Mira Nair is an Indian-American filmmaker based in New York City. Her production company, Mirabai Films, specializes in films for international audiences on Indian society, whether in the economic, social or cultural spheres. Among her best known films are Mississippi Masala, The Namesake, the Golden Lion–winning Monsoon Wedding, and Salaam Bombay!, which received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language.
Penelope Spheeris is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. She has directed both documentary and scripted films. Her best-known works include the trilogy titled The Decline of Western Civilization, each covering an aspect of Los Angeles underground culture, and Wayne's World, her highest-grossing film.
Leonard Michael Maltin is an American film critic and film historian, as well as an author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives. He is perhaps best known for his book of film capsule reviews, Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, published annually from 1969 to 2014. Maltin was the film critic on Entertainment Tonight from 1982 to 2010. He currently teaches at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and has appeared regularly on Turner Classic Movies, and hosts the weekly podcast Maltin on Movies. He has written articles for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Variety, Playboy and TV Guide. He served two terms as President of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and votes for films to be selected for the National Film Registry.
Shannon Marie Kahololani "Shannyn" Sossamon is an American actress. She has appeared in the films A Knight's Tale (2001), 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002), The Rules of Attraction (2002), The Order (2003), Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), The Holiday (2006), Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006), Road to Nowhere (2009), The End of Love (2012), and Sinister 2 (2015).
The Slamdance Film Festival is an annual film festival focused on emerging artists. The annual week-long festival takes place in Park City, Utah, in late January and is the main event organized by the year-round Slamdance organization, which also hosts a screenplay competition, workshops, screenings throughout the year and events with an emphasis on independent films with budgets under US$1 million.
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.
The Chinese American Museum is a museum located in Downtown Los Angeles as a part of the El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument. It is dedicated to the history and experience of Chinese Americans in the state of California, the first such museum in Southern California. It presents exhibits of fine art by Chinese American artists as well as historical exhibits.
Lauren Greenfield is an American artist, documentary photographer, and documentary filmmaker. She has published four photographic monographs, directed four documentary features, produced four traveling exhibitions, and published in magazines throughout the world.
Screamfest Horror Film Festival is a horror film festival founded by film producers Rachel Belofsky and Ross Martin in August 2001. It runs over ten days during the month of October and is hosted at the TCL Chinese 6 Theatres in Los Angeles, California. In 2015, the festival celebrated its fifteenth anniversary and has been credited as being the largest and longest running horror film festival in the United States. The 2016 Screamfest was from October 18 through the 27.
Fernando Scarpa, AKA Fernando J. Scarpa, is an international award-winning director and actor.
Tannishtha Chatterjee is an Indian actress and director best known in the west for her performance in the British film Brick Lane (2007), the film adaptation of Monica Ali's best selling novel of the same name for which she was nominated best actress at the British Independent Film Awards. Her other notable roles have been in Academy Award-winning German director Florian Gallenberger's film Shadows of Time, Road, Movie with Abhay Deol, Dekh Indian Circus, for which she won the National Film Award – Special Jury Award / Special Mention and Marathi film Doctor Rakhmabai for which she has won the Best Actress Award at RIFF and PIFF. In 2019 she directed her first feature film Roam Rome Mein.
Dzi Croquettes is a 2009 Brazilian documentary film directed by Tatiana Issa and Raphael Alvarez about the dance and theater group of the same name.
The America-Israel Cultural Foundation (AICF) is a non-profit American foundation that supports cultural projects in Israel.
Alexander Yefymovych Rodnyansky is a Ukrainian film director, film producer, television executive and businessman. As a media-manager Rodnyansky founded the first Ukrainian independent television network 1+1 and ran Russian CTC Media, which under his management became the first Russian media company to publicly trade on NASDAQ.
The South East European Film Festival, also known as SEEfest, is an annual (non-profit) film festival held during the first week of May in various venues throughout Los Angeles, California. The festival presents feature films, documentaries and shorts produced in or thematically related to South East Europe and the Caucasus.
Mania is a 2015 American independent horror film written by Jonathon Higgins and directed by Jessica Cameron. It was produced by Mem Ferda, and released by Cameron's production company, Small Town Girl Production. Funding for the film was raised via an IndieGoGo campaign, in which rewards included the ability to vote on the locations for filming. It was part of a three-film project, in which two feature films were produced, as well as a behind-the-scenes documentary, Kill the PA.
Johnny Symons is a documentary filmmaker focusing on LGBT cultural and political issues. He is a professor in the Cinema Department at San Francisco State University, where he runs the documentary program and is the director and co-founder of the Queer Cinema Project. He received his BA from Brown University and his MA in documentary production from Stanford University. He has served as a Fellow in the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program.
Social Impact Media Awards was a non-profit impact media agency by SIMA Studios which curates and distributes documentaries and creative media projects. In 2012, Daniela Kon founded SIMA Studios to support social impact filmmaking by launching an annual awards program, SIMA Awards, and global distribution platforms, SIMA X and SIMA Classroom. In 2018, SIMA Studios launched its Fiscal Sponsorship program to support international media projects that inspire social change.
Ruben Kochar Armenian: Ռուբեն Երվանդի Քոչար is an Armenian film director, writer, producer and painter. He is an Honored Artist of Armenia.
Sands of Silence: Waves of Courage is a 2016 documentary film that addresses the spectrum of sexual violence, from child sexual abuse and clergy abuse to rape and sex trafficking. It was directed, written and produced by filmmaker Chelo Alvarez-Stehle.
