Board of Directors

Robyn Greene Arrington 

Robin is an award-winning content creator. Currently, she serves as Interim Head of Programming & Production at TV One & CLEO TV. Robyn is adept at developing both scripted and unscripted programming. Her noted projects are Hav Plenty, a rom-com indie film; Bobbi Kristina, an innovative biopic; and Two Sides of the Truth, an investigative crime & justice series that award-winning actress Viola Davis narrates and executive produces. Robyn has extensive experience shepherding network programming and production, producing award-winning films and series, and writing compelling content.

Alex Boden

Alex’s production company Pistachio Pictures launched in London in 1999. The goal has always been to work with the most exciting screenwriting and directing talent in the UK and international industry and to produce projects with a clear target audience, with a speciality in international co-productions, as exemplified by the Scandinavian noir trilogy Intrigo. Alex is currently producing the 2020 Netflix series Cursed, a re-imagining of the Arthurian legend from Frank Miller/Tom Wheeler, starring Katherine Langford, Gustaf Skarsgard, and Peter Mullan, alongside several international feature film projects. Previous credits include the ground-breaking Netflix series Sense8, directed by the Wachowskis, which filmed in 17 cities globally for which he was nominated for a Producers Guild of America Award in 2019; the grand-scale, fantasy epic Cloud Atlas starring Tom Hanks and Halle Berry; and the award-winning independent documentary Pulp, about the legendary British pop group, which opened the Sheffield Doc/Fest in 2014. Frequently awarded, these films have achieved 500+ festival selections to date. A drama and German honors graduate (Exeter, UK), Alex has attended training institutes that include the Binger Film Lab (Amsterdam), the Atelier (Ludwigsburg/Paris), and the inaugural Berlinale Talent Campus. He is Chair of the Production Guild of Great Britain and frequently provides targeted industry training for organizations including Stowe Story Labs, who he is proud to support by being on the Board of Directors, as well as supporting various other charities and organizations like the Woolf Institute. Alex is a voting member of the British Academy of Film and Television (BAFTA), the European Film Academy (EFA), and the Producers Guild of America (PGA).

Shari Lynette Carpenter

Shari Lynette Carpenter, an award winning writer/director, made her episodic television directing debut as part of Ava DuVernay’s groundbreaking all female directing staff on season six of OWN’s Queen Sugar. Her latest movie, Single Black Female, starring Amber Riley and Raven Goodwin, aired on Lifetime.

Other recent projects of Carpenter’s include the short docuseries #WhyWeCount Census 2020 Campaign and her film, Three’s Complicated, a romantic comedy that she both wrote and directed starring Shanola Hampton (Shameless) and Tyler Lepley (Harlem, P. Valley).

Carpenter says she came out of the womb with pencil in hand, a born storyteller and her film career all began with a fan letter written to the, then up and coming and now, legendary filmmaker Spike Lee. Lee gave Carpenter her first jobs in film and she eventually worked by his side as his script supervisor for more than a decade.

Carpenter wrote and directed the award winning short film Since Lisa (Winner at the Black Filmmaker Hall of Fame and Black American Cinema Society Festivals), which screened at more than two dozen film festivals, as well as several other shorts. Her feature directorial debut, Kali’s Vibe, a national and international festival favorite, garnered Jury, Audience and Vision awards. Her second feature, Building Girl, was the feature film debut of actress Gillian Jacobs (Community, Netflix’s Love). Carpenter’s PSA for Proctor and Gamble’s ‘My Black is Beautiful’ campaign was specially created to air during BET’S Black Girls Rock and to inspire and empower adolescent black girls. She directed the music video ‘We Are the Ones’ written by and featuring Emmy nominated performer Tituss Burgess (Unbreakable Kimmy Schidmt).

Carpenter is a member of the DGA and Film Fatales, a women filmmaker's advocacy, resource and networking organization focused on gender parity in the film industry. She is a Rockefeller grant nominee, a Gordon Parks Award nominee, a Sundance Writer’s Lab finalist, a Stowe Story Labs alumna and Stowe Rep at Tribeca Institute Film Festival, an ABC Writer Development Fellow, an ABC Daytime Directing Apprentice and an IFP Project Involve: NY Fellow She has served as jurist and reader for Stowe Story Labs and Sidewalk Screenplay Competition.

She has written articles for Creative Screenwriting, Filmmaker, Cineaste and Essence magazines and was the Panel Chair for the Cinematic Arts discipline of The National YoungArts Foundation, an organization that identifies and nurtures the most accomplished young artists in the visual, literary, design and performing arts and assists them at critical junctures in their educational and professional development.

She is repped by Sola Fasehun at The Distribution Collective.

Melody Cooper

Melody recently completed the Sundance Episodic Lab’s new Idea Lab, in which she developed a sci fi horror pilot. Her first TV work was as staff writer on the second season of Two Sentence Horror Stories, for which she wrote two episodes. Melody just completed work on the 22nd season of NBCUniversal’s Law & Order: SVU as story editor. She was a 2019 HBO Access Writing Fellow and a winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Screenplay at the Urbanworld Film Festival. Melody has been named one of the Top 25 Screenwriters to Watch in 2021 by the International Screenwriters Association. She was selected for AMC's Shudder Labs with her supernatural feature THE SOUND OF DARKNESS and is developing a horror comedy feature that she will direct for Fear Works. In addition to being an award-winning playwright, Melody also writes the comic book OMNI (Vol. 2) and her sci fi story "Igbo Landing" can be seen in the graphic novel anthology NOIR IS THE NEW BLACK. She is co-founder of Nyx Horror Collective, a group of women horror writers and directors. Currently, Melody is developing a scripted thriller podcast for Dear Media and writing a soon to be announced feature for Netflix.

Stacey A. Davis

Stacey Davis is an award-winning filmmaker and entertainment lawyer.  In various producer roles, her films include Jockey (Sundance 2021); Swan Song (SXSW 2021); Sword Of Trust (dir. Lynn Shelton, starring Marc Maron), Little Sister (SXSW named by “The New Yorker” as the best film of 2016); and 1985 (SXSW). 

As a filmmaker, Davis’ work highlights strong female characters with authentic voices. She’s written/directed four short films in the last five years, with three of them having collectively screened at over 50 festivals around the world, including in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia. Davis’ last production, A Hand To Hold, an animated short based on a poem written by Davis, premiered at the Brooklyn Film Festival and continues to screen on the festival circuit. Her most recent work, a documentary style narrative short, premiered at the 2022 Sidewalk Film Festival. Davis’ most recent script, the political drama, The Party, is in development.  Her screwball comedy Burying The Lead won Best Feature Screenplay at the Broad Humor Film Festival, and she has placed in the following competitions: Nicholl Fellowship; Page (Top 25 in Comedy) and Austin Film Festival. She has participated in Squaw Valley’s Screenwriting Conference, the Stowe Story Labs’ Narrative Lab as well as its Writer’s Retreat program. 

As an entertainment lawyer, she’s represented A24, XTR, Erwin Brothers Entertainment and others on a variety of projects, including The Inspection, Pearl, X, Summering (Sundance 2022) and Minari (Golden Globe Winner). Davis serves as the immediate past-President of the Board of Directors for The Sidewalk Film Center + Cinema and sits on the board of Stowe Story Labs.

Brian Leven

Brian Leven practices law in Stowe, Vermont, representing clients in the areas of land-use permitting, real estate transactions, business organization and compliance, municipal law, and government relations and strategy.  Previously, he served for four years as Vermont’s Deputy Secretary of State, twelve years as Legislative Counsel, and one year as the Executive Director of the State Ethics Commission. Brian grew up in Danville and St. Johnsbury, Vermont, and graduated from the University of Vermont (BA) and the University of Denver Sturm College of Law (JD).  He, his wife, and two children have lived in Stowe since 2004. Previous board memberships include the Stowe Development Review Board and Board of Directors of the Community Health Services of Lamoille Valley. Current board membership includes the Lamoille County Regional Planning Commission and Stowe Jazz Festival. Brian is the owner/manager of Golden Thread Farm, which grows and sells saffron. He regularly plays music at local venues, tries to sneak in as much backcountry skiing as possible, and loves to read. 

April Sánchez

Award-winning writer April M. Sánchez was born and raised in El Paso, TX, which borders Juarez, Mexico. Growing up in a bicultural city has inspired her media projects which reflect the beauty, wonder, and traditional elements of the border town Latino culture. April holds a bachelor’s degree in screenwriting and a Latino media studies certification from the University of Texas in Austin. Her scripts have made their way to the finalist round in many screenplay competitions including the Sundance Screenwriters Lab, the Screencraft Fellowship, Semi-finalist for the Academy Nicholl Fellowship, and the Austin Film Festival as a Second Rounder with 3 scripts. She has participated in the NALIP Screenwriting Lab, Stowe Story Lab, and the Athena Film Festival LA TV & Screenwriting Lab. Most recently, April's script Daughters Lost to the Desert won Best Feature Screenplay at the Sidewalk Film Festival. April is an active alum of Stowe Story Labs.

Paula Willoquet-Maricondi

Paula holds a PhD in comparative literature and film studies from Indiana University and an MA in French from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She was Dean of Communication and Creative Media at Champlain College from 2013-2021 and taught film studies at Marist College from 2001-2013, where she was also Chair of the Media Arts department. She is the editor of Framing the World: Explorations in Ecocriticism and Film, Pedro Almodóvar: Interviews, and Peter Greenaway's Postmodern/Poststructuralist Cinema. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the Vermont International Film Festival. Paula was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil.

Debi Yazbeck

Debi is from Frisco, Texas. She’s an award-winning screenwriter with Austin Film Festival, Roadmap Writers, Page Awards, Final Draft Big Break, Nicholl, Screencraft, ISA Fast Track,  BlueCat, Scriptapalooza and more. She’s an alumni of multiple Stowe programs and a Board Member of Stowe Story Labs and an alum of The Tracking Board’s Launch Pad and of The Academy of Filmwriting. Debi writes TV and features, usually based in the South. Her understanding of and love for the outdoors provides a backdrop to all her scripts, which are primarily female-driven. Death and the subsequent unhealthy reconciliations that affect her protagonists’ wants and needs are explored as the characters’ goals supersede moral decisions. 

Debi produced and directed her short script PRELUDE TO MURDER IN SOUTHEAST AUSTIN in March of 2020. In June of 2021, Debi directed the award winning TV pilot, SUNFLOWER CARE, written by Della Greenawalt and produced by Diana Richardson with a cast of sixteen including Bryna Weiss, Katheryn Taylor Smith, Tik-tok sensation Sebastian Tepote.

David Rocchio

David Rocchio is an attorney, writer, and Emmy-nominated filmmaker. David conceived and co-produced with James Rogan The Gun Shop, an Emmy-nominated  one-hour documentary. The Gun Shop premiered primetime on the UK Channel 4’s Cutting Edge series and then played worldwide. David’s award-winning short films have played internationally, including the Cannes Short Film Corner and Italy’s Capalbio International Short Film Festival (Best of Capalbio). His most recent short film Gary, Jr. (directed by Bertha Bay-Sa Pan) will start its festival run in 2023.

In addition to creating his own work, David founded and runs the nonprofit Stowe Story Labs, which is dedicated to helping top emerging screenwriters and filmmakers get work made and seen. Now in its tenth year, Stowe works with approximately 200 emerging talents each year at labs, retreats, and through mentoring programs.

David ski patrolled on the Mt. Mansfield Ski Patrol (Stowe, Vermont) for 22 years, and he remains an avid backcountry skier. He lives in Stowe, Vermont.