Annetta Marion
TROUBLE
Annetta Marion is a Primetime Emmy Award-winning, Hollywood Creative Alliance ASTRA Award-winning, Gracie Award-winning, Oscar short-listed, Peabody Award and BAFTA-nominated filmmaker, director and showrunner. She has worked with some of the biggest stars on major shows for Netflix, Amazon, Apple+, ESPN, OWN, MTV, VH1 and Investigation Discovery, including the acclaimed Oprah's Master Class
Annetta's Amazon Original Series First to the Finish, just won two 2026 Gracie Awards for Director (Sports Documentary) and Sports Program.
Annetta currently serves the Directors Guild of America (DGA) on the Eastern Directors Council and National Board (as an alternate).
Allegra Leguizamo
Flash Warning
Born and raised in New York City, Allegra Leguizamo is an actor, writer and director. Now based in Los Angeles, Allegra hopes to tell stories that explore the grey areas of the human experience while empowering her audiences through bold filmmaking. Most recently, Allegra has acted in feature films Ánima and People Not Places and short films including Lockdown, Scotty’s Vag, and All At Once. Flash Warning marks her directorial debut.
Natalie Lee Evans
Bagay La Nou Pòtê
Natalie Lee Evans is a Jersey born, Brooklyn based
filmmaker. Growing up between an Afro-Carribean household and a blended black American family, her stories focus on black people, perspectives, and experiences. A multi hyphenate creative, she
produces and directs Film, Documentary, TV, and Music Videos.
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Rachel Handler
Don't Take This The Wrong Way
Rachel Handler is a filmmaker and actor known for her stint as Peg Leg Doris on AMC’s “\Interview With the Vampire and her award-winning Slamdance films Committed and How Much Am I Worth? Other acting credits include, New Amsterdam, Goliath, Law & Order: SVU, NCIS: New Orleans, Best Foot Forward, Bull, and The Upside.
Handler became an amputee after a tragic car accident in 2012. She believes deeply in the power of stories to create social change and is passionate about healthcare and human rights, particularly within the disabled community. Her awards as a director/writer/producer include the AT&T Underrepresented Filmmaker Award, Best Writer and Best Actor in the Disability Film Challenge, and Best International Film in Focus on Ability.
Lucia Bellini
Together Forever At Last
Lucia Bellini, aka Lu, is a filmmaker and theater artist originally from Italy, based in Brooklyn, NY. She lives with her husband, Alex Haney—filmmaker extraordinaire—and their two cats—nappers extraordinaires. On a mission to celebrate stories about imperfection, the absurdity of choice, and the humor in heartbreak, after over a decade of reflective directing, Lu is running around festivals with Together Forever at Last, her first short film as both writer and director. Her award-winning short screenplay Crispy Pleasure is also currently making its way through festivals and competitions as she works to secure funding for production. www.luciabellini.com
Lorrain Portman
Unlikely Mermaid
Lorraine Portman is an award winning Filmmaker, Playwright, and Screenwriter. Portman taught Playwriting and Screenwriting for ten years at Flagler College in Saint Augustine, Florida. She holds a B.A. in Theater from Smith College and M.F.A. in Film from Florida State University. Portman also attended the National Theater Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. Lorraine has made eight narrative short films and a feature. Unlikely Mermaid is her first documentary. Portman also writes and directs for theater. Portman has written a stack of screenplays, several have been optioned. Lorraine is a Screenplay Development Consultant for LA based Samaco Films.
Abigail Espinal
Queer Study
Abigail Espinal is an award-winning Latin, queer, transgender actress, writer, and filmmaker with several years of film, theatre, television, and commercial experience, from student, short, and feature films to off-Broadway plays and festivals. Her skills range from specialized acting (method acting, improvisation, Shakespeare, stage combat, physical comedy, intimacy, children's theatre, and more), crew work (cinematography, assistant camera, grip work, gaffing, directing, writing), and performing arts instruction. She lives in New Jersey and hopes to never stop telling stories!
Melissa Kirboll
$13
Melissa Skirboll is a director, writer, and in $13 an actor, drawn to character-driven stories. Her films have screened at festivals internationally, including multiple selections at GCB: she's honored to return for a fourth time with $13 . $13 also marks a return of frequent collaborator Penny Jackson (Greetings from Sarajevo). The two have worked together on stage and film projects that have touched audiences around the world.
Marta Renzi
Bronx Magic & Wildwood
Marta Renzi is an independent filmmaker and choreographer whose work bridges dance and film in deeply human, community-centered narratives. She has made more than 75 dances for her Project Company, including her BESSIE-award-winning Vital Signs. Her site-specific pieces in locations such as the Guggenheim Museum, Union Station and the Staten Island Ferry, led naturally to her work in video and film. Since 2005, she has directed, edited and produced over 30 short films and documentaries, often working with non-professional performers in real-world settings.
Kathryn O'Kane
Subtext
Kathryn O'Kane is a director and producer of documentary television and advertising. Her work in entertainment ranges from the James Beard award-winning Salt Fat Acid Heat for Netflix to the Emmy®-nominated series The World According to Jeff Goldblum for National Geographic and Iconoclasts for the Sundance Channel. With a strong belief that positive impact comes from unexpected connections, Kathryn seeks to explore society and culture through art and storytelling.
Melissa Mars
The Sign
Melissa Mars is an award-winning filmmaker, screenwriter, actress, and singer-songwriter based in New York. Born in France with Algerian heritage, she rose to prominence through a pop career with Universal Music, releasing three albums and starring in the hit musical Mozart the Rock Opera.
As a writer-director, her work includes the award-winning shorts The Last Touch, The Sign, and the feature-in-development My Ancestors’ Song, all acclaimed for their powerful, thought-provoking storytelling.
Imeen Fitri
Cost of Convenience
Imeen Fitri is an engineering student with a love for film and photography. She’s always had an eye for capturing moments, whether through a camera lens or in the editing room. From school events to holiday gigs, she finds every opportunity to refine her craft. This film was made by female high school students in the Eco Club at the Sherborne Senior school in Doha, Qatar.
Kelsey Tarantino
Awake
Kelsey Tarantino is an actor, singer, and director based in Los Angeles, CA. With over a decade of experience directing youth theater, she has built her career around nurturing emerging talent and bringing imaginative, heartfelt stories to life on stage. Awake marks her directorial debut in film—an exciting next chapter in her creative journey. Kelsey holds a BFA in Theater from Carnegie Mellon University.
Mary Jo Clate
Cahill's Lanes
Marco Jo Clate (writer/director) writes about the unrequited love of family. She adapted Cahill’s Lanes from a play that she wrote and developed at Ensemble Studio Theatre, and it is her directing debut. Her script, Searching for Al Pacino, which explores similar themes of family dysfunction with a dash of fantasy, was a second-rounder at last year’s Austin Film Festival. Marco Jo started her career in acting, after graduating from NYU Tisch Drama, and subsequently turned to writing to make the work that centered women in their own stories. She is a member of The Dramatist Guild and NYWIFT.
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Tortor Smith
Stumbling Blocks
Tortor is an emerging filmmaker studying at the National Film and Television School in the UK. Their debut short, Hot Mess (2024), created at Aardman Academy, has collected 28 awards (and counting). Their latest film, Stumbling Blocks, is a dialogue-free stop-motion piece made almost entirely solo in just six months—an ambitious sprint in a notoriously meticulous medium. Drawn to playful storytelling and expressive animation, Tortor is also building a growing audience through their YouTube channel, Animatortor, while developing their next short film.
Tova Hopemark
Young Hot Divorcée
Tova Hopemark (she/her) is a New York actor with a strong connection to her Jewish roots. She loves telling stories that embody the Yiddish tradition of “laughter through tears,” or using humor to process trauma and heal shame.
Tova is drawn to stories about motherhood, female friendship, interracial intimacies, and women who rise to power or fall from grace.
She brings warmth, intelligence, and depth to every role.
Tova lives with her husband — who’s a cellist (!) — and their goofy redheaded toddler.
Tinamarie Ivey
Yas King!
Tinamarie Ivey is a documentarian and theatre artist whose work examines performance, identity, and community through an interdisciplinary lens. Her films center artists and underrepresented communities, foregrounding lived experience as a form of knowledge. Rooted in socially engaged practice, her approach blends ethnographic inquiry with creative storytelling to capture moments of transformation, resilience, and collaboration. Her current documentary project, Yas King!, explores the evolving landscape of drag king performance across the United States and Canada. Ivey’s work reflects a commitment to amplifying voices often overlooked, positioning documentary as both an artistic medium and a site of cultural dialogue.
Steph Prizhitomsky
Little Lamb
Steph Prizhitomsky is a director/screenwriter studying film at NYU. Her work has been featured at the Museum of the Moving Image’s Marvels of Media, has won best of fest and audience choice at the Academy Art Museum, and has been awarded in screenwriting competitions through Heavy Shovel Production’s Build A Short and 1019 Productions’ audience choice. Onstage, she is a winner of the 2024 Young Playwrights Festival.
Christie Nicholls
Long Island Life Hacks
Christie Nicholls is a Los Angeles based comedian, actor, writer, and director known for her sharp, character driven humor. She is the co-creator of Long Island Life Hacks, a comedy series following two Long Islanders navigating everyday problems with wildly misguided solutions. The five episode series highlights her signature blend of character work and irreverent storytelling. She also created and stars in In Hot Water, a sketch series that expanded from a short and is now streaming on YouTube TV, Roku, Fawesome, and other platforms, with a second season in pre production. Nicholls holds a PhD from UCLA focused on women’s comedic performance, which she uses responsibly.
Jessica Sherr
A Nice Place to Visit
Jessica Sherr is a New York based actress, writer, and producer known for her roles on Claws, Blue Bloods, Flight of the Conchords, and Cloak and Dagger. She is the writer and performer of Bette Davis Ain’t for Sissies, an internationally acclaimed solo show she has performed over 485 times worldwide. She produced the award winning short Wicked Image, recipient of multiple Best Comedy awards. Most recently, she appeared as Charlie in A Nice Place to Visit. She will next be seen in the indie film Off Center and recently voiced a role in A Different Sky, a Columbia University film.
Kelsey Siepser
In Her Ear
Kelsey is a LA based artist whose work aims to continue the dialogue around the stories we tell ourselves to survive and what narratives open up the potential to thrive.They appear in award winning indie features: Public Hearing, West of Her, The American Side and The White Orchid. Kelsey was a series regular on a TNT pilot inspired by the doc Cocaine Cowboys opposite Michael Stahl David and Oscar Jaenada. They guest starred in Seal Team on CBS. They starred in and produced the TV mini-series Guess I'm A Ghost. Kelsey created a solo performance called Antennae which premiered as part of Son of Semele’s Cyberfest in 2020, screened at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2022 and will be featured digitally through C Arts in the UK in their global festival run. Kelsey holds an MFA from USC and is a professor at Emerson College LA. They have one two year old and two Belgian Malinois.