A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more cinemas or screening venues, usually in a single city or region. Increasingly, film festivals show some films outdoors. Films may be of recent date and, depending upon the festival's focus, can include international and domestic releases. Some film festivals focus on a specific filmmaker, genre of film, or on a subject matter. Several film festivals focus solely on presenting short films of a defined maximum length. Film festivals are typically annual events. Some film historians, including Jerry Beck, do not consider film festivals as official releases of the film.
Bruce McDonald is a Canadian film and television director, writer, and producer. Born in Kingston, Ontario, he rose to prominence in the 1980s as part of the loosely-affiliated Toronto New Wave.
Paul Joseph Schrader is an American screenwriter, film director, and film critic. He wrote or co-wrote screenplays for four Martin Scorsese films: Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Bringing Out the Dead (1999).
Elpidia Carrillo is a Mexican actress and director. Her career includes roles in both Latin American and US film and television. She is best known in the United States for her supporting role in the iconic action film Predator, Bread and Roses, and Nine Lives.
Bruno Dumont is a French film director and screenwriter. To date, he has directed ten feature films, all of which border somewhere between realistic drama and the avant-garde. His films have won several awards at the Cannes Film Festival. Two of Dumont's films have won the Grand Prix award: both L'Humanité (1999) and Flandres (2006). Dumont's Hadewijch won the 2009 Prize of the International Critics for Special Presentation at the Toronto Film Festival.
The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive programming. Tribeca was founded by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, and Craig Hatkoff in 2002 to spur the economic and cultural revitalization of lower Manhattan following the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Until 2021, the festival was known as the Tribeca Film Festival.
The LA Film Festival was an annual film festival that was held in Los Angeles, California, and usually took place in June. It showcased independent, international, feature, documentary and short films, as well as web series, music videos, episodic television and panel conversations.
James William Napier Robertson is a New Zealand writer, film director, actor and producer, who wrote and directed 2009 film I'm Not Harry Jenson, and 2014 film The Dark Horse, for which he won Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Film at the 2014 New Zealand Film Awards, and which was declared by New Zealand critics "One of the greatest New Zealand films ever made".
Patrik-Ian Polk is an American director, screenwriter, and producer. Polk, who is gay, is noted for his films and theatre work that explore the experiences and stories of African-American LGBT people. In 2016, Polk was included in the Los Angeles Times Diverse 100 list, which described him as "the man bringing black gay stories to screens large and small".
Chris LaMont is an American professor, screenwriter, and independent filmmaker who co-founded the Phoenix Film Festival in 2000 and is currently the President of the Advisory Board for the non-profit Phoenix Film Foundation which he founded in 2000. He has produced and directed several independent films, including Film Club, My Apocalypse, Netherbeast Incorporated, The Graves, Justice Served and Postmarked.
Andrea Arnold, OBE is an English filmmaker and former actor. She won an Academy Award for her short film Wasp in 2005. Her feature films include Red Road (2006), Fish Tank (2009), and American Honey (2016), all of which have won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Arnold has also directed four episodes of the Amazon Prime Video series Transparent, as well as all seven episodes of the second season of the HBO series Big Little Lies. Her documentary Cow premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival and played at the 2021 Telluride Film Festival.
Jose Lorenzo "Pepe" Diokno III is a Filipino film director, producer, and screenwriter. His debut film, Engkwentro premiered at the 2009 Venice Film Festival and received the Lion of the Future Award for Best Debut Film, as well as the Orizzonti Prize.
Udaya Prasanna Vithanage is a Sri Lankan filmmaker. He is considered one of the pioneers of the third generation of the Sri Lankan cinema. He has directed eight feature films including Death on a Full Moon Day (1997), August Sun (2003), Flowers of the Sky (2008) & With You, Without You (2012) and won many prestigious national and international awards and have also been commercially successful in Sri Lanka. In his early theatre work, he translated and produced plays by international writers, adapted works of world literature to film. He has battled against the censorship in Sri Lanka and worked as an educator of cinema who has conducted many Master classes in the subcontinent for young filmmakers and enthusiasts.
Bruno Lazaro is a Canadian-Spanish film director who has written and directed fiction, documentary and experimental films. His most critically acclaimed film is It's For You! / ¡Es para ti! (2004) premiered at the Malaga Film Festival in Spain and screened at international film festivals including Donostia-San Sebastián, Barcelona, São Paulo, and Montevideo.
Stephen Clark Balderson is an American film director.
Kris Lefcoe is a film director and writer based in New York City. Born in Montreal, Quebec, she graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in philosophy, before attending Norman Jewison's Canadian Film Centre as a Director Resident. Many of Lefcoe's films are dark comedies about contemporary culture.
This Is That Productions was one of the leading independent feature film production companies. Established in 2002, and based in New York City, the company was founded and fully owned by Ted Hope, Anne Carey, Anthony Bregman, and Diana Victor. The four partners previously worked together at the groundbreaking Good Machine, which Ted Hope co-founded in 1991.
Cherien Dabis is an American actress, director, producer, and screenwriter. She was named one of Variety magazine's 10 Directors to Watch in 2009.
Enda Walsh is an Irish playwright.
The Last Eve is a 2005 action film directed by Young Man Kang, a Korean-born filmmaker who made his U.S. directing debut Cupid's Mistake (2001).
