2022 BREAKING THROUGH THE LENS
FINALIST PROJECTS
HoVER OVER PHOTOS TO REVEAL BIOS
Bizimana Jean, Producer
Bizimana is the film’s primary field producer and is the founder/producer of the peace and reconciliation photo workshops. He is also a photographer/videographer for Reuters in East Africa based in Kigali, Rwanda, a project coordinator with Through the Eyes of Children/Camera Kids, and a GroundTruth Film Fellow. In April 2021, he was named a Social Justice Fellow with Magnum Foundation. It is through his eyes that the CAMERA KIDS story is told.developing LAYLA IN DREAMLAND with the support of the BFI.
Fran Borgia, Producer
Fran was born in 1980 in southern Spain and is based in Singapore since 2004. Borgia is the founder of Akanga Film Asia. He was the producer and editor for "HERE" (2009), Ho Tzu Nyen's first feature film that was presented at the 41st Directors' Fortnight, Cannes Film Festival 2009; and for the medium-length film, "Earth", presented at the 66th Venice Film Festival 2009. Since then he has produced noteworthy feature films such as "Sandcastle" (2010), Boo Junfeng's first feature film that premiered at the 49th Cannes Critics' Week in 2010; "Disappearing Landscape" by Vladimir Todorovic, which premiered at the 42nd International Film Festival Rotterdam 2013, and "Mister John" by Christine Molloy & Joe Lawlor, a UK-Ireland-Singapore co-production, which premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2013. In 2015, he produced K Rajagopal's segment for the omnibus feature "7 Letters" (2015). In 2016, he co-produced Lav Diaz's "A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery" (2016), which won the Silver Bear Prize for "a feature film that opens new perspectives" at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival. In the same year, he also produced two films that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival: Boo Junfeng's "Apprentice" (2016) at Un Certain Regard and K. Rajagopal's "A Yellow Bird" (2016) at International Critics' Week. In 2017, he produced Liao Jiekai's segment for the omnibus feature "667" that screened at 22nd Busan International Film Festival. In 2018, he produced Yeo Siew Hua's "A Land Imagined" (2018), that won the Pardo d'oro (Golden Leopard) at the 71st Locarno Film Festival.
Jack Tarling, Producer
UK producer Jack Tarling has produced two feature films, GOD'S OWN COUNTRY and AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS, and line produced several more films for other companies including one with BBC Films and two which were financed by the BFI and premiered in Venice. Prior to features Jack’s background in short films included ASSESSMENT which was short listed for a BAFTA. Romantic drama GOD'S OWN COUNTRY won prizes in 2017 at Sundance, Berlin, Edinburgh, Galway, Chicago, Dinard and many more festivals before winning the Empire Award for Best British Film, the Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Film, Best Motion Picture at the Satellite Awards, 4 British Independent Film Awards including Best Film, and a BAFTA nomination for Outstanding British Film.
AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS is a sci-fi horror film directed by Johnny Kevorkian (The Disappeared) and starring David Bradley (Game of Thrones, Harry Potter) which had its world premiere at Cinepocalypse Film Festival in 2018, where it won the Audience Award for Best Film. It was Critics Pick in the New York Times upon release, and was acquired by Netflix in a multi-territory deal.
Jack has produced content for Disney/Hulu and worked for a year with Sony Interactive Entertainment in 2019. Jack previously supported development and business affairs across the film and TV slate for Ridley Scott's company Scott Free. Jack is the co-founder of the Mother Tongues Development Award (run in partnership with Curzon) which supports the development of UK-set films, by UK-based talent, in which the story dialogue is in a language other than English.
Jack is a graduate of Berlinale Talents, Torino Filmlab Extended, Rotterdam Cinemart, Think. Shoot. Distribute. Save Our Scripts (with The Bureau) Film London Micro Market and many other labs and holds a First Class BA (Hons.) Degree in Media Production from Northumbria University.
Kenny Reynolds, Producer
Kenneth Renaldo Reynolds began his producing career as Production Manager and Producer for the New Jersey-based Sound Off Productions. While there, he worked as both a Production Manager and Producer on a wide array of live broadcasts, including The Rolling Stones return to Hyde Park in London. Kenny returned home to New Orleans in 2013, and served as a producer on the award-winning pilot, Shepherd. His next project, narrative feature Lost Bayou, was selected as a 2018 IFP Narrative Lab Project and made its world premiere at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival. Kenneth was also a member of the 2020 Sundance Creative Producer’s Lab. Other recent projects include the feature Tiger Style! (winner of 4 out of 7 prizes US Works In Progress Festival in Wroclaw, Poland), and Pearl and Henry, a short film premiering at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival and BET as part of 8:46 Films.
Valerie Steinberg, Producer
Valerie is a film producer based in Los Angeles. She is the lead producer of the feature film KARMALINK (dir. Jake Wachtel), a Cambodian “Buddhist sci-fi” that opened Venice Film Critics’ Week 2021. She is also an Executive Producer of WAR PONY (dir. Riley Keough, Gina Gammell), which is having its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard). Valerie's award-winning short film producing credits include HAIR WOLF (dir. Mariama Diallo; Sundance award winner, Criterion Channel), COFFEE SHOP NAMES (dir. Deepak Sethi; Tribeca X 2021, HBO Max), BLOCKS (dir. Bridget Moloney; Sundance 2020), FRY DAY (dir. Laura Moss; SXSW, Tribeca award winner, Criterion Channel), and THE NEW NANNY (dir. Bridget Moloney; Hulu). She is developing a slate of feature films including NOT YOUR AVERAGE QUEEN (dir. Rochée Jeffrey), and she is EP of upcoming feature films including A24’s THE INSPECTION and SILVER STAR (dir. Ruben Amar). She is an alum of the Sundance x WIF Financing Intensive, Rotterdam Lab, Berlinale Talents, Venice Biennale College Cinema, Gotham Week, Film Independent Producing Lab, and Tribeca All Access. Valerie earned her BA in Philosophy and Chinese at Yale University.
CAMERA KIDS
DOCUMENTARY | RWANDA
In a country where reminders of genocide are ever-present, a Rwandan orphan dedicates his life to fighting genocide ideology. And he does it through photography. In the process, he inspires reconciliation between perpetrators and survivors as well as peace for himself.
IF I HAD TWO LIVES
DRAMA | USA, THAILAND, SINGAPORE
Upon agreeing to become a surrogate mother to the child of her lover, Yen begins to re-examine the relationship with her own mother who abandoned her as a child and the mysteries surrounding her childhood living in a Vietnamese military camp.
LEARNING TO BREATHE UNDERWATER
DRAMA, COMEDY | UK
Eight year old Leo’s best friend is an 8m shark which his dad Peter, an artist, put on the roof of their house. Leo misses his mum and Peter misses his wife but their new Polish au pair Anya (26) isn’t either of those things – she’s a whole different kettle of fish.
LITTLE LYING WILD
HORROR, DARK FANTASY | USA, BELIZE
When the moon falls from the sky in rural Belize, a young girl finds the body of a murdered girl no one believes exists. She sets out on her own to solve the crime and stop the monster from killing again.
NOT YOUR AVERAGE QUEEN
DRAMA, COMEDY | USA
After a controversial ranking app is created for a high school to vote for their prom queen, a gender non-conforming teen decides to run in order to prove a point, but gets sucked into the pressure of traditional beauty standards, becoming the very thing she sought to defeat.
Beth Murphy, Writer/Director
Beth is the founder of Principle Pictures, a media and impact company dedicated to storytelling for social impact. Beth is director/producer/executive producer for more than 20 documentaries, including six award-winning feature films (BEYOND BELIEF, THE LIST, WHAT TOMORROW BRINGS, DAWNLAND, PEACEMAKER, SON OF FUKUSHIMA, AFGHAN DREAMERS), news reports, podcasts, and photo series. Her work premiers at top-tier festivals globally and can be found across national and international media outlets, including MTV Films/Paramount+, PBS (FRONTLINE, POV, Independent Lens and NewsHour), The New York Times Op-Docs, TIME, History Channel, The Sundance Channel, Discovery Networks, Lifetime, ABC News, Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting, The Washington Post, PRI The World, NHK, Canal Vie, and many others. Through targeted impact campaigns, Beth raises awareness and promotes action for issues that demand social change. An impact campaign with her film WHAT TOMOROW BRINGS succeeded in building a women’s college in rural Afghanistan and lowering rates of child marriage in a Bangledeshi community. Another with BEYOND BELIEF helped to build the first women’s center in Afghanistan. Inspired by the fact that in the year 2000 there were virtually no resources available to young women diagnosed with breast cancer, Beth wrote Fighting For Our Future (McGraw Hill, 2002), a companion book to her Lifetime TV documentary with the same title. The book was heralded by the Library Journal as doing the cancer community “a vital service.” Her honors include: Emmy Award, World Press Photo Award, Overseas Press Club Award, Scripps Howard Award, National Headliner Award, Webby Award, RTNDA Edward R. Murrow Award, AWRT’s Gracie Allen Award, One Shared World International Outreach Award, and Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award. She earned a Master’s in International Relations and International Communications from Boston University.
writer/DIRECTOR:
BETH MURPHY
PRODUCER:
BIZIMANA JEAN
Ash Mayfair, Writer/Director
Ash was born in Vietnam and educated in the UK and the US. She received an MFA in filmmaking at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. The screenplay for her first feature, The Third Wife, was a recipient of the Spike Lee Film Production Award in 2014. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2018 and won the NETPAC Jury Award. The Third Wife has since garnered more than 20 awards worldwide, screened at over 70 film festivals and received distribution in 30 territories. In 2020, The Third Wife earned three Spirits Awards Nomination including the Someone To Watch nomination for Ash Mayfair. Ash Mayfair’s project in development, Skin of Youth, is about an all-consuming love story between a transgender singer and a dog-cage fighter set in the 1990s Saigon, Vietnam. The project has participated in the South-East Asia Fiction Film Lab 2019, Asian Film Market at Busan 2019, Talents Tokyo 2019, Berlinale Co-Production Market 2020 and Cannes La Fabrique 2020. Skin of Youth is also one of the four winners of the NYU Purple List for the best unproduced screenplays written by graduates in 2020.
WRITER/DIRECTOR:
ASH MAYFAIR
PRODUCER:
FRAN BORGIA
Rebekah Fortune, Director
Having not being diagnosed with Autism until she was in her 30's Rebekah struggled to fit in whilst she was growing up. She always felt on the periphery of any group and used her vivid imagination and creativity to enable her to process her emotions. Rebekah set up production company Seahorse Films in 2011 with longtime collaborator and writer Peter Machen to develop a slate of films that combine creativity with commerciality, and that actively encourages more opportunities for women and disabled artists both in front and behind the camera. In 2017 Rebekah’s micro-budget debut feature “Just Charlie” was released to critical acclaim, receiving many awards including The Audience Award at Edinburgh International Film Festival and the Cannes Film Festival Ecrans Junior Award, it has appeared in festivals worldwide and was nominated for 2 BIFA’s. Just Charlie secured international distribution in the USA, Canada, China, Taiwan, and Theatrical Release extensively in Europe. Just Charlie was ***** rated on Sky Cinema where it had its UK premiere.
Rebekah's short film Her Majesty about a woman with Dementia and her young carer has already won the Audience Award at Academy Award qualifying Hollyshorts and the XX Award at BAFTA qualifying Underwire Film Festival, with further selections for Academy Award qualifying LA Shorts festival and BAFTA qualifying Norwich FF. She has further short films also currently touring BAFTA and Academy Award qualifying festivals.
Rebekah has mentored for BFI Network, appeared as a panellist at numerous film festivals, is a member of Cinesisters and Directors UK where she was selected for the “Inspire” programme and sits on the access and inclusion committee. Additionally Rebekah works extensively with young actors with Disabilities preparing them for careers both in front of and behind camera.
Rebekah is represented by Ellen Gallagher at Casarotto Ramsay Associates.
DIRECTOR:
REBEKAH FORTUNE
Writer:
RICHARD BRABIN
PRODUCER:
JACK TARLING
Samantha Aldana, Writer/Director
Samantha Aldana is an award-winning Belizean-American director and writer based in Los Angeles. She is most inspired by stories that use genre elements to explore the human condition and is heavily influenced by the magical realism/storytelling traditions of her unique multicultural upbringing in South Mississippi and the Caribbean. Her first feature film, SHAPELESS, was selected as a 2020 fellow of the IFP Narrative Lab and premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival. The film was recently released by XYZ Films. Samantha is the recipient of the Belize Film Commissioner’s Emerging Storyteller Feature Film Award for her in-development feature LITTLE LYING WILD. This film was also selected to participate in the Tribeca Film Institute Network, the Emerging Voices Program at the New Orleans Film Fest and most recently was an alum of Tribeca's Writing in Unreal.
writer/DIRECTOR:
SAMANTHA ALDANA
PRODUCER:
KENNY REYNOLDS
Rochée Jeffrey, Writer/Director
Rochée is a graduate of Howard University and a writer/director/performer who hails originally from Jamaica. As a television writer, her credits include Golden Globe-nominated comedy series SMILF (Showtime), Woke (Hulu), Bigger (BET+), Santa Inc. (HBO Max) and co-executive producer of Grown-ish (Freeform). On the film side, her award-winning, Oscar-qualifying short film Suitable was a finalist in the American Black Film Festival HBO Competition and premiered on HBO in February 2019. Rochée also wrote and directed Mr. Talented, a short film which premiered as a part of the 2018 Project Involve Showcase at the Directors Guild of America. She was one of 7 directors selected for the 2018/2019 Viacom Emerging Directors Program. She was a 2019 IFP-Blackhouse Multicultural Producers Lab Fellow, sponsored by HBO, and one of Moviemaker Magazine’s 2019 Screenwriters To Watch. Her feature directorial debut Not Your Average Queen was selected for the 2021 Film Independent Screenwriting Lab and the 2021 WIF/Sundance Financing Intensive. She serves as a producer and writer on the feature film Throw it Back and Make it Clap For Trudy Jones starring Tiffany Haddish (produced by Paul Feig/Feigco). She has an adult animated series executive produced by Lizzo set up at Tomorrow Studios and Apple TV+. She also has a narrative comedy podcast greenlit by Audible and produced by Broadway Video. Rochée recently directed an independent television pilot starring David Arquette. She’s represented by UTA and Rain Management Group.
WRITER/DirECTOR:
ROCHEE JEFFREY
pRODUCER:
VALERIE STEINBERG
Jennifer Noonan, Writer / Director / Producer
Based in Los Angeles, Jennifer feels passionately that Story has the power to inspire, to uplift and to unite humanity. Her screenplays have received accolades from the Nicholl, The WGA Disability List, The Black List, Athena Film Festival, Women in Film, Tribeca Film Festival, Oaxaca International Film Festival, New York Women in Film, and TV, WIST and more. Her directing projects have received several accolades from Sundance.
OLD HAUNTS
DRAMA | japan, us, france, sweden
Fleeing an abusive home, a young boy and his mother shelter in a decrepit apartment complex, where lonely retirees and old ghosts hark back to a lost Japan.
PHANTOM
DRAMA | USA
Harley, a 22-year-old amputee combat veteran, returns from Afghanistan and faces a new battle at home that she must wage to regain her Self.
Kyoko Miyake, Writer/Director
Kyoko is a Peabody award winning filmmaker. Her documentary film, Tokyo Idols, premiered in World Cinema Documentary Competition at 2017 Sundance Film Festival and was acquired by Netflix. Brakeless was supported by BBC / ITVS / IKON / NHK / DR and won the Peabody Award 2014 after airing to great acclaim on BBC and PBS. Kyoko’s first feature-length documentary, My Atomic Aunt (aka Beyond the Wave) was coproduced by broadcasters including BBC, NHK and WDR and supported by Sundance Documentary Fund. It has been screened at festivals across the world, winning Gold Plaque at Chicago International Film Festival. Hackney Lullabies won the Berlin Today Award 2011 at the Berlin International Film Festival. Kyoko’s projects have been selected for prestigious grants, project markets and workshops including Cannes Film Festival’s Cinefondation for their L’Atelier section, Cinema du Monde from CNC in France, Film Wast in Sweden, Bucheon South Korea, Hong Kong and Udine’s film project markets. Kyoko has served as a jury member for Hot Docs -North America’s leading documentary film festival - and Sheffield Doc Fest - UK’s leading documentary festival. She has been selected for Berlinale Talent Campus, Ties That Bind, Japanese government’s Artists Grant, Talent Campus Tokyo, Crossing Borders, Documentary Campus, and Pola Art Foundation Grant among others. Born and raised in Japan, Kyoko moved to UK to study history of English witchcraft at Oxford as a Swire Centenary Scholar, having studied English history at Tokyo University. While studying and working for British and Japanese media, she picked up a camera to fulfill her childhood dream of becoming a filmmaker and started to make short films on her own. She is based in NY.
WRITER/DIRECTOR / PRODUCER:
KYOKO MIYAKE
Jennifer Noonan, Writer / Director / Producer
Based in Los Angeles, Jennifer feels passionately that Story has the power to inspire, to uplift and to unite humanity. Her screenplays have received accolades from the Nicholl, The WGA Disability List, The Black List, Athena Film Festival, Women in Film, Tribeca Film Festival, Oaxaca International Film Festival, New York Women in Film, and TV, WIST and more. Her directing projects have received several accolades from Sundance.
WRITER/DIRECTOR/
PRODUCER:
JENNIFER NOONAN
PRODUCER:
COURTNEY MOOREHEAD-BALAKER
Neil Champagne, Producer
Working as a producer and the head of development for tinygiant, Neil is an integral part of both the commercial and scripted divisions of the company. Neil has over a decade of producing experience and oversees creative workflow in both departments. In 2020, Neil and tinygiant produced the Netflix feature Ali and the Ratu Ratu Queens with Indonesian production company Palari Films. The project went on to be nominated for best picture at the Indonesian International Film Festival. Additionally, Neil’s feature project The Gate was selected as a finalist in the 2020 Whistler Film Festival power pitch competition. Prior to joining the tinygiant team, Neil worked and produced alongside veteran executive producer Robert C. Cooper on the series Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency for BBC America and co-produced the series Unspeakable for CBC/Sundance Channel (New York Times Best Series of 2019). His other notable TV credits include FX’s Fargo, Starz’s The Girlfriend Experience and Netflix’s Blackstone.
THE PILL
COMEDY | CANADA, USA
Set in the summer of the ’90s, a spirited 13-year old with a proclivity for bending the truth gets in over her head with a white lie, all the while trying to assemble a misfit team to run on a local streetball court.
Jenn Shaw, Writer/Director
Jenn is an award-winning NYC writer/director and alumna of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her bold and cinematic filmmaking has both distinctive humor and dramatic instinct. As a former ESPN producer, her career was cultivated by many years of working with the NBA, WNBA, NFL and MLB leagues. Her passion for creating strong character-driven sports and coming-of-age stories is evidenced in her directorial campaigns for brands including Facebook, Capital One, KIA, USAA, Complex, Pizza Hut, and Verizon; as well as in her narrative shorts and documentary films. She has directed several short films exhibiting at major festivals including Pan African Film Festival, Hollyshorts, Edmonton International, and two appearances at the American Pavilion Emerging Filmmaker Showcase at the Cannes Film Festival (2017, 2020). Her ESPN film $15 Kicks was executive produced by legendary director Spike Lee, and it earned her a selection in the 2017 Shoot Magazine’s New Director DGA Showcase and a Black Reel Award. In the past three years, she has directed three episodes of NFL Football Town and a documentary film called The Superbowl That Wasn’t for the NFL Network. Shaw is also an alumna of the Fox Network’s Diversity Writers Program and participated in Gotham’s 2020 Episodic Program with her pilot and series Afro. Recently, she finished two short films I Won The Lottery (Wavelength FIlms) and Charlie and the Hunt starring Marvel’s first deaf superhero Lauren Ridloff (Eternals, Walking Dead) which was the winner of the 2021’s Women in Media CAMERAderie Showcase. Those films are both in the 2022 film festival circuit. Currently, she is an executive producer and director on an upcoming series with Vice and Religion of Sports. Shaw is managed by Anonymous Content and repped by Sola Fasehun.
WRITER/DIRECTOR:
JENN SHAW
PRODUCER:
NEIL CHAMPAGNE
Nicole Teeny, Producer
Nicole Teeny is a queer Lebanese-American filmmaker based in Brooklyn. Her Slamdance award-winning debut documentary BIBLE QUIZ garnered played theatrically nationwide, was on Netflix, and on Sundance Channel in 20 countries, and was selected for the US State Department’s “American Film Showcase”. It was critically acclaimed and garned over 10 festival awards including Audience Award, Best Documentary, and Emerging Director awards. L.A.Times said it was “smart, funny, and disarming.” and San Francisco Bay Guardian said it is “a film that people will remember for years to come.” Her other work has been on HuffPost, Bloomberg Video, NowThis, and featured in textbooks, and exhibited widely including at the Viennale and in hundreds of museums and film festivals worldwide. Her short documentary UNITY MOSQUE is currently on the film festival circuit (including InsideOut, Cleveland International, Hamptons International, Seattle International, and more) and for it she has been awarded best director awards. Nicole’s short script PUBLIC POOL was workshopped at the Berlinale and won 6 screenwriting awards. Nicole’s work has been supported and a part of organizations like International Documentary Association (IDA Enterprise), Tribeca, Berlinale, LEF Foundation, and been an artist in residence at VCCA, Arts Kibbutz, Brush Creek Arts Foundation. When not making films she can be found running long-distance trails around the world or designing activist art through her alias Nasty Ribbons.
THE SARAH HEGAZI DOCUMENTARY
DOCUMENTARY | LEBANON, USA
Determined to change Egypt, LGBTQ activist Sarah Hegazi was the first in Egypt to raise the rainbow flag publicly. The act brought LGBTQ issues out of the shadows but cost her imprisonment, torture, exile, & ultimately her life. However, she changed not just Egypt but the world.
Nicole Teeny, Director / Producer
Nicole Teeny is a queer Lebanese-American filmmaker based in Brooklyn. Her Slamdance award-winning debut documentary BIBLE QUIZ garnered played theatrically nationwide, was on Netflix, and on Sundance Channel in 20 countries, and was selected for the US State Department’s “American Film Showcase”. It was critically acclaimed and garned over 10 festival awards including Audience Award, Best Documentary, and Emerging Director awards. L.A.Times said it was “smart, funny, and disarming.” and San Francisco Bay Guardian said it is “a film that people will remember for years to come.” Her other work has been on HuffPost, Bloomberg Video, NowThis, and featured in textbooks, and exhibited widely including at the Viennale and in hundreds of museums and film festivals worldwide. Her short documentary UNITY MOSQUE is currently on the film festival circuit (including InsideOut, Cleveland International, Hamptons International, Seattle International, and more) and for it she has been awarded best director awards. Nicole’s short script PUBLIC POOL was workshopped at the Berlinale and won 6 screenwriting awards. Nicole’s work has been supported and a part of organizations like International Documentary Association (IDA Enterprise), Tribeca, Berlinale, LEF Foundation, and been an artist in residence at VCCA, Arts Kibbutz, Brush Creek Arts Foundation. When not making films she can be found running long-distance trails around the world or designing activist art through her alias Nasty Ribbons.
DIRECTOR/PRODUCER:
NICOLE TEENY
Caryn Capotosto and Lauren Greenfield, Producers
Caryn Capotosto is an award-winning documentary producer known for WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?, a feature documentary about Mister Rogers that won a 2019 Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary as well as a Producers Guild Award and Critics’ Choice Award for Best Documentary. She received a 2016 News and Documentary Emmy Award for her role as co-producer on BEST OF ENEMIES and she was associate producer on the Academy Award and Grammy Award-winning documentary, 20 FEET FROM STARDOM (2013). Other projects include FEELS GOOD MAN, which won a Special Jury Award at Sundance 2020 (Producer), SHANGRI-LA, a music doc series for Showtime (Co-Executive Producer 2019) and the Emmy-nominated Netflix series UGLY DELICIOUS and BREAKFAST, LUNCH, DINNER (Executive Producer 2019-2020).
Lauren Greenfield, Executive Producer - Named by The New York Times as “America’s foremost visual chronicler of the plutocracy,” Emmy-award-winning filmmaker/photographer Lauren Greenfield is a two-time Directors’ Guild and Writers’ Guild award nominee known for the groundbreaking work she has created on consumerism, youth culture and gender for the past 25 years. Her documentary films Thin, The Queen of Versailles, Generation Wealth and The Kingmaker, and photography from her monographs, Fast Forward, Girl Culture, Thin and Generation Wealth have been screened, published, and exhibited around the world, as well as collected by cultural institutions including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), J. Paul Getty Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), Smithsonian, and the International Center of Photography.
WE ARE PAT
HYBRID DOCUMENTARY | USA
We Are Pat is a hybrid documentary exploring the evolution of gender identity through the lens of the iconic Saturday Night Live sketch It’s Pat. Trans and non-binary comedians reimagine and rewrite the Pat sketches, using humor to reclaim a character that has long maligned us.
Ro Haber, Writer/Director
Ro Haber is an aesthetically-minded Writer/Director who works at the intersections of doc, narrative and new media. A graduate of NYU’s Tisch, they were a 2018 Sundance Momentum Fellow and New Frontier Lab fellow. They were selected for the Universal Pictures Directing Lab, AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women, Film Independent’s Episodic Lab and Project Involve, Outfest’s Screenwriting Lab, and were a shadowing director on FX’s Pose. They were featured on The Alice Initiative’s 2018 list of directors ready to helm studio films, Indiewire’s 8 Best Trans Directors Working Today, and have been a fellow at Yaddo and MacDowell Artist Residencies. They recently served as an advisor for Sundance’s first ever Trans Possibilities Lab. They won a Webby, New Orleans Film Festival, and LA Film Festival awards and were nominated for a GLAAD award for their series, New Deep South. Their series Braddock, PA (Topic) gained critical attention from The New York Times and The New Yorker. They directed short documentaries Stonewall Forever for Stink Studios and Celestial for Tribeca Studios. Recently, they directed the finale for the Gotham-nominated FX x Killer Films series, Pride. They are directing a hybrid documentary EPed by Lauren Greenfield, Caroline Libresco and produced by Caryn Capotosto entitled We Are Pat about the 90s SNL cult figure Pat. They are attached to direct Amasia Entertainment’s trans coming-of-age film, Handsome and their film Shell.ai, a modern feminist horror retelling of the Frankenstein story from the perspective of a female technologist, is being produced by Seaview. They and their collaborators won an SFFILM Rainin Grant for the project they are attached to direct, Since I Laid My Burden Down by Brontez Purnell and Savannah Knoop. They are currently a Sundance Art of Practice Fellow, and recently won a MacArthur Grant for their project, We Are Pat.