Marking more than half a century of championing creative visionaries, the Nashville Film Festival is proud to unveil our distinguished jury for 2025. This exceptional group, which features acclaimed filmmakers, seasoned industry professionals, and devoted scholars, will bring their insight and passion to the task of selecting winners across fifteen diverse categories. Their discerning eyes and deep love of storytelling are essential to honoring the finest achievements in film. Discover their profiles and meet the remarkable individuals shaping this year’s festival experience.
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Narrative Feature
Susan Kerns
Dr. Susan Kerns is the Executive Director of Milwaukee Film and Professor at Columbia College Chicago where she co-founded the Chicago Feminist Film Festival. An author and filmmaker, she edited and contributed to ReFocus: The Films of Susan Seidelman, the first book devoted to the groundbreaking director, and Kerns’s writing on Tank Girl is featured in Eureka!’s Blu-ray box set and The Routledge Companion to Gender and Sexuality in Comic Book Studies. Over a dozen publications have included her work on gender and film festivals, media representations of conjoined twins, the silent Lon Chaney film The Penalty, and Dame Darcy’s Meat Cake comics. She is currently producing a feminist true crime documentary, Uncoiled, an experimental horror feature, Communicable, and a VR project, Scapegoat. She also produced the documentary Manlife and has produced, directed, written, or been the intimacy coordinator on numerous films. She often speaks about film festivals and distribution, including on panels at SXSW, University Film and Video Association, and the European Network for Cinema and Media Studies. She holds a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Ivonne Cotorruelo
Ivonne Cotorruelo is a Cuban lm programmer and cultural worker whose practice is situated at the crossroads of lm curation, research, and collective experience. She is a rst-year PhD student at the University of Connecticut, where her work explores queer Latin American cinema through a phenomenological lens, attending to the aective and embodied ways lm moves through and with its audiences. She has worked across festivals committed to independent and underrepresented voices, with current roles as Senior Programmer for the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival (TTFF), Iberoamerican Programmer for the Miami Film Festival (MFF), and Features Programmer for the Cleveland International Film Festival (CIFF). Her previous curatorial work includes Outfest LA, Aspen ShortFest, and the Atlanta Film Festival, alongside jury and review work for initiatives such as Chicken & Egg Pictures, Film Independent Media Markers, WarnerMedia New Voices, and the Black and Latino Inclusion Fellowship. A Berlinale Talents alumna, her curatorial ethos is shaped by questions of proximity and encounter – how we come to lms, and how they come to us- with a deep investment in fostering spaces of visibility, relation, and shared resonance.
Lexi Tannenholtz
Lexi Tannenholtz is a producer at The Space Program, a New York-based independent film production company operating as a collective of producers with a filmmaker-first approach. She most recently produced Mary Dauterman’s Booger; Stewart Thorndike’s Bad Things; Jac Cron’s Chestnut; and Justin Kelly’s Pretty Thing. She also served as an executive producer on Grace Glowicki’s Dead Lover, which played Sundance and SXSW in 2025 and will be distributed by Cartuna/Dweck. Lexi is a 2022 Film Independent Producing Lab Fellow and 2023 Fast Track Fellow. She participated in the Tribeca Festival Creators Market in 2022, 2023, and 2024, and was selected as a 2023 Dear Producer mentee. In 2025, she participated in the Sundance Catalyst Forum and is a Sundance Institute mentor.
Documentary Feature
Alyse Shoreland
Alyse Shorland is an independent documentary director and producer. Her recent projects include The Empire of Ebony, a documentary series about John Johnson, the creator of Ebony and Jet magazines (in production), and The Debutantes, a film about the revival of a Black debutante ball in post-industrial Ohio (Premiere: 2024 Tribeca Film Festival). She was also a director for the documentary series The Weekly from the New York Times, and Vice News Tonight on HBO. Alyse has a background in journalism- she started her career on CNN’s award-winning documentary series Black in America with Soledad O’Brien. She later produced long-form stories for CBS Sunday Morning. She is a DOC NYC 40 Under 4o alum and has been honored with 2 Emmys, a Peabody, an NABJ Excellence Award, and a Gracie. She teaches at Rutgers University and is a shameless promoter of other women.
Annina Wettstein
Programmer, curator and consultant on festival and world sales strategies, moderator and researcher, based in Zurich (Switzerland). Since 2018, she has been on the selection committee for DOK Leipzig. She has worked with European festivals in various roles for almost 20 years. She was a programmer for Rotterdam, a San Sebastián delegate, and the main programmer for SCANORAMA (Lithuania). She regularly participates in juries and funding committees. Member of the Fantoche Animation FF executive board, and of both European and Swiss Film Academies.
Thouly Dosios
Thouly Dosios has worked in festival curation for almost two decades, having previously served as Co-Director of Programming of the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA), and a Senior Programmer for the Los Angeles Greek Film Festival (LAGFF) for which she also served on the Board of Directors. She has been a juror for the Mammoth Lakes Film Festival and a panelist on Festival Strategy for Film Independent’s Global Media Makers program. Thouly is a filmmaker and a photographer. Her short films have screened internationally, receiving many distinctions that include a nomination for a Student Academy Award® which was granted to her film House of the Olive Trees. Her photographic work documenting street life in Los Angeles has been featured in art books and has been exhibited in galleries across the US. Thouly holds a B.A. in Visual Studies from Harvard University and an M.F.A. in Film Directing from UCLA. She was raised in Athens, Greece, and now resides in Los Angeles.
Music Documentary Feature
Gabriel Gutierrez Morales
Gabriel Gutierrez Morales is a multidisciplinary queer artist, filmmaker, and film programmer from Tijuana, Mexico. He is an advocate for social change with a great interest in exploring queerness, gender and sexuality, always seeking to create art that discusses the imperfect and shameful nature of things. His short documentary A CERTAIN KIND has screened at international film festivals such as AmDocs and the Guanajuato International Film Festival.
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.
Andy Volk
Andy Volk is a cross-genre and cross-format filmmaker and programmer from Austin, TX. As Senior Film Programmer at Austin Film Festival, Andy fostered a reputation for championing boundary-pushing films, developing partnerships across the industry with the likes of A24, Vertigo Entertainment and Big Indie Pictures and hosting in-depth conversations with filmmaker guests like Rian Johnson and Cord Jefferson. Andy’s directorial debut, the animated documentary Coffee & Sugar, premiered at Seattle International Film Festival and went on to screen at NFFTY, Indy Shorts and Loft Film Festival. He produced feature documentary Yes I Am: The Ric Weiland Story, narrated by Zachary Quinto, which screened at Newport Beach, Cleveland International Film Festival, and earned Special Recognition at the 35th GLAAD Media Awards. He has served on juries for Fantastic Fest, Cleveland, NFFTY, deadCenter, and Salute Your Shorts.
Tennessee Feature
David Jones
Daniel Jones (he/him) is a Nashville-based creative producer, dramaturg, writer, and director passionate about facilitating shared live arts experiences that ignite social change. In 2022, the Nashville Scene named him “Best Advocate for Artists.” As the Co-Founder & Producing Artistic Director of the nonprofit organization Kindling Arts, Daniel has worked with hundreds of Nashville-based artists to launch more than 150 unique artistic experiences since the organization was founded in 2018. Kindling’sp rogramming has been hailed by the Nashville Scene as “freewheeling, uncensored and full of heart, pushing the boundaries of what we imagine performance art to be.” Daniel also serves as the Associate Director of Programming & Partnerships at OZ Arts Nashville where he has supported hundreds of visiting artists from around the world, including companies from Brazil, Japan, Chile, Germany, South Africa, France, and more. He also works closely with Nashville artists as they develop new works in OZ’s unique 10,000 square-foot creative warehouse, including the annual Brave New Works Lab. Daniel’s creative producing credits include The Naughty Tree, an interdisciplinary, queer retelling of the Garden of Eden creation story (named “Best Local Theater Performance” in 2022; two installments of Heroic Couplets: Poetry into Film Collaborations with Defy Film Festival; and HAUNTED, a multimedia, immersive experience inspired by the deadliest train crash in American history.
Shayana Filmore
Shayana Filmore is a Brooklyn-based film programmer. She has worked with the Hamptons International Film Festival, Indie Memphis, Tribeca Festival, Newfest, Nantucket Film Festival, Atlanta Film Festival, AFI Docs, Nitehawk Shorts Fest, and The Future of Film is Female.
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.
New Directors Feature
Nora Bernard
Nora Bernard is a Los Angeles-based film programmer who supported filmmakers globally through publicity, marketing, and artist development programs. Some of the organizations she has worked for and supported include the Tribeca Festival, the Telluride Film Festival, Urbanworld, and Sundance. Recently, she concluded her time administering Film Independent’s International Programs, whose films have gone on to premiere at Berlinale, Cannes, Sundance, and AFI Fest. She brings a well-rounded approach to supporting emerging and mid-career creatives in today’s independent film landscape and is an advocate for filmmakers finding new and innovative ways to distribute their work.
D. Patrick Rodgers
Lifelong Nashvillian D. Patrick Rodgers has worked at the Nashville Scene since 2008. Before making the move to editor-in-chief in 2017, he served as music listings editor, calendar editor, music editor and managing editor. He writes about film, news, politics, music and culture, and has contributed to Rolling Stone, Garden & Gun, Vice, Spin, Nfocus and Ion Magazine, among others. He is also a musician and occasional DJ, and lives in East Nashville with his fiancée Amanda, their silly little dog Ernie and their cat John Waters.
Laura Benge
Laura Benge (she/her) is the Accessibility Manager for the Sundance Institute located in Salt Lake City, UT with her two large dogs. Laura has worked in accessibility for over 10 years prior to working within film exhibition, specializing in accommodating employment opportunities and community events for individuals with dual-sensory loss. She has supported the reformation of state systems through technical assistance, consultation and legislative efforts. She’s brought these skills into her local arts community supporting film, art, theater, and dance organizations to increase their access & inclusion efforts. Laura is a firm believer in equal opportunity and community engagement which has led her to working with mission-aligned art organizations, like the Sundance Institute.
Narrative Shorts
Elizabeth Arnott
Elizabeth Arnott is a Chicago-based marketing and publicity leader with a focus on independent and international film. She’s currently the Director of Marketing & Publicity at the independent distributor Music Box Films and Doppelgänger Releasing, strategizing to bring critically acclaimed indie films to U.S. audiences. Elizabeth is a champion of emerging artists and filmmakers and has an appreciation for bold storytelling, diverse voices, and queer little indie films. Their work has helped spotlight distinctive and remarkable stories, including theatrical and home entertainment releases for films such as Fremont, The Unknown Country, Mountains, In the Summers, Eephus, and Familiar Touch. She recently guest-programmed Sapphopalooza, a film series celebrating lesbian cinema, at the Music Box Theatre, delivering equal parts cinematic excellence and sapphic joy.
Jesse Knight
Jesse Knight is the lead programmer for Palm Springs International ShortFest. He has been a film programmer and curator since 2014, serving on teams for Seattle International Film Festival, AFI Fest, SFFILM, Palm Springs International Film Festival, Olympia Film Society, Sundance Institute, and beyond. Also a creative producer, story consultant, and dedicated mentor, he is passionate about guiding filmmakers toward fostering their singularity to stand out among a crowded and competitive landscape. On roller skates he is 5’11”.
Ernesto Valle
Ernesto Valle handles Non-Theatrical Sales and Exhibitor Relations at Oscilloscope Laboratories, a Brooklyn-based independent film distributor founded in 2008 by Adam Yauch. With a background in organizing DIY music shows and assisting local film festivals around his hometown in the Chicago suburbs, Ernesto has successfully transitioned to coordinating releases and special events with more than 300 theaters and numerous film festivals worldwide. His experience collaborating directly with artists and filmmakers at various stages of their careers brings a distinct and comprehensive perspective to film distribution. Outside of film, you can find him practicing scales on his bass or in the kitchen perfecting his coconut curry recipe.
Documentary Shorts
Christopher 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.
Zegan Doyle
Zegan Doyle (they/them) is a writer and film programmer with a passion for championing underrepresented voices. They are a Film Independent Project Involve Fellow in Programming and a Documentary Features Programming Associate at SXSW. Doyle has contributed to programming at Film Independent, Outfest, Baby Teeth Film Festival, Mill Valley Film Festival, Fine Arts Film Festival, and Rubin Museum of Art. They have also evaluated scripts for BFI Film London and the Austin Film Festival, and served on a panel at the CIACLA: Los Angeles Irish Film Festival. Doyle earned their MFA in Screenwriting from the University of California, Los Angeles, where they received the William J. and Lee Phillip Bell Grant for The Young and the Restless. They are also an alum of the Storytelling Institute Fellowship, supported by Canal+, the City of Cannes, and the Cannes Film Festival.
Drew Gregory
Drew Burnett Gregory is a Brooklyn-based writer, filmmaker, and theatremaker. She is a senior editor at Autostraddle with a focus in film and television, sex and dating, and politics. Her writing can also be found at Letterboxd Journal, Cosmopolitan UK, Refinery29, Bright Wall/Dark Room, them, and Knock LA. She was a 2022 Outfest Screenwriting Lab Notable Writer and a 2023 Lambda Literary Screenwriting Fellow.
Animated Shorts
Adam Montgomery
As Senior Manager of Programming for the Sundance Film Festival, Adam has overseen the selection process since 2005, with over 15,000 submissions received annually. In addition to programming feature films and documentaries, Adam also programs the Festival’s Midnight section and lends his past experience in television development to Sundance’s Indie Episodic program. Prior to joining the Institute, he spent five years at Imagine Entertainment, where he worked on acclaimed series such as Arrested Development and 24. From 2014-2017, he served as Director of Programming for CIMMfest, a film and music festival based in Chicago.
Anna Li
Anna Li is a film programmer and visual artist born and raised in Hong Kong, now based in Los Angeles. She holds a BFA in Illustration from Rhode Island School of Design and worked in the animation industry for clients including Cartoon Network and Amazon, before pivoting to the film festival circuit. She has contributed to Outfest LA, San Francisco International Film Festival and guest curated for OutMuseum. Currently, she is a film programmer for AFI FEST and a programming coordinator for the Indian Film Festival of LA.
Phil Davis
Phil Davis is an animator, filmmaker, and musician residing in Baltimore. He was born and raised in rural New Hampshire where he learned to throw rocks, pop wheelies, collect insects, and draw cartoons. He holds a BFA in Film Art from Syracuse University and an MFA in Imaging and Digital Arts from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. His short animations and music videos have screened at numerous international festivals. Phil is a professor of animation and digital art in the department of Art + Design at Towson University. He is the founder and director of programming of the Sweaty Eyeballs Animation Festival in Baltimore.
The Edge Shorts
Elise Schierbeek
Elise Schierbeek is a writer, film programmer, and media archivist in Chicago. Day to day, Elise works as the Digital Collection and Media Manager at Video Data Bank, overseeing digital access, media production, and all things web. For many formative years, she worked in archives and distribution at Kartemquin Films and the Flaxman Library 16mm Film Study Collection. Elise has served as a programmer of Onion City Experimental Film Festival 2025, as a juror for the Milwaukee Film Festival, ExTV’s ExFest, and Kartemquin’s Hulu Accelerator Program, and as a producer of Peripheries Experimental Film & Video Festival 2024. Elise is a regular contributor to Cine-File, co-runs the itinerant film curatorial project Employees Only, and volunteers as a mentorship advisor for the Association of Moving Image Archivists. Elise is currently undertaking an MA in Visual and Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and holds a BFA in Film, Video, New Media and Animation from the same.
Chloe Lizotte
Chloe Lizotte is a Brooklyn-based writer and editor specializing in moving-image topics. She is the deputy editor of MUBI’s film journal Notebook and writes the Event Horizon column for Reverse Shot. She is a co-organizer of the Locarno Critics Academy, a summer workshop for emerging film critics, and has mentored writers at Film at Lincoln Center, the Museum of the Moving Image, and the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Previously, she was a contributing editor at Le Cinéma Club.
Erica Sheu
Erica Sheu is a Los Angeles-based Taiwanese filmmaker who makes experimental short films that explore synesthetic qualities of memory and celluloid film. Her art practice centers on building supportive network with skill-sharing and self-organized screenings by artists. Sheu had taught personal filmmaking workshops at the Academy Museum, and alternative analog filmmaking workshops with Mono No Aware, T.A.P.E Los Angeles, Transborder Film Foundation, and CalArts. Her films have been screened at Toronto International Film Festival, New York Film Festival, and International Film Festival Rotterdam, among others. Sheu holds an MFA in Film/Video from CalArts.
Graveyard Shift Shorts
Becca McKay
Becca McKay is the Programming Manager of Fantasia, a multidisciplinary artist, a film producer, and the co-creator of Pony Pit. She is based in Montreal and works directly with the Quebec, Canadian, and International genre film industry, where she has produced many projects, including a micro-cinema, film and art festivals, and curated shows. Her personal work revolves around reviving dilapidating physical media.
Jim Brunzell
Jim Brunzell III was born in the ’70s, played sports in the ’80s, went to school in the ’90s and started working on film festivals in the 2000’s. He joined the Twin Cities based music + film festival, Sound Unseen in 2008 as a programmer and became the festival director in 2012. During his tenure the festival has been named “One of the 25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World” (2016 & 2019) by Moviemaker Magazine and “One of the 20 Great First Time Moviemakers Festival” in 2022. In 2023, he joined the L.A. based film distributor, Dark Star Pictures as Director of Festivals and Theatrical. He has served on numerous film festival juries and is a big sports nerd, especially a die-hard Minnesota Vikings and Los Angeles Dodgers fan. He is also the father to a seven-year old tabby cat named Bruce.
Hannah Forman
Hannah Neurotica is an award-winning filmmaker, curator, writer, and intersectional feminist arts advocate with over 20 years of experience in the horror genre. In 2003 she founded Ax Wound: Gender & the Horror Genre, the first documented feminist horror publication, and the Ax Wound Film Festival (2015-2023), named one of the “30 Bloody Best Genre Fests in the World” by MovieMaker Magazine. Neurotica is the creator of Women in Horror Month, an international movement that inspired screenings, panels, and campaigns throughout the month of February for over a decade; she is now in the process of writing a memoir about the experience.
Tennessee Shorts
Joe Clemons
Joe Clemons is a media strategist and founder of The New Athenian, which supports arts and publishing projects in the South. With a background in storytelling and community-building Joe has spent over a decade working with creative professionals to amplify their voices and create meaningful connections. Joe was originally primed into the world of making magazines when he got his very first magazine subscription, Fangoria back in the 90s. While he is much more prone to easy-to-digest-fantasy these days, it was the love of film that kicked off his interests in media and that is still the oasis he dips into to fill up his creative cup.
Kayla Myers
Kayla Myers is a freelance film programmer, writer, and filmmaker. She’s previously been the Director of Programming at Indie Memphis, Series Producer for The DocYard in Cambridge, MA, and a Features Programmer for the San Francisco Documentary Festival. In addition, Kayla’s writing has appeared in Filmmaker Magazine, Them., and Vox Magazine. She is passionate about making film more accessible to those not living in large filmmaking centers, and has served on juries and grant review committees for organizations such as the IDA, ITVS, Princess Grace Foundation, Creative Capital, New Orleans Film Society’s Southern Producers Lab, Milwaukee Film Festival, RiverRun Film Festival, and Sidewalk Film Festival. Kayla is also a 2024 IDA Getting Real Fellow.
Andrés Pérez-Duarte
Andrés Pérez-Duarte is a Mexican storyteller based in Nashville whose work spans film, TV, games, and immersive media, often centering on queer and BIPOC stories. His projects have premiered at Cannes, Tribeca, and Sundance, earning top awards such as the AIS Lumiere, Tribeca Storyscapes, Mexico International Film Festival and the GLAAD List. He co-created the acclaimed interactive experiences Lili and Hero, and produced the BAFTA-nominated video game 1979 Revolution. A MACRO x The Black List winner and Cannes Writers Residency alum, Andrés is developing his feature debut The Last Supper and serves as co-chair of the WGA LGBTQ+ Salon.
Music Videos
TK McKamy
One of Nashville’s most acclaimed filmmakers, TK McKamy has built a powerhouse brand of storytelling and creative consulting that has driven over two billion streams and earned some of the industry’s highest honors – including multiple CMT Video of the Year Awards, two CMA Video of the Year Awards, ACM Awards, four TELLY Awards, WEBBY Awards, and over 50 other nominations. Known for his heartfelt approach, timeless cinematic style, and deeply soulful narratives, TK has become a trusted creative force behind visuals for legends and superstars alike – Reba, George Strait, Lainey Wilson, Tim McGraw, Morgan Wallen, Thomas Rhett, Luke Bryan, Florida Georgia Line, and many more. TK’s life story is as dynamic as his work – a former soccer player in Japan, winner of a reality TV directing competition, accidental midwife in Haiti, documentarian of remote Ethiopian tribes, commercial creative strategist, performer, intellect, husband, and father. A true polymath, TK is a master of capturing the human experience. Born in Stone Mountain, Georgia, and raised in small-town Kentucky, he remains a devoted student of rural America – a lifelong thesis that now lives and breathes through Country Mile.
Charlotte Kennett
Charlotte Kennett (Char) is an award-winning queer writer and director known for vibrant, boundary-pushing projects and curious, character-driven dark comedies. She broke out in Chicago’s comedy scene with Chapstick, an LGBTQ+ web series with over half a million views and coverage from outlets like VICE and WGN Radio, before moving into short-form content, brand work, and viral campaigns. Her debut short, Psycho Baby, has drawn more than 685,000 YouTube views, and her work spans music videos for Sony and Columbia Records to a queer space series in partnership with Twitch and NASA. Founder and EP of Mother Fever, a production company dedicated to diverse voices, Char has also assisted Chloe Domont (Fair Play) on A Place in Hell starring Michelle Williams and Daisy Edgar Jones. She is currently a Tribe Writing Fellow through Superspecial, created by Amy Aniobi (Insecure, Silicon Valley).
Luke Wiget
Luke Wiget is an award-winning writer, director, and producer who lives in Nashville by way of Brooklyn. He grew up in Santa Cruz, California, where he played in punk and indie rock bands and ran a small recording studio. Luke has worked professionally as a copywriter, podcast producer, branding consultant, and adjunct professor. He’s also driven forklifts, worked as a janitor, and today is a Senior Creative Director. He’s directed and produced web series, short documentaries, concert films, and podcasts for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Oh Boy Records, Contrary Western, WPLN, among others. Drawn to hi-fi productions in lo-fi locations, heart-forward stories, and finding poetry in unscripted, high-stakes moments, Luke’s work with artists from Dolly and Reba to Chris Shiflett, Amythyst Kiah, and Lola Kirke has given audiences an inside look into some of country and Americana’s most interesting characters and intriguing stories.
NextGen/Tennessee Student Shorts
Theresa Robinson
Theresa Robinson is a producer, editor, and film programmer based in Brooklyn, NY who specializes in content production for mission-driven organizations. She has dedicated over six years to championing emerging talent and diverse voices through her work with the National Film Festival for Talented Youth (NFFTY), where she currently serves as a Senior Programmer and the festival’s Program Coordinator. Her expertise also extends to supporting the short film screening committee for the Telluride Film Festival and the Austin Film Festival’s screenplay competition. Theresa is delighted to be on this year’s jury and support the Nashville Film Festival’s efforts to highlight the next generation of filmmakers.
Alex Heller
Alex Heller is a filmmaker from the south side of Chicago, who now works between Los Angeles, Chicago, and Norway. Her debut feature film The Year Between, an autobiographical comedy about bipolar disorder, has received praise from The New York Times, Variety, Roger Ebert, and NPR. The film stars J. Smith-Cameron and Steve Buscemi alongside Heller. In 2022, it won Best New Director’s Feature at the 2022 Nashville Film Festival and the Audience Award for Best U.S. Narrative Feature at the Chicago International Film Festival. Her recent short film Debaters premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, and was selected for this year’s Sundance International Short Film Tour. Alex is currently developing Debaters into a feature film.
Mariah Kramer
Mariah Kramer is a Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies in Cinema and Media Arts at Vanderbilt University, with a passion for storytelling that stretches far beyond the classroom. A co-founder of UpTilt Film Fest, Mariah is also a proud board
member, dedicated to supporting women’s voices in film. When she’s not teaching or giving back to the film community, she makes her own mark as an independent filmmaker. She’s been fortunate to have her work screened at festivals across the country, from Bend
Film Festival to Cucalorus Film Festival, with her short documentary This Is My Home Now even making its premiere on PBS and the World Channel.
Episodic Competition
Lauren Grimshaw Sloan
Lauren Grimshaw Sloan is the Director of Artist Development at SeriesFest, where she spearheads year-round professional development initiatives for emerging episodic content creators in addition to being a programmer for its annual Denver-based festival. Before joining SeriesFest, Lauren served as Deputy Film Commissioner at the Colorado Office of Film, Television & Media. In that capacity, she was instrumental in bringing major feature films like Furious 7, Cop Car, and Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight to Colorado by managing the state’s film incentive program. Prior to moving to Denver, Lauren was a Production Executive at Red Crown Productions in New York, working on independent feature films including What Maisie Knew (starring Julianne Moore and Alexander Skarsgård), Goats (featuring David Duchovny and Vera Farmiga), and The Romantics (with Katie Holmes and Josh Duhamel).
Drea Clark
Drea Clark has a long film festival history, currently as the Artistic Director of Geena Davis’s Bentonville Film Festival and as a member of the Sundance Film Festival programming team. She was previously Senior Programmer at LA Film Fest and at Slamdance, where she also served as Festival Director. Drea has produced four independent features: The Last Time You Had Fun (Mo Perkins, dir), Lake Los Angeles (Mike Ott, dir), No Light and No Land Anywhere (Amber Sealey, dir; Miranda July, EP), and 2024’s A New York Story (Fiona Robert, dir). She has served as the Nominations Producer for the Film Independent Spirit Awards since 2020. Additionally, Drea co-hosts Maximum Film!, a weekly movie podcast with comedian Kevin Avery and film critic Alonso Duralde, on the Maximum Fun network.
Sally Pitts
Sally’s passion for screenwriting sparked when she began creating short films to bring the characters she wanted to see to life. Her dark comedy series Rupture is currently in development with Balloon Entertainment and Studio21. In 2023 her comedy short film Wake Up won an audience choice award at DC Shorts for comedy, best micro-short at Atlanta Shortsfest, and best AZ short at Phoenix Film Festival. She also wrote Lunatic, a comedy horror feature with her husband, which was a second-rounder at Austin Film Festival in 2023 and 2024 as well as a Finalist at Nashville Film Festival. Sally focuses on writing female characters through a comedic lens.
NashFilm Widelitz Music In Film Award
NashFilm’s inaugural Widelitz Music In Film Award at the 56th Nashville Film Festival celebrates the power of music in film in honor of long-time NashFilm champion and songwriter/composer, Stacy Widelitz. This special honor recognizes outstanding music in film that elevates storytelling through unforgettable sounds, melodies and emotion. Selection spotlights the artists whose original songs bring heart, soul and resonance to the big screen.
Anastasia Brown
Anastasia Brown is a music supervisor, talent scout, music publisher, talent booker,
entertainment consultant, columnist and author. As a music supervisor, Anastasia Brown has
worked on major motion pictures, TV series, major motion soundtracks and original songs
which have received Oscar, Grammy, Emmy and Dove wins and nominations.
Some of her credits include the Footloose remake (Julianne Hough), August Rush (Robin
Williams), It’s Complicated (Meryl Streep), Taken (Steven Spielberg), The Darkest Hour, Billy
[Graham]; the Early Years, (Armie Hammer), ABC series, G.C.B. (Kristin Chenoweth), and the hit
series The Americans on FX (Keri Russell). Wearing her publishing hat and representing
artists/composers for film and TV, she has secured placements in current films such as Dream
House (Daniel Craig), In Time (Justin Timberlake), Cold Light of Day (Bruce Willis), Diary of a
Wimpy Kids 3 (Rachel Harris), American Girl (Jade Pettyjohn), The Lying Game, (Andy Buckley,
Adrian Pasdar), The Americans (Keri Russell, Mathew Rhys), ABC series Nashville and Lucky 7,
American Girl 2 (Jay Ashley), and Magic Mike (Matthew McConaughey, Channing Tatum), to
name a few.
Randall Foster
Randall Foster is Chief Creative Officer and General Manager of Symphonic’s Nashville office. The primary goals are continued content acquisitions and distribution deals, strategic partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, oversight of rights management at Symphonic and the creative growth of its music publishing wing, Symphonic Music Publishing Additionally, Foster oversees strategy and operations of Symphonic sister company Bodega Sync- a sync licensing agency. In addition to his work in music publishing Foster is an Adjunct Professor at Belmont University in the Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business and has also held posts in the record business, digital and physical distribution, and synchronization licensing. He started out in the industry as a top-call club DJ in both the Kansas City and Miami areas.
Jim Scherer
Jim Scherer is the founder and president of Whizbang, Inc., an entertainment company specializing in music licensing, artist management, and music publishing. Celebrating twenty-five years in business, Whizbang’s licensing division secures placements for its licensing clients in films, television, advertising, video games and other media, while its management division oversees the careers of Grammy® nominated, award-winning artists. Jim is a past president of the Nashville Film Festival.
For more information on the 56th Nashville Film Festival, visit the official festival webpage below:
