ANIMATED FEATURES + DIRECTORS
Encanto
Jared Bush was co-director and screenwriter on the Oscar-winning animated feature Zootopia (2016) as well as the screenwriter for the Oscar-nominated Moana (2016). Beginning his career as a writer for Robert Zemeckis, Bush served as executive story editor and co-producer of Will Smith's series "All of Us” and has developed original television series for Revolution Studios, Fox and NBC, and feature film projects for New Line Cinema, Columbia/Tristar and 20th Century Fox.
Launching her Disney Animation career in the Technology department, Yvett Merino moved into the world of Production as a supervisor on Tangled (2010). She went on to work with the Stereo team on The Lion King 3D, and with various departments on Wreck-It Ralph. Among her most recent credits, Merino served as production manager on the Oscar-winning animated feature, Big Hero 6 (2014) as well as the Oscar-nominated Moana (2016). Merino was also a part of the team that started Voces@Disney, the Studio’s first Latinx employee resource group, where she served as co-president for two years.
Clark Spencer is the president of Walt Disney Animation Studios overseeing all aspects of studio operations and production, partnering with chief creative officer Jennifer Lee. He has produced five Oscar-nominated animated feature films for Disney Animation, winning for Zootopia (2016). Spencer’s other credits as a producer include Lilo & Stitch (2002), Bolt (2008), Wreck-It-Ralph (2012), and Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018).
Raya and The Last Dragon
Don Hall (Director) began his career at Walt Disney Animation Studios as a story apprentice on Tarzan (1999). He served as a story artist on several development projects before becoming head of story for Meet the Robinsons (2007) and The Princess and the Frog (2009). Hall made his directorial debut for Disney Animation’s 2011 Winnie the Pooh and went on to direct Big Hero 6 (2014) which won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film. He served as co-director on Moana (2016), is the executive producer of the upcoming Disney+ series “Baymax!”, and is the director of Disney Animation’s next animated feature, Strange World.
Carlos López Estrada (Director) joined Walt Disney Animation Studios in late Spring 2019 and is a member of the Studios’ story trust. Following his debut film, Blindspotting (2018), López Estrada was included in Variety’s 2018 “10 Directors to Watch'' list. He directed the feature film Summertime (2020) and is also a prolific music video/commercial director, working with musicians such as Billie Eilish, Jhene Aiko, Father John Misty, Thundercat, Carly Rae Jepsen, Capital Cities, Clipping and Passion Pit.
Flee
Jonas Poher Rasmussen is a Danish/French film director who made his documentary feature film debut co-directing the television documentary, Something About Halfdan (2006). Rasmussen directed the feature film Searching for Bill (2012), which mixed documentary and fiction, and the documentary feature film What He Did (2015).
Monica Hellström has been a producer at Final Cut for Real since 2010, and previously worked at Upfront Films and The Danish Film Institute's Film Workshop. Hellström produced the documentary feature film The Distant Barking of Dogs (2017), which was shortlisted for an Oscar in 2018. Hellström was selected as a producer in Cannes’ Producer on the Move in 2020.
Signe Byrge Sørensen has been a producer since 1998. She is the head of and co-founder of the film production company Final Cut for Real in Copenhagen, Denmark. Alongside productions in Denmark and Sweden, she has produced documentaries in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Senegal, Thailand, Indonesia, Colombia and Argentina. Sørensen was nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature for The Act of Killing (2012) and The Look of Silence (2014).
Charlotte de la Gournerie is an animation producer and is the executive producer, co-founder, and CEO of Sun Creature Studio Denmark & France. She is currently producing several major animated feature films and series. She has spoken at many festivals around Europe where she shares insights into production.
Luca
Enrico Casarosa joined Pixar Animation Studios in January 2002. He began as a story artist on Cars (2006) before moving on to work on the Oscar-winning feature films Ratatouille (2007) and Up (2009). He made his directorial debut with the Oscar-nominated short film La Luna (2011), which screened theatrically with Brave in 2012. He went on to work on The Good Dinosaur (2015) and the Oscar-winning feature Coco (2017).
Andrea Warren joined Pixar Animation Studios as a marketing production assistant on A Bug’s Life (1998). She moved on to be an art department coordinator for the Oscar-winning feature Monsters, Inc. (2001), and served as a digital painter for the Oscar-winning feature Finding Nemo (2003). Warren accepted her first management role on the award-winning feature film Cars (2006) as the art department manager. Next, Warren served as production manager of the Oscar-winning features WALL•E (2008) and Brave (2012). She made her producing debut with the short film Lava (2014), and went on to co-produce the feature film Cars 3 (2017).
The Mitchells vs. The Machines
Writer-director Michael Rianda attended CalArts where he studied character animation and made the short films, Everybody Dies in 90 Seconds and Work. He has since been employed by Pixar Animation Studios and JibJab, taught at CalArts, and worked at Disney Television Animation where he served as a writer and creative director for the award-winning TV show “Gravity Falls.”
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller met while attending Dartmouth College and were hired together to develop Saturday morning cartoons for the Walt Disney Company upon graduation. As they moved into features they wrote and directed the animated feature Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and The Lego Movie (2014). They directed the live action features 21 Jump Street (2012) and 22 Jump Street (2014) and wrote and produced Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), which earned them Oscars for Best Animated Feature Film.
Prior to producing Sony Pictures Animation’s The Mitchells vs. The Machines, Kurt Albrecht served as the studio’s vice president of physical production. He also produced the studio’s mini movie The Smurfs: A Christmas Carol (2011). Before joining Sony, Albrecht was the vice president of physical production at Paramount Animation. He began his career at Hyperion Studio, starting as an assistant and rising to senior vice president of production. Over the course of his ten years there Albrecht either produced or oversaw the production of seven feature length productions and six television series both animated and live-action.
DOCUMENTARY FEATURES + DIRECTORS
Ascension
Jessica Kingdon is a Chinese-American director, editor, producer, and cinematographer known for her documentary short film Commodity City (2017), about the world’s largest wholesale mall in Yiwu China. She was included in the “25 New Faces of Independent Film” list by Filmmaker Magazine and in the 2020 DOC NYC “40 Under 40” list. Her credits include directing the short film Routine Island (2017) and producing the short film 8:08 - How We Respond (2019).
Kira Simon Kennedy made her feature film debut as a producer on her sister Ani Simon Kennedy’s Days of Gray (2013). She is the co-founder and director of the arts nonprofit China Residencies. Kennedy has produced over 50 short documentaries about China’s underground music scene for the Beijing-based record label Modern Sky, and is producing a documentary series for the British Council on the creative scenes in China’s 2nd and 3rd tier cities.
Nathan Truesdell is a director, producer, and cinematographer. He was included in the DOC NYC “40 Under 40” list in 2018 for the short film Balloonfest (2017), which he directed and produced. His producing credits include the documentary short film Peace in the Valley (2016) and the documentary feature films We Always Lie to Strangers (2013), Caucus (2013), and Convention (2009).
Attica
Stanley Nelson is a documentary film director and producer in broadcast television and film. He directed and produced the documentary feature films The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution (2015) and Miles Davis:Birth of the Cool (2019), a part of the “American Masters” television series. In 2013, President Obama honored Nelson with the National Medal in the Humanities for documenting the stories of African-Americans through film.
Traci A. Curry is a producer, director, and writer for long and short-form documentaries. Curry produced the PBS feature documentary Boss: The Black Experience in Business (2019) which was directed by Stanley Nelson. She served as a producer for several national cable news shows and her work has been featured on the networks PBS, ESPN, MSNBC, BET, HGTV, TV One, CNN, and ABC. Traci is the founder of B.Free Media, a production company named to honor the pioneering journalist Ida B. Wells and her newspaper, The Memphis Free Speech.
Flee
Jonas Poher Rasmussen is a Danish/French film director who made his documentary feature film debut co-directing the television documentary, Something About Halfdan (2006). Rasmussen directed the feature film Searching for Bill (2012), which mixed documentary and fiction, and the documentary What He Did (2015).
Monica Hellström has been a producer at Final Cut for Real since 2010, and previously worked at Upfront Films and The Danish Film Institute's Film Workshop. Hellström produced the documentary feature film The Distant Barking of Dogs (2017), which was shortlisted for an Oscar in 2018. Hellström was selected as a producer in Cannes’ Producer on the Move in 2020.
Charlotte de la Gournerie is an animation producer and is the executive producer, co-founder, and CEO of Sun Creature Studio Denmark & France. She is currently producing several major animated feature films and series. She has spoken at many festivals around Europe where she shares insights into production.
Summer of Soul
Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson is a director, producer, author, and five-time Grammy Award-winning musician. Thompson executive produced the documentary series “Hip-Hop: The Songs That Shook America” on AMC along with fellow bandmate of The Roots, Tariq “Black Thought” Luqmaan Trotter. Thompson is set to direct the upcoming MRC Non-Fiction documentary feature film on African-American musician Sly Stone.
Joseph Patel is a producer, director, and writer for documentary feature and short films. Patel began his career as a music/culture journalist, later transitioning into film and video work with MTV News & Docs, Vice Media, and Vevo. He is producing and directing the upcoming documentary feature film, Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop.
David Dinerstein is a producer and has been involved in the production, marketing or distribution on over 200 films including Pulp Fiction (1994), The Full Monty (1997), Hustle & Flow (2005), The Illusionist (2006), American Hustle (2013), and Her (2013). He was an executive producer on the Oscar-nominated documentary feature film Winter On Fire: Ukraine’s Fight For Freedom (2015) and the documentary feature film Cries From Syria (2017). Dinerstein worked on the documentary feature films Paris is Burning (1990), Madonna: Truth Or Dare (1991), Al Pacino’s Looking For Richard (1996), Mad Hot Ballroom (2005), and Neil Young: Heart of Gold (2006).
Writing With Fire
Rintu Thomas is a producer and director from India known for the documentary short films Dilli (2011) and Timbuktu (2012). Over the last 10 years, Rintu’s films have been used as advocacy tools for social impact, included in the curriculum of universities and exhibited globally in spaces such as the United Nations Climate Change Conference and Lincoln Center for Performing Arts.
Sushmit Ghosh is a director and cinematographer from India known for the documentary short films Dilli (2011) and Timbuktu (2012). In 2009, Sushmit co-founded Black Ticket Films, a production company invested in the power of storytelling. Black Ticket Films’ award-winning slate of films are being used as advocacy, impact and education tools by institutions across the world.
DOCUMENTARY SHORTS + DIRECTORS
Audible
Matt Ogens is a documentary director and producer with commercial television credits. In 2019, Ogens created the documentary series “Why We Fight,” which he executive produced. His documentary feature film credits include Confessions of a Superhero (2007), American Native (2015), and Home + Away (2018).
Geoff McLean is a film and music video producer, documentary filmmaker and executive of commercial advertising campaigns. He has produced the documentary feature films This is Congo (2017) and Hondros (2017). He is currently the executive producer for both Vision Film Co., which he founded in Toronto, and Golden LA, a Venice-based multi-disciplinary studio, as he continues to develop and produce short- and long-form content.
Lead Me Home
Pedro Kos is a documentary filmmaker, director, writer, and editor from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His credits include his feature directorial debut, Bending the Arc (2017), in addition to The Great Hack (2019), and Rebel Hearts (2021). Kos served as the editor for Jon Shenk’s documentary feature film, The Island President (2011), and the Oscar-nominated documentary feature films Waste Land (2010) and The Square (2013).
Jon Shenk is a documentary filmmaker, director, and cinematographer. He was the cinematographer and co-director with his partner Bonni Cohen on the documentary feature films Audrie & Daisy (2016), An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power (2017), and Athlete A (2020). Shenk served as the cinematographer for the Oscar-winning documentary short film, Smile Pinki (2008)
The Queen of Basketball
A two-time Oscar-nominated Documentary Short director and entrepreneur, Ben Proudfoot is the creative force behind Breakwater Studios. In 2020, he was nominated for an Oscar for his documentary short A Concerto is a Conversation (2020) and was included in Forbes Magazine’s “30 Under 30” list. His credits include the documentary short film The Ox (2013) and the documentary feature film Rwanda & Juliet (2016). He hails from Halifax, Nova Scotia, and is a graduate of the University of Southern California.
Three Songs for Benazir
Elizabeth Mirzaei is a director and cinematographer known for her work on the BBC documentary short film, The Killing of Farkhunda (2015), and her cinematography work on the documentary feature film, What Tomorrow Brings (2015). She co-directed her first documentary feature film, Laila at the Bridge (2018), with her husband, filmmaker Gulistan Mirzaei, and they have co-directed films for Al Jazeera English, such as the documentary short film For Sardar: The Afghan Journalist (2016). She and her husband, filmmaker Gulistan Mirzaei, founded the company Mirzaei Films to provide an indigenous and intimate window into modern-day Afghanistan, making films that challenge perceptions of the country.
Gulistan Mirzaei is an Afghani director and producer who lived much of his life as a refugee in Iran. When the Taliban fell in 2001, Gulistan returned to Kabul to work as assistant to the editor-in-chief at the country’s only independent newspaper, Kabul Weekly, and was mentored by Afghan director Siddiq Barmak (Osama). Gulistan was a line producer for Voice of America and has co-directed documentaries for Al Jazeera’s Witness program. He and his wife, filmmaker Elizabeth Mirzaei, founded the company Mirzaei Films to provide an indigenous and intimate window into modern-day Afghanistan, making films that challenge perceptions of the country.
When We Were Bullies
Jay Rosenblatt is an independent filmmaker who has directed over thirty documentaries since his career began in 1990, including the short films Human Remains (1998) and Phantom Limb (2005). Rosenblatt has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 2002 and has served on the Executive Committee of the Documentary Branch for nine years.
INTERNATIONAL FEATURES + DIRECTORS
Drive My Car
Ryusuke Hamaguchi is a Japanese writer and director who made his first major international feature film Happy Hour in 2015. His directing credits include the Japanese-Korean co-production feature film The Depths (2010), and the feature films Intimacies (2012), Asako I & II (2018), and Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021). In 2020, Hamaguchi co-wrote the feature film Wife of a Spy (2020) with Kiyoshi Kurosawa.
Flee
Jonas Poher Rasmussen is a Danish/French film director who made his documentary feature film debut co-directing the television documentary, Something About Halfdan (2006). Rasmussen directed the feature film Searching for Bill (2012), which mixed documentary and fiction, and the documentary What He Did (2015).
Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom
Pawo Choyning Dorji is a writer, photographer and filmmaker from the Kingdom of Bhutan. Dorji's introduction to film came in 2012 when he worked as Khyentse Norbu's assistant on the feature film Vara: A Blessing (2013). In 2016, he produced the Bhutanese feature Hema Hema: Sing Me a Song While I Wait.
The Hand of God
Paolo Sorrentino is a Naples-born film director and screenwriter. He wrote and directed One Man Up (2001), which was his first feature film, The Consequences of Love (2004), The Family Friend (2006), Il Divo (2008), This Must be the Place (2011), Youth (2016), and Loro 1 (2018). In 2014, Sorrentino’s film The Great Beauty won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
The Worst Person in the World
Joachim Trier is a Danish-Norwegian director and screenwriter. His film credits include the feature films Reprise (2006), Oslo, August 31st (2011), Thelma (2017), and his English-language feature film debut Louder Than Bombs (2015), all of which he co-wrote with Eskil Vogt. In 2018, he co-directed the feature film documentary The Other Munch with his brother Emil Trier.
ANIMATED SHORTS + DIRECTORS
Affairs of the Art
Joanna Quinn is an animator and director from Britain. Her first animated short film, Girls Night Out (1987) and her follow-up animated short film Body Beautiful, Dreams and Desires: Family Ties (2006) both follow Beryl, her working-class heroine. Quinn wrote and directed the Oscar-nominated animated short film Famous Fred (1996).
Les Mills is a screenwriter and producer with a teaching background in art, design, filmmaking, and animation. He is the co-founder of Beryl Productions International with his frequent collaborator, filmmaker Joanna Quinn. Their first collaboration was on Quinn’s animated short film Girls Night Out (1987), and subsequently Mills wrote and produced the animated short film Body Beautiful, Dreams and Desires: Family Ties (2006).
Bestia
Hugo Covarrubias is a director and stop-motion animator from Santiago, Chile. He is the founder of the theater company and studio Maleza, mixing theater with animation. Covarrubias directed the stop-motion short films The Feathers Pillow (2007) and The Night Face Up (2013) and co-created and co-directed the television series “Paper Port.”.
Tevo Díaz is an executive producer, cinematographer, and director from Santiago, Chile. He has lived in the U.S. and Chile, and upon his return to Chile in 2010, he founded the documentary and television production company Trébol 3. His documentary film credits include directing the documentary short film Señales de Ruta (2000), the documentary feature film Pena de Muerte (2012), and the documentary television series “Naufragios,” “Confines Carcelarios,” and “Ancestros Extraordinario.”
Robin Robin
Dan Ojari is a director and animator with a background in set design and model making. He directed and animated his stop-motion short film Slow Derek (2011), and in 2014, Ojari co-founded Parabella Studios with Mikey Please, where they produced shorts, idents and commercials.
Mikey Please is a director and writer with a background in directing music videos. He directed, animated, and wrote his stop-motion short films, The Eagleman Stag (2010), which was shortlisted for an Oscar, and Marilyn Myller (2013). In 2018, Please joined Cartoon Network as the episodic director for the television series “Elliot From Earth” which premiered in 2021.
The Windshield Wiper
Alberto Mielgo is a director, animator, and artist from Spain. He was the visual consultant for the Oscar-winning animated feature film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and served as the art director for the Disney Television Animation series “Tron: Uprising.”. In 2019, Mielgo directed, designed, and wrote “The Witness,” the award-winning episode from the “Love Death and Robots” anthology series on Netflix, produced by David Fincher and Tim Miller.
Leo Sánchez worked at Walt Disney Animation in character development and modeling for the lead characters in the animated feature films Bolt (2008) and Tangled (2010), and later at DreamWorks Animation as a CG Character Designer for the animated feature film, How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014). Leo Sánchez Studio has been involved in the early stages of production on such projects as DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019) and Netflix Animation’s Oscar-nominated animated feature film Over the Moon (2020), directed by Glen Keane.
LIVE ACTION SHORTS + DIRECTORS
Ala Kachuu - Take and Run
Maria Brendle is a director and scriptwriter based in Zurich, Switzerland. She holds degrees in Film and Neuroscience. She directed and wrote the short films The Stowaway (Blinder Passagier) (2013) and Schwarze Trauer, Rote Lippen (2012).
Nadine Lüchinger is a documentary and narrative film producer who lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland. For her thesis at the University of Zurich, she produced, directed and edited the documentary feature film Life in Bubbles (2009) in Buenos Aires. In 2014, Lüchinger became a producer at Filmgerberei and produced narrative and documentary films, as well as a web series. She is currently in post-production on a feature documentary and developing and co-producing several feature films with the German companies Schiwago and Gebrüder Beetz.
On My Mind
Martin Strange-Hansen is a Danish film director and screenwriter. Strange-Hansen co-wrote and directed the short film Feeding Desire (2001) and wrote and directed the Oscar-winning live-action short film This Charming Man (2002). Strange-Hansen has held the positions of chairman and vice chairman for the Association of Danish Film Directors and has served as a mentor for young filmmakers in Danish film schools.
Kim Magnussen is a producer with six Oscar-nominations, two Oscar-wins and over 140 films he has executive produced. These include Ernst & The Light (1996), Wolfgang (1997), Helmer & Son (2007), Silent Nights (2017), which were all nominated for Best Live-Action Short Film, and Helium (2013) and Election Night (1998), which both won. In 1995 he founded M&M Productions with his father, Tivi Magnusson.
Please Hold
K.D. Dávila is a Chicana screenwriter from Los Angeles. After earning her BA in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University and MFA in screenwriting from USC, she went on to be a 2016 Universal Pictures Emerging Writers Fellow and a 2017 Film Independent Project Involve Fellow. She wrote the short film Emergency (2018), and was a staff writer on the CBS summer sci-fi show “Salvation.” Please Hold is her directorial debut.
Born in Istanbul to a Muslim mother and a Jewish father, Levin Menekse attended USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, where he was awarded the Annenberg Fellowship. Since graduating, he has worked as a freelance story consultant and script analyst and he wrote the short film The Terrorist (2020). Menekse is currently a Film Independent Project Involve Fellow.
The Dress
Tadeusz Łysiak is a director and writer known for his short films Lustro (2017) and Techno (2018). He is a graduate of University of Warsaw in Cultural Studies, and a current student in Directing at the Warsaw Film School. He is a participant of the Future Frames next generation film showcase and is currently working on his feature film debut.
Maciej Ślesicki is a director, screenwriter, film producer, and the founder and Chancellor of the Warsaw Film School. His feature film credits include Tato (Daddy) (1995), Sara (1997), Show (2003), and Trzy minuty. 21:37 (Three minutes. 21:37) (2010). With Warsaw Film School, Ślesicki produced the documentary short film Nasza Klątwa (Our Curse) (2013) which was nominated for an Oscar.