single screenwriting contest out there including Screenwriter’s Expo, Final Draft Big Break, Page International, Story Pros and Austin Film Festival. Bears Rebecca received her BA from Carleton College in British Studies and Theatre Studies and a MFA in Directing from Indiana University and has directed over forty plays, including the Austin Critics Table nominee Corpus Christi, and the Austin Shakespeare Festival’s Complete Works of Shakspeare Abridged.
TENNESSEE FEATURES
Zach Prichard is a film and commercial editor based out of Franklin, TN and serves as the senior editor at Evolve Studios. An Emmy winner for his work with ESPN, he has cut a variety of commercial and episodic projects for networks such as Disney, National Geographic, Netflix, and The Discovery Channel. Most recently, he edited the films Surprised by Oxford and Alta Valley.
Kd Amond started her career in the film industry as a PA before moving into editorial. Her production credits include: The Best of Me, Terminator Genesys, Scream Queens, The Big Short, Geostorm, The Free World, and Baywatch. Kd is also an award-winning screenwriter. Kd and her business partner/co-writer Sarah Zanotti won best Tennessee Writer with their script LEG in the 2021 Nashville Film Festival. In 2018, Kd directed her first feature film Five Women in the End, starring Michael Cudlitz and Corri English, now available on VOD. In 2019, she teamed up with Sarah Zanotti to form AZ if Productions. Together they’ve produced four features: Rattled, Faye,The Unraveling, and 2 Birds. They even set a record: Faye is the first American feature film in history to only star one actress on screen, and the first one woman horror film…like ever. Faye premiered at Nashville Film Festival and is now available to watch or own on VOD and digital. When she’s not making movies, Kd likes sipping fancy tequila and watching Rupaul’s Drag Race.
Nathan Thompson is the owner of production company Contrast Visuals, rental house Contrast Cine, studio The Backlot, and is President of the Nashville Filmmakers Guild. From filming the war in Afghanistan, to commercials in the UK, and docs in Africa, Nathan has global production experience. He is a 19 time Emmy Award-winning filmmaker and has shot for Amazon, Google, Jack Daniel’s, Hardees, Spotify, ESPN, Taylor Swift, Nicole Kidman, Wayne Gretzky & more.
NEW DIRECTOR FEATURES
Liz Cardenas is 2022 Independent Spirit Award winner for Duplass Brothers Productions’ 7 DAYS (Tribeca 2021 | Cinedigm) and a 2019 Spirit Award Nominee for NEVER GOIN’ BACK (Sundance 2018 | A24). One of two narrative producers to be awarded the inaugural 2022 Dear Producer Grant, an unrestricted $50K grant, she was also included in the 2019 LATINXT, a curated list of emerging Latinx creators from an initiative by Zoe Saldana, Robert Rodriguez and Lin-Manuel Miranda. Other notable producing credits include Alex Lehmann’s ACIDMAN, starring Thomas Haden Church and Dianna Agron (Tribeca 2022); David Lowery’s A GHOST STORY (Sundance 2017 | A24) starring Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck; JULES OF LIGHT & DARK, the 2019 Outfest Best US Narrative Feature winner (Wolfe Releasing); MATERNA (Utopia) Best Cinematography, Best Actress at Tribeca 2020; and BURROS (Tribeca 2021) an Oscar-qualifying Indigenous short film in English, Spanish and Tohono O’odham, shot on 16mm film on the Tohono O’odham Nation Reservation. Under her Ten to the Six Pictures, she has a slate of four features, including one she’s written, and a YA TV series about a bi-racial trans teen in Texas inspired by her award-winning short film, IMAGO. A Rotterdam Lab (2018) and Film Independent Fellow (2017 Producing Lab | 2019 Fast Track), Liz is a former reporter for The Dallas Morning News and is based in Los Angeles and Dallas, where she grew up with her Hispanic father who immigrated to the US from Mexico City and Irish-American mother from the East Coast.
Brett Reiter is a producer and film festival programmer based in Columbus, OH. His first feature, Poser, premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival and was released theatrically with Oscilloscope Laboratories in the Summer of 2022. Brett’s work in festivals has stretched from the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival to the Cleveland International Film Festival where he currently serves as a features programmer.
Amy Bertram is a Tennessee native, trilingual, a scholar, and well versed in art, literature, culture, and film. She teaches Film Studies in the Cinema, Television, and Media Department at Belmont University. This fall, she is thrilled to offer a course on the French New Wave in addition to the regular film and TV history courses. She serves on the Diversity Action Council for Belmont’s Curb College and is a faculty sponsor for the student organization Women in Film. She introduces films and gives seminars at the Belcourt Theatre, recently for Both Sides of the Blade (2022) by Claire Denis. Her chapter on Water Drops on Burning Rocks and queer connections to Fassbinder’s work appears in the recent Edinburgh University Press ReFocus series on François Ozon (2021). Having recently received a diversity grant, she is working on a project that considers film as an educational tool, based in the work of Ava DuVernay and with a focus on the impact of Hip Hop music in amplifying messages in film/TV. When time permits, you can find Amy hiking often and occasionally paddling her whitewater canoe.
NARRATIVE SHORTS
Bedatri Choudhury is a culture journalist and documentary film professional. She has managed documentary projects at Doc Society, Working Films, The Gotham Film & Media Institute, and CAAM, among others. An alumna of the NYFF Critics Academy, Sundance and SXSW Press Inclusion Initiatives, the National Critics’ Institute, and Berlinale Talents, she lives in New York City. Presently, she is the Managing Editor of Documentary Magazine and a programmer with DOC NYC and IFFLA.
Stephen Hauser has written screenplays in Hollywood for 20 years, including Michael Crichton’s SPHERE, starring Dustin Hoffman and Samuel L. Jackson, directed by Barry Levinson. Stephen spent three seasons helping produce ABC/Hulu’s TV series “NASHVILLE”. He has been a Film and TV professor/instructor at Belmont University for the past 5 years.
Yvonne Ashley Kouadjo is the series producer for Op-Docs, the New York Times’s Oscar-winning short series. Previously, she worked at American Documentary | POV, PBS’s award-winning flagship documentary strand.
DOCUMENTARY SHORTS
Jesse Knight is a Los Angeles-based film festival programmer, writer, copy editor and rollerskater. His festival and film society contributions include Palm Springs ShortFest, AFI Fest, San Francisco International, Sundance Institute, Palm Springs International, Frameline, and many others. His repertory programming includes The Royal Cinema in Toronto, and The Capitol Theater in Olympia, WA. His rollerskating contributions include anywhere, so look out.
Brandon Harrison has experience in non-fiction content as a producer, filmmaker, and programmer. He has curated features, shorts, and series at DOC NYC, Brooklyn Film Festival, and Tribeca as well as produced branded content and served on various documentary juries and committees.
Lauren Rector is a Senior Programmer for the Atlanta Film Festival focusing on documentary features and multi-genre shorts. Each year, she collaborates with the programming team to build a fresh, engaging, and inclusive festival program out of over 7000 submissions. A film enthusiast and longtime Atlantan, Lauren is a graduate of Agnes Scott College with a background in business management and English literature as well as film.
ANIMATED SHORTS
Luce Grosjean founded Sève Films, a distribution company destined to promote student films in animation festivals, but also young talent directors. In 2017, she associated with Miyu Productions to create Miyu Distribution, specialized in distribution in festivals and international sales for animation. Four of the films that she distributed have been nominated at the Oscars, one to the César and her films are known international successes. Her company received the award of the best short film distribution company in 2020 by UniFrance and La Fête du Court Métrage. In 2021, she signed her first feature films, Archipel by the Canadian Felix Dufour-Laperrière and Dozens of Norths directed by the Japanese Koji Yamamura. She curated a short film program released in the theaters in France, erotico-trash, named “Plan cul la praline”.
Zachary Zezima is an animation director based in Los Angeles. He received his BFA from Parsons The New School for Design and his MFA from California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). His work frequently includes elements of psychology, the body, interpersonal relationships, science-fiction, and autobiography. Beginning as an illustrator, his work has appeared in The New York Times, on the cover of American Illustration 31, and he was nominated for an Ignatz Award in 2013. Moving into animation in 2014, his first short film CRUISING was nominated for the Golden Dove Award at DOK Leipzig and won Honorable Mention from the Adobe Design Achievement Awards as well as Best Experimental Film at Animation Block Party. His subsequent short film entitled It’s a Date was released in 2016 and screened at film festivals such as Sundance, Pictoplasma, Ars Electronica, and Animafest Zagreb, and was a Vimeo Staff Pick Premiere. His most recent short film, Friend of a Friend, premiered at Annecy in 2020 and has also screened at film festivals such as Slamdance, Stuttgart, and Guanajuato. It was nominated for a UniFrance Short Film Award, won the Special Jury Award at the Anilogue International Animation Festival, and Best International Short Animated Film at the Oscar/BAFTA-qualifying Go Short International Short Film Festival. Shifting into documentaries, in 2021 he directed animation for an episode of PRIDE; a six-part docuseries on FX/Hulu detailing LGBTQ+ civil rights throughout six distinct decades. He is currently in pre-production on a new animated documentary film which investigates the colonial history of surfing and its connections to contemporary surf culture.
Paul Sloop has been the lead programmer of short films for the Oscar qualifying Cleveland International Film Festival since 2002. In addition to his long-standing role in Cleveland, he is also the Director of Programming for both Film Pittsburgh and the Cordillera International Film Festival in Reno/Tahoe, NV. He is the proud father of seven daughers and one son and lives in Mentor, OH with his wife, Sarah.
THE EDGE SHORTS
Blake Willams is an artist and filmmaker based in Toronto, where he also writes film criticism for the Canadian film publication Cinema Scope magazine. He is also the co-founder of the production company BlueMagenta Films. His 3D films have screened internationally, including venues such as the Toronto International Film Festival, Locarno Festival, Berlinale, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Chloe Lizotte is the Editorial Manager for Notebook, MUBI’s daily international film publication. She is a regular contributor to Reverse Shot, where her column, Event Horizon, surveys moving-image topics across the online landscape. Her writing on film, new media, and comedy has been featured in Vulture, Cinema Scope, Film Comment, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and Screen Slate, among other outlets. Previously, she was a contributing editor at Le Cinéma Club. She lives in Brooklyn.
Jonathan Rattner is an artist and filmmaker who primarily produces experimental nonfiction films and videos. He has screened work in galleries, microcinemas, festivals, and universities internationally, including the Whitechapel Gallery in London, Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Centre of Contemporary Arts in Glasgow, L’Alternativa in Barcelona, Anthology Film Archives in New York, Current’s New Media Festival in New Mexico, Antimatter in Victoria, Canada, European Media Arts Festival in Osnabrück Germany, and the Ann Arbor Film Festival in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He currently is an Associate Professor in the Cinema & Media Art and Art Department at Vanderbilt University.
TENNESSEE SHORTS
Chad Fortenberry started his career in NYC to pursue acting and had some great experiences in comedy, film, and musical theatre. While there, he found a passion to jump behind the camera and started creating content for small businesses and entertainment. For the past 12 years has been focused on building creative teams, making creative content, development of content, consulting on creative production, directing/creative direction, and building out/management of production studios (home studios all the way to 2000 square foot studios). He has created viral video content with views of over 4 million people with companies like Improv Everywhere in NYC and Hardee’s. He has grown a creative network from 3,000 production companies to 8,000 production companies nationwide and internationally. Through that worked with some of the top brands in the world creating advertising work for digital platforms and TV. Chad is a 21-time Telly award winner, HOW Design award winner, Webby Honoree, Dig South Panelist, International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences member, Director of Marketing for Nashville Filmmakers Guild, and constant learner. My “why” is to create and anything I can do to help achieve that passion is my focus.
Heather LeRoy is an actress and filmmaker. She has written and performed in two theatrical one-woman shows and directed numerous music videos and commercials. Heather is currently in post-production on her debut feature film My Best Friend Depression. As the writer, director and star of the film, she uses her innate creative ability to explore the issue of mental illness through a dark yet comedic lens.
Corbin Eaton is a writer, editor, and creative specialist at Massive Mission Video Production. He has a strong passion for storytelling and uses his experience in screenwriting to help others live and tell better stories.
EPISODIC SERIES & PILOT
Mindy Fay Parks believes films have the power to give their audience whatever they need the most—a respite, courage, a laugh, connection—that’s why she is a storyteller. She has worked behind the camera as an assistant to the Directors on the Emmy-Winning Series, Watchmen, and her first short film, OFF BOOK (which she wrote/produced/starred) won over a dozen awards around the country and gained distribution. She has performed on stages from London to Japan, and has been seen on TV screens in HBO’s Lovecraft Country, Chicago Fire, and as a girl who almost drank a cat poop smoothie. In the festival world, Mindy launched and served as Festival Director and programmer for the successful Windy City International Film Festival in Chicago for four years, where she loved providing a fun environment to celebrate indie filmmakers. She has served as a jury member for several regional fests and always enjoys a chance to deep-dive into other artists’ work. She is now based in Atlanta, and especially appreciates the vibrancy of the Southeast film community.
Wendy Roderweiss graduated from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and spent over a decade in independent film, working in virtually every department, before finally leaving the grind of production to work on her own projects. Her independent pilot Inferno, inspired by Dante’s The Divine Comedy, is streaming on Roku Channel and was an official selection at Nashville, Seriesfest, Dances with Films, Stareable Fest, Catalyst, North Fork TV Fest, Hollyshorts Monthly screening series, and more. This black comedy stars David Pasquesi (Book of Boba Fett, Veep, Lodge 49), Josh Bywater (Somebody Somewhere, Utopia), Marika Engelhardt (Knives and Skin), Adam Wesley Brown (Justified) and Ronald Conner (Southside). Other narrative work includes a comedic short film series based on the five stages of grief and her podcast “SHABAM!” a family friendly serialized science show, is part of the Roddenberry Podcast Network (Star Trek). She has also been a contributor to NPR’s All Thing’s Considered, Day to Day and Radio Lab, and she produced an audiobook “Concrete, Invisible, Bulletproof and Fried: My Life as a Revolting Cock” with Chicago Musician Chris Connelly. Her feature-length documentary on hospice nurses, “Stopping for Death: The Nurses of Wells House Hospice” is distributed by Passion River Films.
Phillip Cordell is a writer, producer and actor from Nashville, TN. Previously a Tech Firm VP, he now writes and produces for TV, Film and Web full-time, focusing on telling comedic stories with heart through his narrative production company HiPhi Productions. He is currently in pre-production on the Sci-fi/Action/Comedy feature film Clone Cops, which shoots in October 2022. And his latest Digital Series, Nashville Dads Club, has amassed over 3 million views online while garnering both local and national publicity. Phillip is married to his wife of 10 years with whom he shares two small children and has trained at Loyola of Chicago and Roadmap Writers. He also holds a BS in TV/Film Production from THE Middle Tennessee State University.
NEXTGEN & TENNESSEE STUDENT SHORTS
Dave Warburton is the Manager of Film and Recording Studios at Belmont University. He manages all of the production and post production facilities for Belmont’s Motion Pictures Department. Dave joined the staff at Belmont University in 2015 after having spent over a decade working in the TV and Film industry in Los Angeles. Dave grew up in North Platte, Nebraska and received a degree in Audio Production from Emerson College in Boston, MA. He moved to Los Angeles his final semester of college and began his career in motion picture post-production at a boutique post facility working on indie films. There, he managed the facility while working as a Sound Assistant, Sound Editor, Foley Mixer, and ADR Mixer. In 2007 Dave joined the Post Production Sound team at NBC Universal. As Manager of TV Sound Post Production Services, he managed the Universal Television Mix Stages, the Television and Feature Sound Editorial Staff, and the Universal Foley Stage and Foley Crews. He also oversaw the creation of Music and Effects mixes for all NBCUniversal Television content. Dave has worked on feature films and television shows for nearly every major studio and broadcast network and while at Universal his sound editorial and mixing crews have won multiple Emmy Awards, CAS Awards, MPSE Awards, and garnered nominations for several Academy Awards.
Theresa Robinson is the Program Coordinator at The National Film Festival for Talented Youth, the world’s largest film festival for emerging filmmakers. Outside of her work at NFFTY, she has spent the past several years working in media/digital production for a variety of nonprofits and organizations across the country. Theresa holds a BA in Media and Communication Studies from the University of Washington and was selected as a participant in the 48th Telluride Film Festival Student Symposium. She is delighted to be on this year’s jury and support the Nashville Film Festival’s efforts to highlight the next generation of filmmakers.
Allison Inman is a filmmaker and education and engagement director at the Belcourt Theatre, Nashville’s nonprofit film center. She hosts filmmaker Q&As, panel discussions, performances and seminars and teaches visual literacy/cinema appreciation in schools and community centers with the Belcourt’s Mobile Movie Theatre. She was formerly a national engagement consultant for San Francisco-based ITVS, coordinating its public documentary screening series, Community Cinema, in Nashville. She was communications manager for Rocky Mountain PBS in Denver and a communications consultant in Denver, Nashville, and New Orleans. Her short documentary, Carthage House of Beauty, which she made with Jace Freeman and Sean Clark, was named Best Tennessee Short at the 2021 Nashville Film Festival.
VIRTUAL REALITY & 360 FILMS
Ana Brzezinska is the Immersive Curator at Tribeca Festival. In 2020-22 she was Head of Studio at Kaleidoscope, an American-French immersive production company specialising in virtual and hybrid event production, and fostering up-and-coming projects and talent. Partnering with the Museum of Other Realities, Kaleidoscope has been on the bleeding edge of virtual event production, co-creating a number of immersive gatherings including the biggest VR exhibition in virtual reality at Cannes XR/Marché du Film, a first virtual fashion show with RYOT/Verizon Media, and a first national collection of immersive art with Digital Catapult/UKRI. Kaleidoscope co-produced a number of acclaimed VR experiences, including ‘Spheres’, starring Jessica Chastain and Patti Smith and executive produced by Darren Aronofsky, ‘Battlescar’, starring Rosario Dawson. Ana collaborates with public funds (Creative Europe MEDIA), NGO, universities and business. Former Discovery Group Producer and Director, and Multimedia Lead at the Grand Theatre–National Opera in Warsaw, she has over 15 years of experience in audiovisual content and event production working across TV, film, digital media and theatre.
Gregory Bishop is an Atlanta-based programmer, film artist and instant-photographer. Born in and raised across the United States, he spent his formative years in Wisconsin, having earned a B.F.A. in Film from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Now on the east coast, he works year-around as a Senior Programmer for the Atlanta Film Society, overseeing selection for and exhibiting the Narrative Feature, Experimental, Episodic, Music Video and Virtual Reality programs at the annual Academy Award®-qualifying Atlanta Film Festival. He is an ardent supporter of film spaces, and through that mission, spends his days researching and visiting the many lost and longstanding institutions in his community — including the Plaza Theatre, Atlanta’s oldest operating and only independent cinema, where he occasionally works as a nightly steward and projectionist. As an artist, he primarily works with Polaroids, with coverage conveying his hyper-focused curiosity for his walkable surroundings, as well as identifying abstractions and hidden wonders throughout his weekly travels.
Rachel Lin Weaver is a filmmaker and artist whose media installations, documentaries, and experimental films explore memory, queer/trans embodiment, nonhuman lives, and Indigenous knowledge. Weaver’s works have been showcased across the US and in 43 countries, and are held in numerous private and public collections. Currently, they are a member of the Tiger Strikes Asteroid artist network and serve as the Program Director of Cinema Reset, the XR, new and emerging media program of the New Orleans Film Festival. Weaver lives and works in the mountains of Appalachia, where they are an Associate Professor of Creative Technologies at the School of Visual Arts at Virginia Tech.