Mia Calderone
Mia Calderone is a seasoned story artist in Feature Animation based in Los Angeles, but raised between Brazil, Puerto Rico and the United States. She’s worked across many studios including The Walt Disney Animation Studios, Netflix, and Warner Brothers. Mia began her career in live action studio operations and made the decision to transition to animation as she realised her passion for the craft was too overwhelming to ignore. She has since accrued credits on many Features including The Sea Beast by oscar winning director Chris Williams. She hopes through animation, other people can fall in love with storytelling just like she did.
Julian Cautherley
Julian Cautherley is an Emmy-award winning British/Chinese TV and film producer. He won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize in 2019 for his film Clemency. His projects have been nominated for BAFTAS, Independent Spirit Awards, Emmys, Gotham Awards, DGA awards, PGA awards and have been twice shortlisted for the Oscars. He has been a showrunner on documentary series and produced a wide range of fiction and non-fiction features, series, VR and commercials, which have participated at Sundance, Berlin, Toronto, SXSW, Tribeca Film Festivals amongst others.
Chantal Chauzy
Chantal Chauzy is the head of global sales and acquisitions for the international sales agent All Rights Entertainment, based in Hong Kong, Paris, and Los Angeles, and specialized in high-quality animation films. She attends international film festivals and markets year-round. Before joining All Rights Entertainment, Chauzy worked for 10 years at Strand Releasing, one of the leading independent film distributors in the U.S., eventually serving as Vice President of Acquisitions and Homevideo. Chauzy has a Master’s degree in Film Studies and a Bachelor’s degree in English from the Sorbonne University in Paris. She also attended the Producers Program at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Film School ESEC in Paris. Earlier in her career, she worked in film production for various French production companies.
Mercedes Chavez
Mercedes Chavez is Assistant Professor of Media Studies at California State University, Los Angeles. Her research focuses on transnational production, history, and aesthetic theory of independent US cinema and Latin American cinemas with attention to women and queer filmmakers. Her work explores the intersections and overlaps of race, gender, sexuality, class, and geopolitical location in cinematic narratives. She has written about director Natalia Almada’s filmography for The Wexner Center for the Arts Read, Watch, Listen blog, and a published article on director Kelly Reichardt’s slow aesthetics may be read in Afterimage (Univ. of California Press). A forthcoming publication on Lucrecia Martel’s 2017 film Zama will appear in the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies (Univ. of Michigan Press).
Maria Cominis
Maria Cominis is a first-generation Greek American actor, writer and published author (Kendall Hunt and Rutledge). She creates in LA, OC and NYC. She approaches writing from over 40 years’ experience as an actor, acting teacher and director. She’s the recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts grant for her play, WOMEN OF ZALONGO (O’Neil Semi-finalist, BAPF Semi-finalist and HB Playwrights Residency). Monologues from her play are published in Smith and Kraus BEST MONOLOGUES OF 2024. Her second play, OWL PEOPLE is the recipient of an Intramural grant and recently presented a development reading at LMU co-hosted by The Caloyeras Center and HAWC. HB Studio, NYC was her artistic home for a decade as an acting teacher and mentee of renowned acting teacher, Uta Hagen. Television Credits: Hacks, New Girl, Desperate Housewives, All My Children, One Life to Live. Theatre: Bernarda Alba, The Diviners, The Sea Gull, Ivanov. She’s a Professor at California State University Fullerton where she teaches acting, directs and serves as the area head in the BFA Acting Program. She’s a force of Hellenic pride and a proud member of AEA, SAG-AFTRA, National Alliance of Acting Teachers, Michael Chekhov Association and the Dramatists Guild.
Hugh O’Gorman
Hugh O’Gorman is an actor, director, author, and teaching artist active in professional theatre for nearly 40 years. Since 2002, he has been the Head of Acting at California State University Long Beach where he oversees the BA, BFA, and MFA actor training programs. He also teaches at USC. Hugh is the author of “Acting Action: A Primer For Actors” and “The Keys To Acting,” and the upcoming “The Art of Teaching the Art of Acting.” He is a faculty member of MICHA: the Michael Chekhov Association, MCE Michael Chekhov Europe, Actyn Hollywood, and runs his own acting studio in Los Angeles, The PraXis Studio. He is a Co-Executive Director of the National Alliance of Acting Teachers. Hugh has appeared on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway, and at over a dozen of the nation’s most respected Regional Theatres and Shakespeare Festivals. He is a founding member of New York City’s Mint Theatre Company (2002 Drama Desk Award). Hugh portrayed Jeff Singer on AMC’s critically acclaimed, Emmy and CableAce award-winning show, Remember WENN (SAG Award nomination). Other television: HBO’s Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning John Adams, for CBS Still Standing, That’s Life, and for NBC The 10th Kingdom, Law & Order, and ER. Film: Killers, Upstate, The Bend.
Harrison James
Harrison James is a writer and director, born in Chicago and living and working in Los Angeles. Recent directing credits include: Cowboy Mouth, Savage Love, and Fool for Love, a series of Sam Shepard plays, and The Dreamer Examines His Pillow by John Patrick Shanley. Currently writing and directing Big Girls, a television series, and Shooting Star, a feature film, she has written for producers (Heather Graham) and directors (Julian Goldberger, Autumn DeWilde, and Melodie McDaniel). Her spots for Spies Travel directed by Nicolas Winding Refn won the Bronze Lion at Cannes. She founded Girl Trip, a production company, panel series and film festival to advance emerging women and nonbinary filmmakers. She was a Creative Thesis Mentor and on the Directing faculty at the AFI Conservatory for 8 years, is a Directing Advisor at Sundance Co//ab, and is a Screenwriting Mentor for feature film and television at CineStory. Harrison studied directing at Boston University, where she received the Dean’s Grant for Filmmaking, and attended the AFI Conservatory as both a Screenwriting and Directing Fellow. Devoted to being an actor’s director, Harrison has been studying with Nancy Banks for over 10 years.
Malin Kan
Malin Kan is a Los Angeles–based film curator with a decade of experience in festival programming. Most recently, she served as Senior Programmer of Feature Films at AFI FEST, where she helped define the voice of the festival from 2016 to 2025. Malin’s curatorial approach is rooted in her academic background in film history and archival preservation. She holds a BA in Film and Media Studies from UC Berkeley and an MA in Moving Image Archive Studies from UCLA. She’s served on juries and selection committees for festivals and granting bodies nationwide and is committed to inclusive programming that broadens the canon and strengthens cultural dialogue.
Mischa Livingstone
Director Mischa Livingstone’s award-winning films have screened at festivals worldwide and been added to the Smithsonian permanent collection. Festival screenings include the Berlin Intl. Film Festival, Montreal World Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Seattle Intl. Film Festival, Jerusalem Intl. Film Festival, Cinequest (Viewers’ Voice Award winner), and many others. Born in Glasgow, Scotland and immigrating to Israel as a child, Mischa studied at the Thelma Yellin School of the Arts before moving to the United States. Attending UCLA, he earned his BA in Film Production (summa cum laude) and an MFA in Screenwriting. He is also an alumnus of the Berlinale Talent Campus. He is the co-author of the forthcoming “No-Nonsense Guide to Filmmaking”, an open education textbook that will be freely available online, its goal being to reduce/eliminate financial costs for students and make information and learning available to all. In addition to filmmaking, Mischa is an Assistant Professor in film production at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
Abby Sun
Abby Sun (she/her) is the International Documentary Association’s director of programs and editor of Documentary, a quarterly print and digital magazine. In 2024, she co-founded the Future Film Coalition, safeguarding the future of U.S. independent film through research and advocacy, and researched media policy to support documentary films in the public interest as a Shorenstein Documentary Film Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School. Abby has bylines in Film Comment, Filmmaker, Film Quarterly, Notebook, and Sight & Sound; served on festival juries for Hot Docs, Dokufest, Palm Springs, New Orleans, and CAAMfest, as well as nominating committees for the Gotham Awards and Cinema Eye; and received a fall 2022 Warhol Foundation Curatorial Research Fellowship. Her hometown is Columbia, Missouri, US.
Nassos Vakalis
Nassos Vakalis is a Greek-American animator, storyboard artist, and animation director with an extensive international career. He studied character animation at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in the United States. Nassos has worked as an animator, animation supervisor, and storyboard artist for major studios including DreamWorks Animation, Gaumont Animation, Warner Bros. Pictures Animation, WAG, Rovio, Sony, Paramount, Sullivan-Bluth, and Universal/Illumination. In addition to his studio work, he founded Time Lapse Pictures in Greece, a production company recognized for its award-winning animated films and television content, and later launched Bleach Animation in the United States, which delivers high-quality animation and visual effects for film and TV. His independent projects have earned widespread recognition, including two EMMY Award nominations and one EMMY win. His acclaimed short film Dinner for Few garnered 89 international festival awards, won the Méliès d’Argent (Silver Méliès), earned a BAFTA nomination, and qualified for the Academy Awards.
Rechna Varma
Rechna Varma produces under her banner Rechna Varma Productions, creating notable works like “DO NOT DISTURB” (2023), which won multiple festival awards and was released by Dark Star and Shudder. Other features include “CATCH AND RELEASE” (2019) and “MARGARITA” (2012), which earned Best Feature at Inside Out Toronto. Her development experience spans scripted television at Sphere Media Plus including International Emmy-nominated production “19-2”, “THIS LIFE” and “BAD BLOOD.” She served as executive in charge of production & post at the Canadian Film Centre, managing 60+ annual short productions. As a writer/creator her original pilot “LOVE RULES” was a Content London semi-finalist and earned Netflix-Banff recognition. Rechna expanded into directing with the short film “Goodbye” (2022), music video “Worth It” (2023), and more recently she’s completed her feature directorial debut “HELLO DARLING,”. As an Associate Professor of Professional Practice at University of Miami’s Cinematic Arts department, she teaches courses at the intersection of art and business.