Mentors
Here is a partial list of Stowe Story Lab mentors. Please keep in mind, given the ever-shifting sands of schedules and obligations, mentors slated for a particular program may need to be replaced with little or no notice.
“I have loved learning about Stowe’s programs and getting to know the people at Stowe,” said Bertha Bay-Sa Pan, commenting on the experience of mentoring with Stowe. “It’s very telling how the stories Stowe selects are always diverse in genre, style, and content, but consistent in heart, decency, and humanity—from the stories to the storytellers. It’s unique for a lab of this caliber to be so thoughtful in curating not just the projects but the people behind them. After every program, I always feel so inspired by the participants’ enthusiasm, positivity, generosity, and graciousness, and a bit more hopeful for our broken world.”
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. She is also a joy to work with and serves on the Stowe Story Labs Board of Directors.
Eszter Angyalosy
Eszter is a Hungarian screenwriter, story editor, and writing tutor working with Hungarian and international talents alike. She spent seven years as Editor-in-Chief at a Hungarian publishing house, before joining HBO Hungary as Development Editor in 2015. In the same year, her first novel, Wonderland, was released. Until 2018, she worked on the development of a dozen HBO original series in a wide variety of genres. That year, she left the company to pursue her own writing career. Eszter is one of the founding members of the international TV development company Joyrider. In addition to mentoring with Stowe, she regularly collaborates with Torino FilmLab (Italy), with ifs International Film School (Germany), and with the Hungarian Film Institute.
Ciara Appelbe
With over 25 years of experience in film and television production, Ciara Appelbe began her career as an Assistant Director on the set of shows like the BBC's Ballykissangel and spent 10 years in production office roles before moving to executive production. Since 2006 Ciara has worked for World 2000 Entertainment, the company responsible for The Tudors (Showtime) and Vikings (MGM). Ciara now works as part of the development team on an exciting slate of projects for O’Sullivan Productions.
Ciara graduated from University College Cork with an Honours degree in Psychology and Geography. To complement her film and TV work, Ciara acquired a Certificate in Counselling Skills and a Graduate Diploma in Integrative & Humanistic Psychotherapy. Combining a wealth of industry experience with grounding in Psychology and Psychotherapy, Ciara is uniquely placed to produce many of the projects dealing with important and sensitive issues addressed in the various, features, TV series and documentaries on our development slate.
O’Sullivan Productions have just released the comedy feature film Deadly Cuts. Following its Ireland release, the film ranked in third place on its opening weekend behind No Time To Die and The Addams Family 2. The movie was the highest-grossing comedy by an Irish female director in 20 years. The picture also opened in the top ten at the UK box office and went to No1 when released on Irish Netflix. Deadly Cuts is set to go global after being sold to distributors in the US, Australia, Spain, and South Africa.
The team behind O’Sullivan Productions also released the TV series Vikings: Valhalla for Netflix in February 2022
Marcela Davison Avilés
Marcela Davison Avilés is a prominent American essayist, independent producer/writer, attorney, and Latino cultural dramaturg and advisor. She is a contributing writer for the Journal of Alta California, The Mercury News and a book reviewer for National Public Radio. Her guest columns and features have been published by CNN.com, the San Francisco Chronicle, HipLatina.com, ModernLatina.com, the American Banker and Harvard University’s Revista Magazine. Avilés served as Lead Cultural Consultant for Disney/Pixar’s COCO, and was attached as series consultant on all episodes of ELENA OF AVALOR, and HANDY MANNY. Currently she is attached to two upcoming Hollywood projects. She is a partner and Managing Director of TomKat MeDiA with Kat Taylor where she is developing a slate of projects for film, TV and podcasting, and Founder of a cultural consulting practice, The Chapultepec Group, LLC. In addition to her work on COCO, Avilés’ filmography includes 54 credited television episodes and specials.
Conor Barry
Conor Barry is an Irish producer working in Dublin-based Savage Productions.
Under Screen Ireland’s POV scheme, he exec produced Antonia Campbell Hughes directorial debut – IT IS IN US ALL with Cosmo Jarvis (Calm with Horses, Lady Macbeth) which screened at SXSW 2022, and won the Grand Jury Prize. He produced Brendan Muldowney’s latest horror – THE CELLAR, with Elisha Cuthbert (The Girl Next Door), which is being sold by Epic, and which also screened at SXSW 2022.
Previously, he produced Lee Cronin’s debut feature THE HOLE IN THE GROUND which screened at Sundance 2019, and was distributed by A24. As coproducer, Sacha Polack’s DIRTY GOD, was also selected at Sundance 2019. He also produced PILGRIMAGE (Brendan Muldowney) featuring Tom Holland (Spiderman – Far from Home), Richard Armitage (The Hobbit) and Jon Bernthal (The Punisher).
Emily Best
Emily is the founder and CEO of Seed&Spark, an entertainment platform built to increase diversity and inclusion for filmmakers and audiences. Seed&Spark’s curated streaming platform is fed by its crowdfunding platform, which has the highest campaign success rate in the world. In 2011, she produced the feature film Like the Water, starring Caitlin FitzGerald (Masters of Sex, UnREAL). Since then, she has served as executive producer on a host of film and virtual reality projects that have played at festivals from Sundance to SXSW to Tribeca and beyond. Most recently, she co-created and co-directed the web series F*ck Yes!, which Refinery 29 called, "The sex education you wish you had in high school." Emily was named a 2013 Indiewire Influencer, a 2014 New York Woman of Influence, was included on the 2015 Upstart 100 list, and graduated from the 2016 class of Techstars Boston. She has raised millions of dollars in traditional funding, equity crowdfunding, and rewards-based crowdfunding, and contributed to over 300 crowdfunding campaigns to date.
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.
Scott Collette
Scott Collette is a screenwriter with a background in pre-sales film financing and international distribution. While in that field, he worked as executive director of sales and distribution for Mark Damon’s Foresight Unlimited, where he helped to finance films such as 2 Guns, Lone Survivor, And So It Goes, Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning, and Hurricane Heist. In 2016, Scott left the world of film festivals and sales markets to pursue a passion for storytelling. Since then, he's been developing unique science fiction, horror, and noir projects with various production companies while also writing various thrillers on assignment for Lifetime, including Nightmare Tenant, Killer Vacation, Seduced by My Neighbor, Stalked By My Husband's Ex, Killer Grades, What Lies Behind Closed Doors, and the upcoming Deadly Destination, which is currently in production. Fascinated with history, Scott also founded and operates the very popular Forgotten Los Angeles account on Instagram.
Melody Cooper
A 2021 Sundance Episodic Lab Fellow and winner of an Adobe Women at Sundance fellowship, Melody is writing the feature adaptation of the best-seller fantasy novel BEASTS OF PREY for Netflix. She also has a deal to develop an original genre TV series. Currently a co-producer on the Starz show Power Book IV: Force (aka “The Tommy show”), Melody started out as a staff writer on CW's Two Sentence Horror Stories while still in the 2019 HBO Access Writing Program. (One of her two episodes, “Ibeji” won a Silver Telly) She then joined the 22nd season of Law & Order: SVU. Winner of the 2018 Grand Jury Prize for Best Screenplay at the Urbanworld Film Festival, Melody has developed her work in several labs, including Shudder Labs, NY Stage and Film, The Writers Lab, and Stowe Story Labs (as a Tangerine Entertainment Fellow). An award-winning playwright, her plays have been produced in NYC. Melody also writes comic books, including OMNI (Vol. 2), the scifi story "Igbo Landing" in the anthology NOIR IS THE NEW BLACK, and a story in DC’s Milestones of History about Bessie Coleman and Mae Jemison. She recently joined Stowe Story Labs as a board member and is co-founder of Nyx Horror Collective (which has a short film program “13 Minutes of Horror” on Shudder) and is partnering with Stowe to offer a writing fellowship to a woman horror writer age 40 and over.
Chris Deckard
Prior to co-founding the management/production company Fictional Entity in early 2017, Chris Deckard spent over seven years working with and representing talent at the major agencies ICM Partners and WME. Chris graduated from Cornell University (2005) and earned his J.D. from Notre Dame Law School (2009). Fictional Entity’s clients have been named to The Black List, The Hit List, The Young & Hungry List, The Blood List and been lauded by the PAGE Awards, the International Emmys, and The GLAAD Awards. Clients have also earned nominations and placements from The Heath Ledger Scholarship, The Academy Nicholl Screenwriting Awards, the AWG, ADG, SPA, and AACTA. Clients have written, directed, starred, and produced in numerous formats, including features, TV, virtual reality, and podcasts, independently and for companies like Netflix, Lucasfilm, NBCUniversal, Legendary, Marvel, Fremantle, SyFy, the CW, Warner Bros., Amazon, Blumhouse, Hulu, XYZ, The BBC, Comedy Central, the ABC Australia, Foxtel, TruTV, Super Deluxe, Hallmark, Lifetime, CBS, Facebook, E!, and MSNBC. Recently, several of Chris’ clients have had produced films, including an XYZ Films release, an upcoming independent release, and a Netflix film slated for a 2023 release. Chris and his business parter are also Executive Producers on a scripted series project alongside two writing EPs from New Amsterdam, which sold to Universal Television last year.
Ali Doyle
Ali is the Head of Development - Features at Wild Atlantic Pictures. Wild Atlantic Pictures is one of Ireland’s leading creative content production companies founded by Macdara Kelleher, John Keville and Eoin Egan.
Recently produced titles include the feature films Gretel & Hansel for MGM Orion, directed by Osgood Perkins, The Green Knight with Dev Patel and Alicia Vikander for A24, directed by David Lowery; The Hole In The Ground, directed by Lee Cronin released by A24 and Black 47 the highest grossing Irish film in that last 5 years. Upcoming projects currently in post-production include the Evil Dead Rise, the latest installment in the Evil Dead franchise, directed by Lee Cronin, The Silence of Mercy, Season 2 of TV series Foundation, which is produced for Apple TV , and Fate which is produced for Netflix. Currently in pre-production is Joshua Oppenheimer's THE END, starring Tilda Swinton.
Ali started her film career working on local Irish productions for a number of years before moving to Los Angeles and working as Sales Coordinator and
Development Executive at International Sales and Production company Voltage Pictures in 2014. There she worked with the producers, Sales and Development team on the slate of projects including THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN, EXTREMELY WICKED AND SHOCKINGLY VILE, I FEEL PRETTY and WIND RIVER. In 2017 she joined Fastnet Films as Development and Production Executive post Cannes 2017, and has been working here through their transition to WILD ATLANTIC PICTURES, across projects such as BLACK’47, THE GREEN KNIGHT, THE HOLE IN THE GROUND, GRETEL & HANSEL, WINX and FOUNDATION.
Currently she is leading the WAP development slate as Head of Development of Features. Her first feature as Producer will be on Kate Dolan’s horror feature SILENT CALLER.
She also works closely with Savage Productions and is Producer on SI funded feature THE GOAT CATCHER by Kelly Warburton, currently in development, as well Wildcard Distribution where she advises on potential acquisitions for both Theatrical and VOD Irish rights deals.
Jonathan Duffy
Jonathan Duffy is a creative producer & co-founder of Ten Acre Films.
Jonathan is in pre-production on a feature comedy starring Meg Ryan & David Duchovny titled What Happens Later. He also has three feature films and a short film in post: Blueback; The Senior; Stranger With A Camera; Womb
Jonathan produced numerous feature films which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival including: Light From Light; Sorry To Bother You (2019 Independent Spirit Award winner for Best First Feature); The Long Dumb Road; Hellion; Beaver Trilogy Part Iv; Pit Stop (nominated for the 2014 Independent Spirit Awards’ John Cassavetes Award). Sundance short film premieres include: The Send-Off and Don’t Be A Hero.
He produced the award winning Mark, Mary & Some Other People and No Future, which premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival as well as the following films that premiered at SXSW: I Used To Go Here; 6 Years; 1985; and the jury award-winning films The Suplex Duplex Complex (created for Adult Swim) and A Bad Idea Gone Wrong.
Jonathan executive produced The Sound Of Silence and Before You Know It, both of which premiered at Sundance 2019. He also executive produced the short film Rules For Werewolves (Toronto IFF 2020) and the award-winning film Buoyancy which premiered at Berlin in 2019.
Jonathan is a mentor for Stowe Story Labs. He was also a fellow in the following programs: 2018 Rotterdam Producing Lab, 2016 Cannes Producers Network, The 2015 Sundance Producing Summit, 2015 Catalyst Program, and SFFILM’s inaugural Producers Fellowship.
Matt Dy
Matt Dy attended the University of Texas at Austin and received a Bachelor of Science in Radio/TV/Film with a focus on screenwriting and producing. He joined Adam Kolbrenner's Lit Entertainment Group as a literary manager in 2019. Previously, he worked at Austin Film Festival (AFF) since 2008 where he served as the Director of Script Competitions and facilitated the evaluation of thousands of annual script submissions. Through AFF, he helped shepherd the careers of countless writers and is thrilled to continue championing writers as a literary manager.
Bob Edwards
A graduate of Stanford University’s MA program in documentary film, Robert Edwards has been a working screenwriter for 21 years. His first script, the political satire “Land of the Blind,” won a Nicholl Fellowship from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2001 and became his directorial debut, starring Ralph Fiennes and Donald Sutherland. It had its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2006, its US premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, and its UK premiere as the Opening Night Gala Film of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival in London. His most writing and directing effort was “When I Live My Life Over Again” (aka “One More Time”) starring Christopher Walken and Amber Heard, which premiered at Tribeca in 2015. Over the course of his career Edwards has written for studios including Warners, Fox, Universal, Sony, and HBO, and for directors including Bennett Miller, Mike Newell, Mark Romanek, Neil Labute, and Antoine Fuqua. Currently he is writing “The Beirut Spy,” about Kim Philby, for director Susanne Bier, and “The Goldsboro Incident” for director Gavin Hood.
Zeke Farrow
Zeke Farrow co-wrote and co-produced and won The Peabody Award for the film Best Kept Secret. He wrote, directed, and or produced films that have played over 300 film festivals, including Sundance, Telluride, Slamdance, SXSW, Rooftop Films, Austin Film Fest, Atlanta Film Fest, LA Film Fest, and BAM. His films have played theatrically and on HBO, PBS, Sundance Channel, IFC, Channel 4, and somewhere in Israel. Zeke was nominated for a WGA Documentary Screenplay Award for his work on the film 21 Below.
Films: Before the Sun Explodes (SXSW, Gravitas), Best Kept Secret (Peabody Award, Gotham Award Nomination, POV/PBS, Sundance Grant, Skywalker Grant), 21 Below (WGA Award Nomination, Silverdocs, Channel 4), Gayby (Hulu, Indie Spirit Award Nomination), Woman in Burka (Spirit of Slamdance Award), Megan’s Shift (Santa Barbara FF, Atlanta FF, Austin FF, IFF Boston), Ride or Die (Tribeca Presents), POSSESSIONS (Atlanta FF, Palm Springs ShortFest, The Overlook Film Festival), He Left Instructions, Home Movie, They Come Home to Die, and Slo-mo (Sundance, HBO, Sundance Channel).
Tina Gharavi
Born in Tehran, Tina Gharavi is a BAFTA-nominated, award-winning TV and film showrunner and director initially trained as a painter in the US, later studying cinema in France. Her debut feature, I Am Nasrine, a coming-of-age story of two teenage Iranian refugees, was nominated for a BAFTA in 2013. The film received 4 stars from Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian calling it, “A valuable debut, shot with a fluent kind of poetry,” while Deborah Ross in the Spectator described it as “affectionate, humane, tender and, ultimately, optimistic.” Gharavi has made films from unique perspectives on subjects as diverse as Muhammad Ali, teenage sexuality, Yemeni-British sailors, The Lackawanna 6, death row exonerees, refugees, and lighthouses. Her first short, Closer, a 35mm film was an official selection at Sundance where Programmer Shari Frilot noted that “it takes documentary to the next level.” Gharavi’s next major production chronicled her return to her mother’s house in Iran, 23 years after the Islamic Revolution. The resulting film, Mother/Country, was broadcast at prime time on Channel 4 in the UK where the national press gave it top billing. Further works such as The King of South Shields and People Like Us deal with “the outsider” and her work often explores the issues of strategies of power and “who speaks for whom.” Since leaving Iran in 1979, she has been a true nomad. Carrying no less than 4 passports, Gharavi currently resides in Northern England and LA where she is working on her follow-up feature, The Good Iranian, with the BFI and Film 4—a gangster tale set in Europe and Iran—and a feature documentary about tribalism and othering, Tribalism Is Killing Us (voice over from Idris Elba). She recently worked as Second Unit Director on the high-end drama, The Tunnel, the UK version of The Bridge, and is now engaged on several TV directing projects. Currently, she is showrunning a returning episodic TV series, Refurinn (The Fox), an Icelandic noir, together with Hilary Bevan Jones/Endor Productions (Cracker, Red Dwarf, Deep State) and Red Arrow. Gharavi was elected into the BAFTA Academy in 2017 and is represented by Roxana Adle at Independent Talent in the UK and Noah Jones at Gersh in Los Angeles.
Darrien Michele Gipson
Darrien Michele Gipson is the Executive Director of SAGindie. Darrien leads a team that is responsible for independent filmmaker outreach and specializes in teaching low-budget production, focusing on the process for hiring professional actors via SAG-AFTRA’s low-budget contracts. She is a frequent moderator and speaker on panels and production workshops, negotiates sponsorship agreements with film festivals around the country, spearheads the annual national advertising campaigns, oversees SAGindie.org and throws several epic filmmaker parties.
Lauren Haber
Lauren Haber has overseen the production of critically-acclaimed, award-winning films including Robert Eggers' The Witch, Josh Marston's Complete Unknown, Matt Ross's Frank & Lola, Ira Sachs' Love is Strange, Bob Edwards' When I Live My Life Over Again, David Lowery's Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, Shaul Schwarz's Narco Cultura, Julia Loktev's The Loneliest Planet. Haber spent five years as a Local 600 camera assistant, working on feature films, docs, television shows, music videos, and commercials around the world. She is based in Brooklyn, NY, and the proud parent of 2 dogs, 2 cats, and a brand new baby boy.
Jenny Halper
Jenny Halper is EVP, Head of Creative at Maven Screen Media, where her credits include The Kindergarten Teacher, Driveways, American Honey, Skin, A Mouthful Of Air, and the pandemic anthology With/In. As a screenwriter her scripts have placed three times on the Black List, on the Athena List, received grants from Film Independent and the Tribeca Film Institute, and been selected for New York Stage and Film’s Workshop (in association with Powerhouse Theater). She is currently developing an anthology series with Freida Pinto and Emily Verellen Strom's Freebird Films and Forest Whitaker and Nina Yang Bongiovi's Significant Productions, a limited series with Michael Dinner's Rooney McP Productions, and adapting a non-fiction book for Social Construct Films (The Mauritanian). As a fiction writer, she is an Our Stories Emerging Writer Award winner and Pushcart Prize nominee, with stories appearing in places including The Chicago Tribune, PANK, Joyland, and the Southeast Review, and her story collection has been a finalist for the St. Lawrence Book Prize and the Hudson Prize. A graduate of Northwestern University and Emerson College, and a founding member of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists, she is represented by Untitled Entertainment and CAA.
Amy Hobby
Academy Award® Nominee and a Member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Amy has over 20 years of experience as an award-winning feature film and television producer. With ten Sundance premieres to her credit (including Secretary, Nadja, Hamlet), Amy more recently began producing high-profile documentary films, which include Steven Soderbergh’s And Everything Is Going Fine about monologist Spalding Gray; Let's Talk About Sex, a large-scale educational documentary on sex education in America filming in 10 cities over 2 years; Academy Award® nominated director Liz Garbus’ HBO documentary about Marilyn Monroe called Love, Marilyn; and more recently Garbus’ documentary about the incomparable Nina Simone, What Happened, Miss Simone?, which premiered at Sundance on opening night, was nominated for an Academy Award®, won a Peabody Award, and was nominated for 6 Emmy Awards. Amy and her business partner Creative Producer Anne Hubbell run their female-driven production company, Tangerine Entertainment, whose vision is to produce character-based features directed by women.
Michael Holden
Michael is a London-based writer. His early screenwriting work included several uncredited rewrites for Guy Ritchie, including multiple drafts of the blockbuster Sherlock Holmes for Joel Silver and Warner Bros., and the draft which greenlit the film. Michael was one of the numerous top writers hired by Disney to write a draft of Through the Looking Glass, the sequel to the billion-dollar grossing Alice in Wonderland. He is presently setting up a TV series in the UK. Michael has been a columnist and contributor to The Guardian since the 1990s, and his book based on columns from the Guardian, All Ears, was published in 2007. He works across several screenwriting courses at the London Film Academy.
Jay Van Hoy
Lars Knudsen and Jay Van Hoy established Parts & Labor, a production company dedicated to director-driven, collaborative filmmaking in 2004. Parts & Labor has produced 20 films that have brought emerging auteur filmmakers into the limelight. In 2013, the producers premiered three films in Competition at Sundance: David Lowery’s Ain't Them Bodies Saints, starring Rooney Mara, Casey Affleck and Ben Foster; photojournalist Shaul Schwarz’s documentary Narco Cultura; and Andrew Dosunmu’s second feature Mother of George. Narco Cultura also premiered internationally at the Berlin Film Festival in February, and Ain't Them Bodies Saints had its international premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. All three films will be released theatrically around the world this fall. In 2008, they signed a First Look/Development deal with Scott Rudin, and now have an overhead deal with renowned German international sales agency K5. In 2014, Parts and Labor produced and executive produced Ira Sach’s Love is Strange, Zachary Wigon’s The Heart Machine, and Adam Wrapp’s Loitering with Intent. Learn more about Jay Van Hoy
Anne Hubbell
Anne Hubbell is a respected film industry veteran with 25+ years of extensive corporate, not-for-profit and production experience. She is co-founder of Tangerine Entertainment, a production company and community builder dedicated to working exclusively with women creators. Anne is also Executive Director of the Provincetown Film Society which presents the Provincetown International Film Festival, operates the Waters Edge Cinema showing first run studio and arthouse movies year-round, and offers artist fellowships and other programming. As Vice President of Motion Picture at Kodak, she negotiates contracts and consults on studio and independent movies, episodic content, commercials and music videos, and is a liaison to the global film community at large. Her feature producing credits include MODERN PERSUASION (2020), THE SECOND (2018), KEEP THE CHANGE (2017), THE LAST LAUGH (2016), PAINT IT BLACK (2016), GAYBY (2012) and LIPSTICK & DYNAMITE (2004). Anne has served on the boards of New York Women in Film & Television, the New York Production Alliance and Rooftop Films. She is a member of the Producer’s Guild of America.
Mike Jones
Mike has been a working screenwriter for over 20 years. At Pixar, Jones works with the studio’s directors, artists, editors, and other writers on every aspect of the story. He was a co-writer on the studio's feature films Soul and Luca. Born and raised in South Texas, Jones graduated from NYU. He went on to write scripts for Columbia, MGM, Warner Bros, HBO, and Fox, among others. His original script, In the Event of a Moon Disaster, was featured on the Black List. Jones also wrote the English adaptations of Studio Ghibli's Oscar-nominated films The Wind Rises and The Tale of Princess Kaguya. Jones is a MacDowell Colony fellow, one of Filmmaker Magazine's 25 New Faces of Independent Film, and Variety's 10 Screenwriters to Watch.
Elizabeth Kaiden
Elizabeth Kaiden currently serves as Head of Development for Tangerine Entertainment, a NY film production company dedicated to producing films directed by women. She has evaluated scripts for a wide range of writers and directors from New Dramatists to Hamptons International Film Festival, Moxie Firecracker Films, and Miramax. Prior to her work in dramaturgy and development, Elizabeth was a theater and film critic and arts journalist for The Straits Times of Singapore, American Theatre Magazine, The Forward, Metropolitan Magazine, Stagebill, and others, and studied dramaturgy and dramatic criticism at the Yale School of Drama.
Julie Keck
Julie Keck is Co-Founder of and Chief Business Development Officer for OTV Studio (soon to be rebranded at Breaking Light Studio), an artist and IP incubator for intersectional artists. She has produced over 20 web series and two features. She funneled the knowledge she gathered engaging audiences and marketing creative work into the book Social Media Charm School, a guide to film marketing for creative entrepreneurs, which led to years as a sought-after teacher and speaker at film schools, festivals, and labs, including SXSW, the Chicago International Film Festival, Outfest, Northwestern University, Big Sky Documentary Festival, Slamdance, AFI Directing Workshop for Women, and many more. Julie is also a consulting producer for the storytelling efforts at Nia Tero, a global nonprofit dedicated to supporting Indigenous land sovereignty for a healthier planet. She holds a degree in psychology from Knox College and a Sustainable Innovation MBA from the University of Vermont’s Grossman School of Business.
Nora Kirkpatrick
Nora is an actor, writer, and director. Nora created, wrote, and directed Door No. 1, a first of its kind live-action, VR comedy series starring Snoop Dogg, Steve Little, and Ravi Patel—now airing on Hulu. In addition, Nora sold her TV show Assisted Living to CBS, executive produced by Will Ferrell, Adam McKay and Jessica Elbaum; created a five-part VR comedy series, Virtually Mike and Nora, for Hulu with SNL alum Mike O’Brien; and sold her TV show Best Seller to Comedy Central, produced by Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, and Olivia Wilde. As an actor, Nora starred in the film Pink Grapefruit, which won the Grand Jury Prize at SXSW 2015, and has played many roles in film and TV, including on The Office, Greek, Jennifer Falls, Chasing Life, and Men at Work. Most recently, Nora can be seen in Adam Sandler’s film Sandy Wexler and Paul Lieberstein’s latest feature The Song of Back and Neck, which premiered at Tribeca in 2018. Nora is in development on an eight-episode interactive series with FunnyOrDie and Eko that she will write and direct, and a pilot presentation for The Jackal Group starring Darren Criss. Nora was a founding member and accordion player for the band Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, with whom she toured the world and played Letterman, Conan, Kimmel, Coachella, and Lallapalooza, among others. The group won a Grammy in 2013. She will be soloing on accordion at all Stowe Story Labs events.
Chris Kratt
Chris, the founder and co-CEO of the Kratt Brothers Company, is a writer/producer, wildlife filmmaker, author, biologist, and educator. Dedicated to introducing people to wild creatures and the natural world, Chris Kratt’s main focus is to educate audiences, primarily children, through all forms of media. Chris is co-founder of the media studio Kratt Brothers Company, and co-creator and co-host of several hit television series including Wild Kratts and Zoboomafoo on PBS, and Be the Creature on the National Geographic Channel, as well as markets worldwide. He has executive produced over 270 episodes of television, with numerous writing and directing credits. His projects have garnered industry and educational honors such as an Emmy Award, Parents’ Choice Award, Kidscreen, and Canadian Screen Award. Chris co-founded the nonprofit conservation organization Kratt Bros. Creature Heroes and is honored to have the newly-discovered Amazonian praying mantis, Liturgusa krattorum, named after him and his brother.
Tory Lenosky
Tory Lenosky is an Emmy Nominated producer who resides in Brooklyn, NY. She most recently produced the 2022 New York Times Critic’s Pick feature film RESURRECTION, (starring Rebecca Hall and Tim Roth) which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and is being distributed domestically by IFC, Shudder Films and internationally by Universal Pictures. In addition, this year she produced the Netflix comedy special, NIGHTCLUB COMEDIAN starring Aziz Ansari. She has also produced a number of previous films including THE HATER (2019 Sundance Director Lab Project) starring Joey Ally and Bruce Dern, LOST TRANSMISSIONS (Tribeca Film Festival 2019) starring Simon Pegg and Juno Temple, and LOITERING WITH INTENT, starring Academy Award-winners Marisa Tomei and Sam Rockwell (Tribeca Film Festival 2014). Short form content produced by Tory includes the Emmy nominated HUMANKINDA, starring Sam Richardson (2016 Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Special Class Short Format Daytime Program). She is originally from Omaha, Nebraska and holds a B.F.A from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln's Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film. Tory is also an alumni of the Sundance Creative Producing Lab & Fellowship, Rotterdam Producing Lab, Sundance Catalyst, and IFP No Borders.
Amanda Livanou
Amanda Livanou is a film producer living in Athens, Greece. During her 20-year career she has worked in film and television as well as Greek film institutions. In 2014 she established Neda Film (www.nedafilm.gr)
Selected Filmography:
Pity (2018) and L (2012) (Sundance FF premiere for both) and Birds or How to Be One (IFFR 2020) by Babis Makridis, Park (2016) by Sofia Exarchou (Best New Director at San Sebastian FF, Sundance Screenwriter’s and Director’s Lab), Broadway by Christos Massalas (IFFR 2022), On Xerxes Throne by Evi Kalogiropoulou (short) Prix Canal+, Semaine de la Critque, Cannes 2022.
Upcoming projects include Unclickable, a new doc by Babis Makridis & Guy Krief, Buzzheart, by Dennis Iliadis Acrylic by Nikos Pastras (awarded at Thessaloniki Crossroads 2019), Godard Knows the Truth by Spiros Stathoulopoulos, Cora, the debut feature by Evi Kalogiropoukou - already awarded in Cinemart and Atelier Cinefondation 2021, and the animation series Travel Bugs by Fokion Xenos.
Neda’s slate of development is supported by Creative Europe.
She is a Sundance Creative Producing Summit Alumna and a member of both the Hellenic and European Film Academies. In 2018 she co-founded the Athens International Children’s FF (www.athicff.com ), of which she is the President. She was elected to the Board of the Directors of the Hellenic Producers Association (SAPOE) in December 2020, where she serves as Treasurer.
Tim Loane
Based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Tim has worked extensively as a writer, director and actor in television, film and theatre for over thirty years. He was creator and lead writer of the BAFTA-nominated TEACHERS (Channel 4, UK). Other series’ include the four-part conspiracy thriller Proof (RTE, Ireland), the three-part family drama Little Devil (ITV, UK) and he penned the six-part updating of TV classic Minder (Channel 5, UK). Other screenwriting includes the sex-swap farce Reversals (ITV, UK), and returning dramas Casualty (BBC, UK) and Red Rock (TV3, Ireland). Tim was lead writer of Versailles (Canal+, France) and more recently, he wrote for Das Boot (Sky Germany) and Marcella (ITV/Netflix, UK).
Tim directed the short film Dance Lexie Dance which won numerous international awards and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1997.
Gilana Lobel
Gilana Lobel is a Producer and DGA Production Manager based in New York City. A graduate of the UNC School of the Arts, School of Film, she has worked steadily in production on feature films and television series for almost two decades. Most recently Gilana served as UPM on season two of Russian Doll (Netflix, April 2022) and previously worked on projects such as Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Netflix), Lucky Grandma (Independent), and Alex Strangelove (Netflix), among others. During the pandemic, she collaborated with fellow UPM and co-author Jennifer A. Haire on the Office Production Assistant handbook Keys to the Production Office (Routledge/Focal Press, March 2022). Along with business partner Oliver Brooks, and their company Go Be One Motion Pictures, Gilana has produced numerous short films that have screened at film festivals internationally and has several feature projects in development.
David Magee
BAFTA and Academy Award Nominee David wrote the screenplay for director Ang Lee’s film Life of Pi, based on the award-winning novel by Yann Martel. The film received nine BAFTA nominations and 13 Oscar nominations, including nods from both academies for Best Adapted Screenplay. Magee also wrote Finding Neverland, directed by Marc Forster and starring Johnny Depp, which went on to be nominated for eleven BAFTA nominations and seven Academy Award nominations, including nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay. His film, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, starred Amy Adams and Frances McDormand, and was written with Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire). Most recently, David wrote Mary Poppins Returns for Disney. David’s upcoming film projects include a live action adaptation of The Little Mermaid directed by Rob Marshall; Lady Chatterley’s Lover for 3000 pictures; The School For Good and Evil for Netflix, directed by Paul Feig; and A Man Called Otto starring Tom Hanks and directed by Marc Forster.
Gerry Maguire
Coming from a background in film production as well as having produced at some of the UK’s biggest film festivals, Gerry Maguire carries wide reaching industry knowledge. Having started his career in Newcastle Upon Tyne, working with a number of production houses and delivering BAFTA nominated films such as I Am Nasrine, Gerry then went on to produce at Berwick FIlm & Media Arts Festival and London Short Film Festival, while continuing to produce film content through his own production company Pins & Needles. His work now includes development and delivery on multiple feature films across genre and arthouse, as well as artist moving image work which has screened at galleries globally.
geeta malik
Geeta Malik is an award-winning writer/director whose accolades include the inaugural Academy Gold Fellowship for Women, the Academy Nicholl Fellowship, and the Austin Film Festival Comedy Screenplay Award for her feature script, Dinner with Friends (retitled to India Sweets and Spices). Geeta directed India Sweets and Spices, starring Manisha Koirala, Adil Hussain, and Sophia Ali. The film was produced by SK Global and Madison Wells Media, and is premiering at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival.
Geeta wrote and directed the viral narrative short, Aunty Gs, which earned a College Television Award (a “student Emmy”) in comedy from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Her first feature film, Troublemaker, premiered at the Cinequest Film Festival. She is a Film Independent Project Involve Fellow and an alumna of UCLA’s graduate film program.
Ruth Meehan
Ruth Meehan is a writer/director who has been creating multiple award-winning & nominated work for both film and television in Ireland and Britain since the early 2000s. She is a graduate of the NFTS in Beaconsfield, UK (MA in Screenwriting). Ruth has made numerous short films which have garnered international awards including the Special Jury Prize at the Tehran Film Festival; the Prix Canal+ at Brest; the Depict Award at the Encounters Short Film Festival in the UK and the Kodak Prize, Raindance Film Festival, UK along with a special commendation the Edinburgh Film Festival. She is a recipient of the Screen Directors Guild, Arri Alexa Award for her short, The Measure Of A Man and the Film Offaly Award for her screen adaptation of Clare Keegan’s award-winning short story Men And Women.
Along with her documentary work, Ruth has developed four feature films with funding from Screen Ireland: Music By Water, West Of Eden, The Silent One and more recently The Bright Side which she co-wrote, directed and exec produced in 2020. In terms of TV drama Ruth was a director on the highly popular Virgin media TV drama series, Red Rock for Element Pictures, Dublin and has just directed the second block of Northern Lights, a Lionsgate/ Screen Ireland six part one hour TV series for Deadpan Films, Dublin.
Ruth is the vice chair of the Screen Directors Guild of Ireland, is an active member of the Writers Guild of Ireland and Women in Film and TV, Ireland. As head of the SDGI TV drama committee, Ruth is an active member of the Irish Content Fund Group, an industry body established to lobby the Irish government to impose a levy on streamers to create the National Media Creative Content Fund.
Leah Meyerhoff
Leah Meyerhoff is an award-winning independent filmmaker who wrote and directed the narrative feature film I Believe In Unicorns, which was released theatrically after premiering at SXSW, winning the Grand Jury Prize at the Atlanta Film Festival and additional awards from Woodstock Film Festival, Nashville Film Festival, Tribeca Film Institute, IFP, and the Adrienne Shelly Foundation. Leah’s films have screened in over 200 film festivals and aired on IFC, PBS, LOGO, and MTV. She is a fellow of the IFP Narrative Labs, Tribeca All Access Labs, and Emerging Visions program at the New York Film Festival. Leah is also the founder of Film Fatales, a nonprofit organization which advocates for parity in the film industry and supports a membership community of over a thousand women and non-binary feature film and television directors nationwide. She holds a BA in art-semiotics from Brown University and an MFA in directing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Paul Miller
Paul Miller is a partner at New York and Athens, Greece based Escape Pictures, which produces audience driven film and televison content for a global audience and offers executive producing and film policy/strategy advisory services.
Previously, Miller was Director of Film Financing at the the Doha Film Institute in Qatar and Head of Film Production at New York based Crossroads Films, under a first look deal with United Artists/MGM.
Miller’s credits include Scales, the Saudi submission for the Oscars 2020 following its world première at the Venice Film Festival, Snow Angels, directed by David Gordon Green and starring Kate Becksinale and the Golden Globe nominated, A Love Song For Bobby Long starring John Travolta and Scarlett Johansson, Prozac Nation, starring Chistina Ricci and Jessica Lange, and John Sayles’ Academy Award nominated Lone Star. Miller’s documentaries include, The Worker’s Cup, which premiered at Sundance in 2017. Miller’s most recent production
Miller was educated at the National Film and Television School in the U.K. He is a member of ACE, the DGA and the PGA. Miller is a regular speaker, panelist and jury member.
Chris Millis
Chris Millis is a prize-winning, best-selling author, screenwriter, and visual artist. He adapted his debut novel into the dark, indie comedy Small Apartments, which premiered at SXSW and stars Billy Crystal, Matt Lucas, Rebel Wilson, and many others. He writes for film and television and is represented by Verve Talent & Literary Agency and Anonymous Content. Chris is a professor of writing and chair of the department of writing at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia. Learn more about Chris Millis.
Anson Mount
Anson is an accomplished actor and writer widely known for his role as Cullen Bohannan on AMC’s hit series Hell on Wheels. He will next be seen as Black Bolt in Marvel’s The Inhumans on ABC. Mount made his feature film debut as Tully Coats in the independent film Tully (2000). He received widespread critical praise for the performance, and the film won several film festival awards and numerous Independent Spirit Award nominations. In 2009, Mount starred in and produced Cook County. Other films include Non-Stop, City by the Sea, Poolhall Junkies, Burning Palms, Hick, Safe, Supremacy, The Forger, and Mr. Right. On television, Mount starred in the NBC drama series Conviction as Deputy District Attorney Jim Steele. He also starred in the ABC series Line of Fire, touted by the Miami Herald as “the best new drama of the year.” Anson Mount’s writing has been equally acclaimed. He made the finalist list for the American Playwrights Conference at the O'Neill in 2008 for his full length play Atomic City, which was also selected in the Great Plains Theatre Conference as well as Last Frontier Theater Conference. Mount won the Maxim Mazumdar New Play Prize for his one act Love Liza? produced at the Alleyway Theatre in Buffalo. He is also the author of Colonus, detailing the friendship and collaboration of Charles Laughton and Bertolt Brecht, as well at the screenplays Pure Fantasy and co-author of Hysteria. Born in White Bluff, Tennessee, Mount holds a MFA in acting from Columbia University, where he now serves as an Associate Adjunct Professor. He is also executive producing The Well, a podcast set to debut in the Fall. He currently resides in New York.
Ben nabors
Ben’s debut feature documentary William and the Windmill, about inventor William Kamkwamba, won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2013 SXSW Film Festival. In 2016, his second feature documentary The Happy Film, about graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. In 2017, it opened theatrically in Europe to a top 10 ranking in the box office and debuted at #6 on iTunes (documentary) in North America. Ben co-wrote and produced The Sound Of Silence, starring Peter Sarsgaard and Rashida Jones, which premiered in competition at the Sundance Film Festival in 2019 and was released by IFC and Sony Worldwide.
As a screenwriter, Ben’s work has been selected for IFP's Emerging Storyteller's Program, the Screenwriting Lab at the Hampton’s International Film Festival, where his script was a recipient of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Screenplay Award, and the Sun Valley Film Festival’s Screenwriter’s Lab, where his script won the High Scribe Award from Mark Duplass.
Filmmaker Magazine named Ben amongst the “25 New Faces of Independent Film”, GOOD Magazine recognized him as a “GOOD 100”, the Dolby Institute honored him with an inaugural Dolby Family Fellowship, and the US State Department tapped him as a “Film Envoy” within the American Film Showcase cultural diplomacy program.
Bryce Norbitz
Bryce Norbitz empowers filmmakers through programs, grants, workshops, and mentorship. Bryce is formerly the director of scripted programs at the Tribeca Film Institute where she curated projects and oversaw the execution of their scripted programs including Tribeca All Access, TFI Sloan Filmmaker Fund, and the TFI Network filmmaker/industry market. Bryce oversees filmmaker participation in Through Her Lens: The Tribeca Chanel Women's Filmmaker Program and AT&T Presents: Untold Stories, which provides $1 million to complete a film each year. Bryce travels throughout the US and abroad working with emerging voices to provide connections, support, and film-pitch training. Bryce is formerly the executive producer of the prolific, Brooklyn-based production company UglyRhino and has worked at Chicago Shakespeare, The Second City, The Public Theater, and Nederlander Worldwide Entertainment. Bryce is a New Yorker and a graduate of Northwestern University.
Kristin Overn
Kristin moved to LA in 1992 and began her film career working as an assistant and script reader in the development departments at Davis Entertainment and Bonneville Worldwide. Since then, she has continued collaborating with writers and providing private consulting and development services for dozens of writers, producers, and production companies. Kristin has also worked extensively in production. She produced the feature films The Heart Specialist and Academy Boys, as well as two original sitcom pilots, several award-winning short films, television commercials, and video projects. She was the line producer/production manager on the Bollywood comedy Americanizing Shelley and the festival hits Never Trust a Serial Killer and Across the Line, and she was the US Segment Producer for the BBC Docudrama The Swagman. She currently has several feature film projects in development. Kristin is a graduate of Northwestern University. She is a member of the Producers Guild of America and the Directors Guild of America.
BERTHA BAY-SA Pan
Pan’s feature film debut Face, co-written by Oscar nominee and Emmy Award winner Oren Moverman, starring Bai Ling, Kieu Chinh, Kristy Wu, Will Yun Lee, Ken Leung, and Treach of Naughty by Nature, with music by Grammy Award winner Hub of The Roots, premiered at Sundance Film Festival as a Grand Jury nominee, winning Urbanworld's Grand Jury Award for Best Director, GenArt’s Audience Award, CineVegas Critics Award for Best Director, nominated for Gotham Award’s Breakthrough Director, and selected as a NY Times Critic’s Pick during its U.S. theatrical release. Pan’s second feature Almost Perfect, starring Kelly Hu, Edison Chen, Ivan Shaw, Christina Chang, Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominee Tina Chen, and Olivier and Tony Award winner Roger Rees, was selected as the Centerpiece Film at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival and won the HBO Emerging Filmmaker Award, garnering glowing reviews from Variety, San Francisco Chronicle, and MTV during its theatrical releases in U.S. and Taiwan. For television, Pan has directed Ava DuVernay’s Queen Sugar, executive produced by Oprah Winfrey and produced by Array and Warner Bros for OWN TV. In addition to Mando-pop superstar Leehom Wang’s 3D concert film Open Fire which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, Pan has directed docu-commercials, music videos for various artists including Pharcyde’s SlimKid3 which was a BET-Soul top rotation, and award winning shorts including Lucy in the Sky, starring SAG Award winner Catherine Curtin, Tony Award winner Danny Burstein, Zoe Colletti, Quinn McColgan, Kelly Hu, and Whoopi Goldberg, winner of Oscar, Golden Globe, Emmy, Grammy and Tony Awards. Pan is currently in pre-production for the film adaptation of Newberry honored NY Times Best Seller Hope Was Here.
Ellen Parks
Before entering the casting profession, Ellen had a 15-year career in dance, musical theater, experimental theater, contemporary theater, and the classics. She spent over 30 years casting theater, TV, and film, including network, cable, studio, and indie projects. Ellen has worked with Martin Scorsese, Alexander Payne, David O. Russell, Joel and Ethan Coen, George Romero, and David Letterman, as well as emerging filmmakers and indie talents like Debra Granik. Actors she’s cast have won dozens of awards and nominations, and films she’s cast have premiered at the New York, Cannes, Tribeca, Telluride, Sundance, and Toronto Film Festivals. Ellen recently completed 5 years of teaching Acting for Camera at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. She’s also taught at Rutgers, Columbia, NYU’s graduate directing programs, Atlantic Theater Conservatory, The William Esper Studio, T. Schreiber Studio, The Barrow Group, AADA, The Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center, and Smith College. Internationally, she’s been a master teacher at The Dome Studio in Beijing and for many years has coached privately and on-set in New York and abroad. In 2020, she and writer/producer/director Austin Chick created Craft Lab, an intensive, online training program for audition technique and for actors who wish to develop their own original material. She’s been a mentor at Stowe Story Labs since 2013.
Rachel Raimist
Rachel Raimist is a college-professor-turned-television-director tapped by Ava DuVernay to direct Queen Sugar for the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). She was then hired to direct an episode of Greenleaf (OWN), and signed with a high-profile manager at Kaplan/Perrone and an agent at CAA. Most recently, she directed Nancy Drew and Roswell New Mexico for The CW. Raimist holds a BA and a MFA in directing from the UCLA School of Film and Television, an MA in women’s studies, and a PhD in feminist studies from the University of Minnesota where The Rachel Raimist Feminist Media Center was named in her honor in 2009. Raimist serves on the leadership team of the Latino Committee and the Women’s Steering Committee of the Directors Guild of America.
James Rogan
James is an award-winning producer and director. He has produced and directed three international documentaries for BBC Storyville: Amnesty!, When They Are All Free, The Trouble with Pirates, and Blog Wars. Recently, he co-directed with Roger Graef OBE the acclaimed feature documentary Monty Python: The Meaning of Live about the legendary comedy group's last performance, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and has been distributed all over the world. Through his company Rogan Productions, James has produced a diverse portfolio of work for broadcast, including Young, Clever and Libyan, a BBC series about young Libyans trying to rebuild their shattered country; Waiting for Invasion, a film commissioned by Al Jazeera and the Lithuanian Film Fund about the reintroduction of conscription in Lithuania; The Confession, a BFI & BBC Storyville commission about the Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg (the film had its world premiere at Sheffield Doc/Fest 2016 and was nominee for the Grand Jury Award). James is also currently overseeing two new projects: One Night in 2012, a BBC Imagine special about the Olympics opening ceremony; and GunShop, a documentary about gun ownership in the US which will form part of Channel 4’s Cutting Edge strand this Autumn.
Christian Routh
Christian is a story analyst and film consultant based in Catalonia, Spain. From there he works for various filmmakers, state institutions, and training programs.
For the past 15 years he has been co-head of studies of the Creative Europe supported development scheme SCRIPTEAST, based in Poland, serving Central and Eastern European filmmakers. Fifty feature films have been produced during his time there.
During 2022 he has been tutoring at screenwriting workshops in USA, Mexico, Netherlands, Slovenia, Greece, England, and Spain. In 2019 he co-led an M.A. in screenwriting at Pinewood Film Studios in the UK. He has also been working regularly with national funding agencies in Eastern Europe, with events in the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Macedonia, Georgia, Romania, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. For 15 years he was a tutor at the Binger Film Lab in Amsterdam, and in 2012, he initiated the first HEZAYAH screenwriting workshops for the Doha Film Institute, which he ran for 5 years.
From its inception in 2008 until 2012 he was head of studies of a European film school initiative called FOUR CORNERS. Before that that he held the same post at the PILOTS TV workshops in Sitges, Spain. In 2006, Christian was the co-author of a book called ‘Script Development’.
Before moving to Spain in 2000 from his native London, he was head of selection at the MEDIA Programme’s European Script Fund and EMDA, from 1989 until 1998. Whilst there he helped support hundreds of European films and companies, including ‘Toto le Hero’, ‘Orlando’, ‘Breaking the Waves’, and ‘Elizabeth’. Prior to that he had been a film buyer and development executive with Thorn-EMI, Cannon UK, and Red Rooster Films.
Michele Turnure-Salleo
As Principal/Producer at Feracious Entertainment, Michele Turnure-Salleo develops, finances and produces independent films. Recent Executive Producer/Co-Executive Producer credits include; BLUEBACK (TIFF 2022/Sundance 2023), FAREWELL AMOR (Sundance 2020), BEFORE YOU KNOW IT (Sundance 2019), THE SOUND OF SILENCE (Sundance 2019) and BUOYANCY (Berlinale 2019). In 2019, BUOYANCY won Best Indie Film at The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards and was Australia’s submission for Best International Feature at the 2020 Oscars.
Previously, Turnure-Salleo through her work at San Francisco Film Society (now SFFilm) provided more than $5 million in funding to incubate and support innovative and exceptional filmmakers including Nia DaCosta - LITTLE WOODS (Tribeca 2018), Mohamed Diab - CLASH (Cannes 2016), Jonas Carpignano - MEDITERRANEA (Cannes 2015), Chloe Zhao - SONGS MY BROTHERS TAUGHT ME (Sundance/Cannes 2015), Josef Wladkya - MANOS SUCIAS (Tribeca 2014), Kat Candler - HELLION (Sundance 2014), Destin Daniel Cretton - SHORT TERM 12 (SXSW 2013), Ryan Coogler - FRUITVALE STATION (Sundance/Cannes 2013), Benh Zeitlin - BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD (Sundance/Cannes 2012) and Maryam Keshavarz- CIRCUMSTANCE (Sundance 2011).
Turnure-Salleo is also a development mentor for Biennale College Cinema, Vic Screen’s Originate program, Attagirl and adjunct faculty in the Film Department at CCA. Earlier in her career, Turnure-Salleo produced PSA's, documentary series and shorts for Bravo, CBC, The Knowledge Network and was Assistant Producer on the Academy Award-nominated documentary REGRET TO INFORM. Michele Turnure-Salleo holds a BFA (Film) from the University of New South Wales and a MFA (Film) from the University of British Columbia.
Sanjay Shah
Sanjay Shah was a co-showrunner/executive producer for two seasons of Apple’s critically-acclaimed animated musical Central Park. His other credits include Fresh Off The Boat, South Park, and King of the Hill. He's consulted on feature and streaming projects at Pixar. He's sold television pilots to Hulu, Netflix, ABC, FOX, and NBC. He is a writing mentor at the Sundance Institute’s annual Episodic Lab. He began his entertainment career by performing stand up. Prior to that, he worked at the California State Capitol as a legislative aide and volunteered as a writing tutor at San Quentin Prison. He graduated from UC Berkeley where he boxed competitively and sucked at it.
DEREK SIMONDS
Derek is a writer, filmmaker, and most recently the creator/show-runner of USA Network’s hit series, The Sinner, which broadcast its fourth and final season last year. In 2017, The Sinner debuted as the #1 new cable series of the year, and received two Golden Globe nominations, including Best Limited Series, and an Emmy nomination. Derek has developed numerous independent film projects as a writer and director, most recently executive producing Sony Pictures Classics Oscar-winning release, Call Me By Your Name. Derek was a writer on the ABC miniseries event, When We Rise, a recounting of the gay civil rights movement created by Dustin Lance Black, as well as ABC’s 2015 limited series, Astronaut Wives Club. He has developed television pilots for Universal Content Productions, ABC Studios and TNT, and also wrote and directed his debut feature film, Seven and a Match.
Judit Stalter
Judit Stalter is one of the most active producers in Hungary, a country that has a very vivid film industry and is the target of a tremendous amount of American and international productions as a service location. She runs a market leader production company called Laokoon Filmgroup with 2 co-owners Gábor Sipos and Gábor Rajna. They also opened their branch office in NYC/Brooklyn in 2021. They are mostly known for their groundbreaking holocaust drama, Son of Saul, which has won most of the world's awards, including the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, a Golden Globe, and the Grand Prix in Cannes. They also produced an Emmy winner feature documentary called 306 Hollywood. Judit was the lead producer of the most successful 3 years long series for HBO Europe called Easy Living. Their focus is the development and production of high-quality auteur feature films, creative documentaries, and shorts, but they work with a wide range of genres from art-house features to commercials, TV series and documentaries. They have worked together with Fernando Trueba, Penélope Cruz, Fernando Bovaira, Antonio Banderas, Krzysztof Zanussi, Isabella Rosselini, and Owen Wilson, among many others.
Camille Tucker
Camille Tucker is a Sundance alum who has sold scripts to major studios such as Sony, Universal, New Line Cinema, Fox TV, and Disney; and has worked with producers such as Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, Stacey Snider, Marc Platt, Debra Chase, and the late John Singleton. Growing up in Compton, Camille’s father was the mayor and a dentist, and her mother was an educator. At age 7, the Montessori School she attended burned down and she was bused to private Chadwick School in Palos Verdes, CA. Suddenly, she was dropped into an affluent, all-white world. Having to navigate between two disparate worlds is what inspired Camille to write—poetry, plays, songs, and eventually screenplays. Camille holds a BA in creative writing from UCLA, an MFA in screenwriting from Loyola Marymount, and an MA in theology and film from Fuller Seminary. In 2019, she was a finalist and the drama alternate in the prestigious Disney|ABC TV Writing Fellowship. In 2018, she was one of eleven filmmakers selected as a Producers Guild of America Power of Diversity Workshop fellow. She is a two-time Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab semifinalist and Nicholl Fellowship semifinalist (top 30). Camille is co-writer of Lifetime’s hit TV movie The Clark Sisters: The First Ladies of Gospel, starring Emmy-nominated Aunjanue Ellis and executive produced by Queen Latifah. The movie debuted with 2.7 million viewers, is the highest-rated Lifetime movie since 2016, and has had over 13+ million viewers to date.
Ciara Wardlow
Ciara Wardlow is the development coordinator at Maven Screen Media and a 2021 Film Independent Project Involve Fellow. As a freelance writer and critic, her bylines include The Hollywood Reporter, Film School Rejects, and Pajiba.
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.
David Pope
David Pope is a screenwriter and script consultant working internationally. He has worked as a script consultant on projects globally including work with Academy Award and BAFTA-nominated producers and screenwriters and national film funds. Recent script consultations include Take It or Leave It, a candidate for Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award 2019, and Truth and Justice, shortlisted for Best International Feature Film Academy Award 2020. He recently script consulted on the feature film Magic Mountains, which was released January 2020 and Splendid Isolation premiered at IFFR 2022. David script consulted on the drama series Imperial Spy for Fremantle (American Gods, Deutschland 83).
He is the annual consultant/moderator for the Rotterdam Lab at CineMart and co-founder of Stowe Story Labs in the US. David has been a creative consultant on Rawi Screenwriting Lab for Royal Film Commission-Jordan, a screen specialist in script consultancy working with production companies through the FOCUS scheme supported by Screen Scotland and is a regular script consultant for MIDPOINT.
Recent screenwriting assignments include writing the latest draft of the feature film Tempelhof, the feature film Rulin, and the latest draft of the feature film Summer of 81. David has a slate of projects in development with advance films.
Previous script development and training clients include: BFI, Creative England, UK Film Council, BBC, BAFTA, Fremantle, National Theatre, Screen Scotland, British Council, Creative Europe, Cannes Cinefondation, Warp Films, Allfilm, KulturaTV, Polish Film Institute, Cannes Film Festival, Film London, Lionhead Studios, Xingu Films, Irish Film Board, FAS Screen Training Ireland, New Horizons Studio, Estonian Film Institute, among many others. He sits on the film committee of the WGGB.