Roman Kroitor was a Canadian filmmaker who was known as a pioneer of Cinéma vérité, as the co-founder of IMAX, and as the creator of the Sandde hand-drawn stereoscopic 3D animation system. He was also the original inspiration for The Force. His prodigious output garnered numerous awards, including two BAFTA Awards, three Cannes Film Festival awards, and two Oscar nominations.
Laura Kightlinger is an American actress and writer. She was a writer and consulting producer on Will & Grace, while also occasionally appearing on the show as the character Nurse Sheila. She was also a writer on the CBS series 2 Broke Girls. Kightlinger also played the title role in the TV show The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman, which she created, wrote, and executive produced. Since 2019, she has appeared in critically acclaimed television series, including PEN15, and Curb Your Enthusiasm appearing alongside Larry David, Albert Brooks, and Lucy Liu.
Daniel Mannix Petrie Jr. is a Canadian-American producer, writer, and director of film and television. He is best known for pioneering the sub-genres of action comedy and buddy cop films through films like Beverly Hills Cop and Turner & Hooch. He served as President of the Writers Guild of America, West between 1997 and 1999, and then again between 2004 and 2005. He currently serves as the President of the Board of Directors at the Writers Guild Foundation.
David Newsom is an American actor, producer and fine-art photographer. He is best known for his various critically acclaimed appearances in American television and for his work in 2005 and 2006 with Viggo Mortensen and Perceval Press.
René Balcer is a Canadian-American television writer, director, producer, and showrunner, as well as a photographer and documentary film-maker.
Austin Film Festival (AFF), founded in 1994, is an organization in Austin, Texas, that focuses on writers' creative contributions to film. Initially, AFF was called the Austin Heart of Film Screenwriters Conference and functioned to launch the careers of screenwriters, who historically have been underrepresented within the film industry.
Toronto After Dark Film Festival is a showcase of horror, sci-fi, action and cult cinema held annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The festival premieres a diverse selection of feature-length and short-films from around the world including new works from Asia, Europe and North America.
Fantastic Fest is an annual film festival in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 2005 by Tim League of Alamo Drafthouse, Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News, Paul Alvarado-Dykstra, and Tim McCanlies, writer of The Iron Giant and Secondhand Lions.
Colin Archibald Low was a Canadian animation and documentary filmmaker with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). He was known as a pioneer, one of Canada's most important filmmakers, and was regularly referred to as "the gentleman genius". His numerous honors include five BAFTA awards, eight Cannes Film Festival awards, and six Academy Award nominations.
Kris Lefcoe is a film director and writer based in New York City. 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.
Clement Virgo is a Canadian film and television writer, producer and director who runs the production company, Conquering Lion Pictures, with producer Damon D'Oliveira. Virgo is best known for co-writing and directing an adaptation of the novel by Canadian writer Lawrence Hill, The Book of Negroes (2015), a six-part miniseries that aired on CBC Television in Canada and BET in the United States.
Maureen Judge is a Canadian Screen Awards (CSA) winning filmmaker and television producer. Much of her work is documentary and explores themes of love, betrayal and acceptance in the context of the modern family, with the most recent films focusing on the dreams and challenges of contemporary youth.
Barney Cheng is a Taiwanese-American actor, director, writer and producer.
Open Your Eyes is a 2008 short film written and directed by Susan Cohen.
Faisal A.J. Saudin, known professionally as A.J. Saudin or Saudin, is a Canadian actor, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known for his role as Connor DeLaurier in the long-running teen drama television series Degrassi: The Next Generation.
TheFilmSchool is a non-profit film program located in Seattle, Washington, that focuses on intensive training in screenwriting and directing. TheFilmSchool's mission statement 'to elevate the art of cinematic storytelling' guides the curriculum to heavily emphasize character, structure, and understanding the principles of storytelling. The program was founded in 2003 by Stewart Stern, John Jacobsen, Rick Stevenson, Warren Etheredge, and Tom Skerritt.
Tracie Laymon is an American screenwriter, producer and film director. Laymon was raised in Houston, Texas, and studied film at the University of Texas at Austin. She began her film career with work in the Texas area, and several of her music videos and short films were recognized with film festival awards. Laymon moved to California, and continued film production work there, serving as production assistant on Blades of Glory in 2007. Her short film Inside premiered in 2009 at the Milan International Film Festival in Milan, Italy, and won the award in "Best Short Film" from the Women's Image Network. She also directed the first ever half-hour comedy for the internet entitled "Goodnight Burbank", which premiered on Hulu.com in April 2011 and was personally acquired by Mark Cuban that same day. The shows then aired on Cuban's HDNet in the fall of 2011. Her short film "A Hidden Agender" premiered at the Dallas International Film Festival and received the Jury Award for Best Dark Comedy at the Houston International Film Festival. Laymon was also named to the Independent Film Channel's list of emerging "Icons" and "Film Innovators".
Azazel Jacobs is an American film director and screenwriter. He is the son of experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs. His short films include Kirk and Kerry (1997) and Message Machine (2002), and his features include the acclaimed The GoodTimesKid (2005), Momma's Man (2008), Terri (2011), The Lovers (2017), French Exit (2020), and His Three Daughters (2023).
Lindsey Dryden is a British film director, producer and writer.
Jonathan Wysocki is an American writer, director and producer of independent films. He is known for his feature film Dramarama (2020), and for his award-winning short films A Doll's Eyes (2016) and Adjust-A-Dream (2014).
