MODERATOR

Patrick Sabatini

PANELIST

Moiya McTier

Dr. Moiya McTier is an astrophysicist, folklorist, and senior advisor to the Human Artistry Campaign. After graduating from Harvard as the first student to double major in astrophysics and mythology, Moiya went on to become the first Black woman to earn a Phd in astronomy from Columbia University, where she used a type of AI to study stars around the galaxy. Now, Moiya’s passion for bridging arts with science and demystifying the universe takes many forms, from designing museum exhibits with artists to consulting with Disney on movies to teaching politicians about AI. She introduced us mere humans to our home galaxy in her award-winning debut book, The Milky Way: An Autobiography of Our Galaxy, and every week, she explores a different space topic on her podcast Pale Blue Pod. Moiya’s next book, Mothers of Invention, exploring the history of human creativity through the eyes of the Greek Muses, is expected in Fall 2026.

MODERATOR

Courtney Sabatini

Courtney Sabatini is a transactional entertainment attorney with more than a dozen years of experience representing writers, directors, actors and authors, as well as producers, production companies and studios.  She specializes in the negotiation and drafting of talent agreements and rights acquisition agreements, but she has experience in most aspects of the film and television industry, from development through distribution. In the past, Courtney worked for the legal departments of Anonymous Content, Legendary Entertainment and Paramount Television, and she started her career at the talent firm Myman Greenspan Fox Rosenberg Mobasser Younger & Light. Courtney has spoken on multiple panels related to the film and television industry and currently sits on the Board of Directors for the Nashville Film Festival. Courtney received her J.D. with a Specialization in Entertainment, Media and Intellectual Property Law from UCLA School of Law (2012) and her B.A. from UCLA (2009).  She is admitted to practice law in California and Tennessee.

PANELIST

Hamish Berry

Hamish Berry heads up the firm’s California office.  Hamish has extensive experience negotiating and drafting a wide variety of film and television deals, including all agreements for financing, development, production and distribution of feature and documentary films and television series.  He represents both lenders and borrowers in pre-sale, tax credit and gap financings for independent film projects as well as distributors of film and television content. His blend of entertainment law and hands-on entertainment industry experience, makes him a go-to lawyer for independent film producers and film financiers. He has also served as production counsel to numerous independent film projects. Prior to founding Bruns Brennan Berry Pikulin & Jacobs, he was a senior associate at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, P.C. in New York. In addition to his wide entertainment experience, Hamish has extensive experience advising on complex commercial financing relationships in other industries. From 2001 to 2004 he was associated with Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP, where he represented financiers, airlines, and other transportation companies in highly structured domestic and international financing transactions. From 1995 to 2001, he practiced corporate law in Australia for the National Australia Bank Limited; Mallesons Stephen Jaques; and Baker & McKenzie, where he developed expertise in corporate compliance, project and structured finance, and banking law. Hamish has been included in The Legal 500 list of leading entertainment lawyers in the U.S.  He is a member of the New York State Bar Association (Member, Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Section), and is admitted to practice in New York, California and Victoria, Australia.  He received his law and bachelor’s degrees from University of Melbourne, and has his Certificate in Film Production from New York University School of Continuing and Professional Studies.

MODERATOR

Chris Everett

Christopher Everett is an independent film director, producer and curator, based in Wilmington, North Carolina. Christopher is the Artistic Director at the Southern Documentary Fund and is the founder of Speller Street Films. He’s a recent Firelight Media Doc Lab Fellow. His debut feature documentary WILMINGTON ON FIRE, chronicles the 1898 Wilmington Massacre. He’s currently in post-production on WILMINGTON ON FIRE: CHAPTER II and also GRANDMASTER: THE VIC MOORE STORY which looks at the life and teachings of martial arts pioneer Victor Moore. Christopher recently launched a new content creation company + festival called 3 Chambers which aims to elevate hip-hop, anime, and martial arts culture.

PANELIST

David Ngo

David is a writer, director and producer. He produced the critically acclaimed feature drama ONE EYED GIRL (Austin Film Festival: Best Picture Winner) and produced the horror/thriller RABBIT (Sitges Film Festival, FantasticFest). Recently, he wrote and directed the Sundance film NEVER GET BUSTED!, Executive Produced by John Battsek (Beckham, Searching For Sugar Man) and Chris Smith (Tiger King, Fyre).

MODERTATOR

Luanne Dietz

Luanne Dietz is a three-time Emmy Award winner, Cannes Lion and Edward R. Murrow Award recipient. She has been a force in the creative industry and has over 15 years of experience developing and producing premium film, experiential, and custom content for globally-renowned brands, networks, corporations and foundations. Having worked at all stages of production from Cam Op to Editor to Director to EP, Luanne Specializes in documentary storytelling both on screen and through experiential. She is a highly motivated, strategic problem-solver with top-tier analytical and communication skills. A journalist turned branded content guru, Luanne has led content strategy at Amazon as well as human-centric video storytelling for Starbucks. Previously she was the first director at CNN’s brand studio, Courageous, where she directed and produced documentaries for Great Big Story and Turner at large. She has worked as a photo editor and multimedia producer at the San Francisco Chronicle and has multiple years of experience in film and arts education. Her endeavors have taken her around the globe, including extended periods of time in Europe, Africa, China and the Middle East. Dietz graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism and Communications with emphasis on Photojournalism from the University of Florida. She has made it her goal to seek out stories with significance, and use her camera as a tool to tell them. She is rarely seen without a smile on her face.

PANELIST

Nick Barnes

Nick Barnes is an agent at leading global talent, entertainment, sports and advisory company UTA, where he leads the company’s Heartland initiative. Launched in 2020, Heartland is based on storytelling rooted in the shared values of community, faith and family, and amplifying the voices of creators from Nashville and beyond. The initiative marks the first time a major global talent agency has founded a dedicated practice to identify, develop, and showcase the unique voices of Heartland creators and
storytellers. Barnes represents many of today’s most prominent Heartland-based storytellers including The Erwin Brothers, Dallas Jenkins, Think Factory Media, Jonathan Roumie, Kathie Lee Gifford, Leanne Morgan, John Crist, among many others. He is also a member of the teams that signed Bobby Bones and Chip and Joanna Gaines.

MODERATOR

Jake Mahaffy

Mahaffy’s low-budget films have won awards including Orizzonti Prize for Best Film at Venice and Grand Jury Prize at SXSW along with other screenings (including Sundance (2004/05/06/08/09/15), prizes and nominations from IFP Independent Spirit Awards, Gothams, Moas, Stockholm, Munich, Seattle, Nashville, Malatya, Rotterdam, AMPAS Student Academy Awards, Newport, etc. He’s been awarded grants and fellowships from Guggenheim, Belaggio, Annenberg, Sundance Institute, Cannes Atelier, Rome New Cinema, Shanghai Market, Creative Capital, LEF, NZFC, Kodak, Verizon, NHK and others. He’s been invited to consult, speak, and mentor internationally including at Cal Arts, RISD, AFTRS (Sydney), Central Academy of Fine Arts (Beijing), China Film Archive, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Bard College, Belaggio Research and Conference Center, University of Virginia, Beijing Film Academy, Museum of Contemporary Art (Warsaw), Advanced Director’s Course (Moscow), Park Road Post (Wellington), Melbourne Accelerator Panel, South Auckland Writer’s Lab, Big Screen Symposium (NZ), and Toi Whakaari. Mahaffy’s book, “Micro-Budget Methods of Cinematic Storytelling” is available from Focal Press. His filmmaking site is burnbarrelfilms.com.

PANELIST

David Fortune

David Fortune is a writer and director from Atlanta, Georgia. He was named Variety’s 10 Directors to Watch in 2025 and received the AT&T Untold Stories Award, which provided a $1 million grant to direct his feature film, Color Book. The film premiered at the 2024 Tribeca Festival and has garnered over 20 jury and audience awards at festivals across the nation. In addition to these recognitions, David has also been nominated for the 2025 NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Breakthrough Creative. His short film Us was selected as a winner of the Netflix Content Creators Program, while his film Shoebox, produced through the Indeed-Hillman Grad’s Rising Voices Program, was acquired and distributed by HULU. David has participated in numerous directing fellowships such as the Netflix – Film Independent Amplifier Fellowship, Big Indie Pictures Film Fellowship, Village Roadshow Emerging Talent Program, and Paramount ViewFinders Directors Program. David is a proud alumnus of Morehouse College and Loyola Marymount University’s School of Film and Television. As a writer and director, he seeks to capture universal connections within marginalized communities while shedding light on the intimate human experiences.

MODERATOR

Erin Miller

Miller has produced and managed productions for over 15 years in NYC and around the world. Ignite Studios’ BOUNDARY WATERS stars Carol Kane and premiered at The Woodstock Film Festival October 2024. Miller’s feature documentary UNASHAMED about faith and hip hop is directed by Dave Rivera, and negotiating distribution. Miller’s feature film IDENTITY CRISIS was directed by Shari Rigby and is distributed by Vertical Entertainment. Miller is working on a doc series TASTE AND SEE which connects food and spirituality along with a local doc-series about the preservation movement in Franklin, TN called BOOMING. Miller has a history in both scripted and non-scripted production and development, and has a long history in non-fiction television, managing and producing shows for Discovery, Comedy Central, PBS, VH1, E!, History, OWN, and TLC. Miller’s documentary Work and Happiness: The Human Cost of Welfare, produced and directed by Miller, premiered on PBS and PBS World in 2018. Miller’s passion for people, ethics, and history drives her development, understanding that stories shape our culture. Formerly, Miller was a creative executive with Third Coast Content – an Endeavor company in Nashville – and a production executive with Declan Baldwin’s Big Indie Pictures in NYC where she worked exclusively with Amazon Original Movies, overseeing the production and delivery of their original films. Miller is a board member of Women Independent Producers (WIP) a collective of 100 independent producers with chapters in NYC and LA.

PANELIST

Noopur Sinha

Noopur has spent the last decade producing television shows, short films and digital content in the two biggest film industries in the world – Hollywood and Bollywood! She’s been an Executive Producer with Zee TV, an independent writer/producer of short films in New York, and graduated from the prestigious Peter Stark Producing Program (USC, LA). She currently works as Lead Producer and Head of Development at Upper Diamond, Inc. in Los Angeles.

PANELIST

Lisa Trifone

With two decades of experience in the independent film industry and a lifelong love of the movies, Trifone has always known she’d work in movies. To date, that work includes film festival management, programming and marketing (Heartland Film; Indy Film Fest); publicity management and logistics (Sundance Film Festival); arthouse distribution strategy, marketing and national publicity (Film Movement; Music Box Films) and now several years at the helm of Bright Iris Film Co, the boutique independent film publicity agency she founded in 2017. In addition to her agency work, Trifone is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and an adjunct professor at DePaul University. When not working on movies or writing about movies or watching movies, Trifone is an avid traveler, baker and Wordler.

HOST

Zach Hoffman

Zach Lazar Hoffman is a full time American actor and voice actor. His experience ranges from film and TV having appeared in Fear the Walking Dead, The Resident, and National Treasure, to animation and video games including voices like Steve Murphy in Narcos: Rise of the Cartel, Nightmare Fredbear in Five Nights at Freddy’s: Ultimate Custom Night, Tigreal and many other characters in Mobile Legends: Bang Bang;  as well as commercial experience having voiced major brands that range from The Las Vegas Raiders, BMW, Pirate’s Booty, and ESPN. He has narrated over 25 books on Audible and many more outside of the platform ranging multiple American and UK dialects. Zach Is dedicated to the art of acting, devoted to the craft of storytelling, and committed to the process of becoming another to bring his art to life.