Mary Stuart Masterson is an American actress and film director. She has starred in the films At Close Range (1986), Some Kind of Wonderful (1987), Chances Are (1989), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) and Benny & Joon (1993). She won the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the 1989 film Immediate Family, and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for the 2003 Broadway revival of Nine.
Jon Moritsugu is an American cult-underground filmmaker and musician. His movies are satiric, protopunk deconstructions of popular genres and formats with scabrous and pointedly garish results. The New York Times describes them as "funny, anarchic, provocative and exhilarating". Influenced by the nihilism of Jean-Luc Godard and Guy Debord, Moritsugu's films are often defined by their "lo-fi" aesthetic and were initially shot on 16mm film for a gritty, visceral quality. He states that he often "pay(s) less attention to narrative flow and storyline and put(s) more emphasis on sight, sound and spectacle" to create a movie that is "like a live punk/hardcore show." The works themselves are often absurdist comedies that feature actress, co-writer, stylist, and wife, Amy Davis. Perhaps best known for his cult film Mod Fuck Explosion, Moritsugu's films have been screened at Sundance, Cannes, Berlin, Toronto, Rotterdam, Venice, USA Film Festival, New York Underground, Chicago Underground, MoMA, Guggenheim, Whitney and numerous other festivals and museums. In 2001 he received the Moving Image award from Creative Capital.
Zak Smith, also known as Zak Sabbath, is an American artist, role-playing game author, and adult film actor.
Nelson George is an American author, columnist, music and culture critic, journalist, and filmmaker. He has been nominated twice for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Laurence T. Fessenden is an American actor, producer, writer, director, film editor, and cinematographer. He is the founder of the New York based independent production outfit Glass Eye Pix. His writer/director credits include No Telling, Habit (1997), Wendigo (2001), and The Last Winter, which is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. He has also directed the television feature Beneath (2013), an episode of the NBC TV series Fear Itself (2008) entitled "Skin and Bones", and a segment of the anthology horror-comedy film The ABCs of Death 2 (2014). He is the writer, with Graham Reznick, of the BAFTA Award-winning Sony PlayStation video game Until Dawn. He has acted in numerous films including Bringing Out the Dead (1999), Broken Flowers (2005), I Sell the Dead (2009), Jug Face (2012), We Are Still Here (2015), In a Valley of Violence (2016), Like Me (2017), and The Dead Don't Die (2019), Brooklyn 45 (2023), and Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
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.
Ondi Doane Timoner is an American filmmaker and the founder and chief executive officer of Interloper Films, a production company located in Pasadena, California.
Nanette Burstein is an American film and television director. Burstein has produced, directed, and co-directed several documentaries including the Academy Award nominated and Sundance Special Jury Prize winning film On the Ropes.
Jonathan A. Levine is an American film director and screenwriter.
Marina Ann Hantzis, known professionally as Sasha Grey, is an American actress, model, writer, musician, and former pornographic film actress. She began her acting career in the pornographic film industry, winning 15 awards for her work between 2007 and 2010, including the AVN Award for Female Performer of the Year in 2008. In 2023, she was inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame and the XRCO Hall of Fame.
Nico Tortorella is an American actor and model, known for roles in films – including Scream 4, the Fox crime drama series The Following (2013–2015), and the TV Land comedy-drama series Younger (2015–2021). From 2020 to 2021, they also played Felix Carlucci on the AMC series The Walking Dead: World Beyond.
Emily Carmichael is an American film director, screenwriter, and animator. Her short films have screened in competition at Sundance, Tribeca, SXSW, Slamdance, and other US and International film festivals. Carmichael co-wrote the screenplay for the 2018 science fiction sequel Pacific Rim: Uprising and the 2022 film Jurassic World: Dominion.
Amirah Kassem is an American-born baker, author, designer and media personality. She is best known as the owner and founder of FLOUR SHOP and a judge on the Disney+ food-art series Foodtastic. Her kitchen, table, home and clothing products are sold worldwide.
Eliza Hittman is an American screenwriter, film director, and producer from New York City. She has won multiple awards for her film Never Rarely Sometimes Always, which include the New York Film Critics Circle Award and the National Society of Film Critics Award—both for best screenplay.
Laura Goode is an American author, novelist, essayist, poet, screenwriter, producer, and feminist. She is the author of the young adult novel Sister Mischief, the co-writer and producer of the feature film Farah Goes Bang, and writes the ANTIHEROINES column for Bright Ideas Magazine. She lives in San Francisco.
Sasha Waters Freyer, also known as Sasha Waters, is an American documentary and experimental filmmaker, and educator. She is professor of Photography and Film at VCU School of the Arts in Richmond, Virginia. Waters Freyer has produced and directed 18 films, 14 of which originate in 16mm. With the exception of her first documentary, Whipped (1998), she has edited all of her films, including Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable (2018).
Tab Hunter Confidential is a 2015 American documentary film focusing on the American actor, singer, and author Tab Hunter. It is inspired by his autobiography of the same name. The film was produced by Allan Glaser and directed by Jeffrey Schwarz.
Quinn Shephard is an American actress, film director, producer, screenwriter and film editor. She played the roles of Donna Malone in the Christmas comedy Unaccompanied Minors and Morgan Sanders in the television series Hostages. In 2017, her feature film directorial debut, Blame, screened at several film festivals and earned critical attention.
285 KENT was an "underground," all ages concert venue located at 269-289 Kent Avenue, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The venue was founded and operated by Todd Patrick aka "Todd P", beginning in 2010, ultimately closing in 2014 to much fanfare and media coverage. The venue was initially booked and exclusively managed by Patrick, later in partnership with Ric Leichtung, who created the event promotion entity AdHoc.fm, an offshoot of a music journalism website of the same name, to book the venue.
Aaron Hillis is an American writer, film critic, director, film festival programmer, and curator.
