Hirokazu Kore-eda is a Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor. He began his career in television and has since directed more than a dozen feature films, including Nobody Knows (2004), Still Walking (2008), and After the Storm (2016). He won the Jury Prize at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival for Like Father, Like Son and won the Palme d'Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival for Shoplifters.
Mad Hot Ballroom is a 2005 American documentary film directed and co-produced by Marilyn Agrelo and written and co-produced by Amy Sewell, about a ballroom dance program in the New York City Department of Education, the New York City public school system for fifth graders. Several styles of dance are shown in the film, such as tango, foxtrot, swing, rumba and merengue.
Street Fight is a 2005 documentary film by Marshall Curry, chronicling the 2002 Newark mayoral election which pitted upstart Cory Booker against the incumbent Sharpe James for Mayor of Newark, New Jersey. Other credits include Rory Kennedy, Liz Garbus, Mary Manhardt, Marisa Karplus, and Adam Etline. Street Fight screened at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival and was later aired on the PBS series P.O.V. on July 5, 2005, and CBC Newsworld in Canada on May 7, 2006. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Megumi Yokota is a Japanese citizen who was abducted by a North Korean agent in 1977 when she was a thirteen-year-old junior high school student. She was one of at least seventeen Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The North Korean government has admitted to kidnapping Yokota, but has said that she died in captivity. Yokota's parents and others in Japan have publicly expressed the belief that she is still alive in North Korea and have waged a public campaign seeking her return to Japan.
Patty Kim is a Canadian filmmaker and co-founder of Safari Media. She co-directed the 2006 award-winning feature documentary Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story, produced in association with the BBC, and executive-produced by Jane Campion. The film was honored with an Alfred I. Du Pont Award. She also co-directed and produced the 2004 documentary Destiny about a young photojournalist murdered by a mob in Somalia; the film won a prize at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival. Patty was consulting producer of the feature documentary "Give Up Tomorrow" which took home top prizes at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival. She has worked as a journalist with the National Geographic Channel, National Geographic Television, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, NBC, and CBS.
Thomas Furneaux Lennon is a documentary filmmaker. He was born in Washington, D.C., and graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1968.
Lionel Chok Ko Hon is a Singaporean film-maker and director. His documentary, Geraldine, was premiered at the New York International Independent Film & Video Festival. His other short films were also screened in New York City and Singapore. Since completing the Intensive Directing Workshop at New York University, he has written the telemovie Dirty Laundry.
Daddy & Papa is a 2002 documentary film made by Johnny Symons. It explores same-sex parenting as seen in the lives of four families headed by male couples. The film also examines the legal, social, and political challenges faced by gay parents and their children.
Graphic Sexual Horror is a 2009 independent film written and directed by Anna Lorentzon and Barbara Bell in their directorial debut. The film is a documentary about Insex, a bondage website.
Nalin Kumar Pandya, popularly known as Pan Nalin, is an Indian filmmaker, best known for directing award-winning movies like Samsara (2001), Valley of Flowers (2006), Angry Indian Goddesses (2015) and the semi-autobiographical Chhello Show (2021). His debut feature Samsara (Miramax) was worldwide critical and commercial triumph and went on to win awards like Best First Feature Film at Durban International Film Festival, "Grand Jury Prize – Special Mention" at AFI Fest, Special Jury Award at Santa Barbara International Film Festival and "Most Popular Feature Film" at Melbourne International Film Festival in 2002. Since then Nalin has been actively making fiction and non-fiction movies which have been coproduced with countries like India, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the USA. Nalin's movies have been distributed worldwide.
Dylan Riis Verrechia is a Barthélemois award-winning film director, auteur, screenwriter, and producer. He grew up in Saint Barthélemy, French West Indies, and was bedridden at age 8 from severe ankylosing spondylitis for ten years. A graduate with honors of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Verrechia's movies have screened at film festivals around the world.
Jared Moshe is an American-born director, screenwriter and producer of independent films He wrote and directed the films "Aporia" (2023), Dead Man's Burden (2012) and The Ballad of Lefty Brown (2017). He has also produced the features Destricted (2006), Kurt Cobain: About a Son (2006), Low and Behold (2007), Beautiful Losers (2008), Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (2011), and Silver Tongues (2011).
Pageant is a 2008 documentary film directed and produced together by Ron Davis and Stewart Halpern. The film explored the behind-the-scenes dramas and realities of the 34th Miss Gay America Contest held in 2004. The film's central theme was the universal desire to be beautiful, noticed and chosen. The film garnered 10 film festival awards before airing on the Sundance Channel in 2010.
Marlin Darrah is the executive director of International Film & Video (IFV), a production company based in the United States. Darrah is one of the most widely traveled filmmakers in the world. For his documentary work in Portugal and in other locations throughout the world, Darrah was recently honored with a knighthood in the Royal House of Portugal.
Emily Bett Rickards is a Canadian actress. She is known for her role as Felicity Smoak on The CW series Arrow, her first television credit. She has also reprised the role in the Arrowverse shows The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl and voiced the character on the animated web series Vixen.
The LuLu Sessions is a feature-length documentary film by S. Casper Wong about a prominent cancer researcher who is dying of breast cancer at the age of 43. Shot during the last 15 months of the life of Dr. Louise ("LuLu") Nutter, the film starts from the moment LuLu learns that her cancer is malignant and traces the emotional roller-coaster and the eye-opening process of dying. It explores human fears and presumptions, family ties and forgiveness, love and friendships, including that between Casper and LuLu, who was a professor of pharmacology at the University of Minnesota. The film has been shown in the U.S. and internationally at numerous film festivals and in conjunction with Breast Cancer Awareness Month (October).
Glena is an American documentary film directed by Emmy-winning filmmaker Allan Luebke. The film tells the story of Glena Avila, a single mother who turns to cage fighting to support her family.
Fursonas is a documentary film about the furry fandom, directed by Dominic Rodriguez.
Funny Story is a 2018 tragicomedy film, directed by Michael J. Gallagher and co-written by Gallagher and Steve Greene. It stars Matthew Glave, Emily Bett Rickards and Jana Winternitz. The film premiered as an official selection at the 2018 Slamdance Film Festival on January 21, 2018.
Kimi Takesue is an experimental filmmaker. Her films have screened widely, including at Sundance Film Festival, Locarno Festival, the Museum of Modern Art, International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Los Angeles Film Festival, South by Southwest, ICA London, Cinéma du Réel, DMZ International Documentary Film Festival, Krakow Film Festival, Slamdance Film Festival, Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai, and the Walker Art Center. Her films have been broadcast on PBS, IFC, and the Sundance Channel. Her awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rockefeller Media Arts Fellowship, and two NYFA fellowships. She is associate professor at Rutgers University–Newark.
