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Talkhouse

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Film

The 2022 Talkies: Talkhouse Film Contributors’ Top Films of the Year

Andrew C. Fisher grew up on the gulf coast of Texas. He studied Philosophy in college, and he has spent most of his adult years trying to figure out how to tell a good story through moving pictures and sound. You can find Thanatos and other work at <a href="http://www.andrewcfisher.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">andrewcfisher.com</a>.
Right after Cacia Zoo popped out of her mom&#8217;s womb, she was dancing! She always knew she wanted to be a performer and artist. She visited New York when she turned 16 and took an acting class throughout the summer. After that summer her life was never the same. She went back to Taiwan and came back to New York the first chance she got. Her creativity is versatile and spread through many different mediums. Whether she&#8217;s in front of the camera or behind it, with herself or collaborating with others, she has immense passion for performance and art. If she&#8217;s not moving or creating, she&#8217;s on her way to.

Andrew C. Fisher and Cacia Zoo

Revisited: Can We Talk About BDSM?

Sarah Elizabeth Mintz is a writer/director working in New York and Los Angeles. She received her BFA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she completed her thesis film Transit, starring Dakota Johnson. After graduating she assisted filmmakers Alejandro Iñárritu on The Revenant, Joachim Trier on Louder Than Bombs, and Cary Fukunaga on True Detective. Sarah was a Sundance Fellow in the 2017 Writer’s Intensive with her feature Good Girl Jane. She directed a proof-of-concept short film of the same name, which garnered interest and financing for the feature. Good Girl Jane recently premiered in U.S. Narrative Competition at Tribeca Film Festival 2022 and won the Founders Award for Best U.S. Narrative Feature as well as Best Performance in a Narrative Feature for Rain Spencer. The film is written by Mintz and is inspired by events in her own life. Sarah is interested in stories that explore the complexities of human nature and the beauty that lies in gray areas that are often overlooked.

Sarah Elizabeth Mintz

Revisited: I Am a Coming-of-Age Drama

Julia Cho is a playwright and screenwriter. Her latest film, Pixar’s <a href="https://movies.disney.com/turning-red" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Turning Red</a>, is out now in theaters. Her plays include The Language Archive, The Piano Teacher, Durango, The Winchester House, BFE, The Architecture of Loss and 99 Histories and Cho has also cultivated a career as a writer and producer of a broad range of television shows from cult sci-fi (Fringe) to character-driven drama (Big Love, Halt and Catch Fire). She has won prizes including the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Barrie Stavis Award, the Claire Tow Award for Emerging Artists, and the L. Arnold Weissberger Award. Her play Durango was also named one of the Top 10 Plays of 2006 by Entertainment Weekly and one of the Best of 2007 by the The Los Angeles Times. She is an alumna of the Juilliard School and NYU’s Graduate Dramatic Writing Program.
 (Photo by Deborah Coleman / Pixar.)

Julia Cho

Revisited: On Sadness

Michael Tennant was born and raised in San Diego, California, and attended the University of Arizona (the Harvard of Arizona) where he graduated with a BFA in both Acting and Directing. After graduation, spent the next four years hustling as an actor in New York City, where he did his requisite episodes of Law and Order, wore a peacoat, and then decided he missed having a kitchen and returned to the West Coast. Shortly after arriving in Los Angeles, he booked leads in multiple pilots as well as guest starring roles for ABC, NBC, Nickelodeon, and The CW before also working as an actor/producer/writer on productions for STX, IFC Films, Amazon, Neon, and Netflix. <a href="https://www.ifcfilms.com/films/pretty-problems" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Pretty Problems</a>, which he wrote, starred in and produced, has won a number of awards, including the Audience Award at SXSW, and is out now in select theaters and on VOD through IFC Films. He currently resides with his dog Leroy in Los Angeles. They have a very nice kitchen.

Michael Tennant

Revisited: I Made a Movie to Save My Marriage and Then I Got Divorced

Melissa Navia is currently starring in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, out now on Paramount+, which follows Captain Pike, Science Officer Spock and Number One in the years before Captain Kirk boarded the U.S.S. Enterprise, as they explore new worlds around the galaxy. Melissa plays Lt. Erica Ortegas. the Enterprise’s helmsman. Melissa’s recent television credits include a recurring role on AMC’s Dietland and guest roles on Showtime’s Billions and Homeland. In March 2020, she made her Off-Broadway debut in the praised Bundle of Sticks at INTAR Theatre. (Photo by Francis Hills.)

Melissa Navia

Revisited: An Actor, a Helmsman, and My Brian: Boldly Going Where No Widow Has Gone Before

Award-winning actress and producer Naomi Ackie plays R&amp;B pop legend Whitney Houston in the new biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody, which is out in theaters now. Most recently, she was seen starring in season 3 of Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang’s Master of None on which she also serves as an executive producer. She will soon be seen in Oscar winner Bong Joon Ho’s next film, based on the novel Mickey 7, alongside Robert Pattinson, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo, and in Zoe Kravitz’s directorial debut, Pussy Island, in which Naomi stars opposite Channing Tatum. Naomi’s breakthrough role was Anna in Lady Macbeth. She also starred in the second season of Netflix’s End Of The F***ing World, which won her a BAFTA TV Award for Best Supporting Actress, and played Jannah in J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: Episode IX, The Rise of Skywalker, alongside Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver and John Boyega. (Photo by Marcus Olsson / Lucasfilm Ltd.)

Naomi Ackie

Best of 2022: Naomi Ackie on Severance

Eugene Mirman is probably best known as the voice of Eugene Belcher on the animated comedy Bob’s Burgers, but he’s also a veteran of the alt-comedy world with many albums and countless live performances under his belt. He’s the subject of It Started As A Joke, a documentary about the Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival, and his song with Lucy Wainwright Roche, “How Do You Lie To Your Child About Santa,” is now available to stream and as <a href="https://prettygoodfriends.com/merch/vinyl-christmas-card-how-do-you-lie-to-your-child-about-santa" target="_blank" rel="noopener">limited-edition vinyl</a> via his label, PGF Records.

Eugene Mirman

Best of 2022: Eugene Mirman on Welcome to Chippendales

Liza Lapira plays Melody &#8220;Mel&#8221; Bayani in CBS’ smash hit The Equalizer and can currently be seen as Natalie in the CBS holiday movie Must Love Christmas. She was most recently seen starring opposite Daniella Pineda and Alicia Witt in the film Modern Persuasion, while her additional feature film credits include Crazy, Stupid, Love, opposite Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore and Marissa Tomei; 21, opposite Jim Sturgess and Kevin Spacey; Fast &amp; Furious, with Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez and Gal Gadot; and Matt Reeves&#8217; Cloverfield. Lapira&#8217;s most recent television credits include Nancy Drew and Unbelievable, opposite Toni Collette and Merritt Weaver. On stage, Lapira starred in Steve Martin&#8217;s Picasso at the Lapin Agile, at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, opposite Justin Long and Hal Linden. (Photo by Lindsay Siu / CBS.)

Liza Lapira

Best of 2022: Liza Lapira on That’s My Time with David Letterman

Alison Star Locke earned a B.F.A. in Filmic Writing from USC, where she won the Jack Nicholson Screenwriting Award. She began her career as a reality TV Story Producer and writing, directing and producing numerous shorts. After staying home to advocate and care for her daughter, who has autism, she returned to work to write and direct The Apology, her first feature, a psychological thriller starring Anna Gunn, Linus Roache and Janeane Garofalo and is available on Shudder, AMC+, Blu-Ray and VOD. Her comedy horror short, Pick Up Time, was laureled up at fests, including Nightmares, Renegade, etc. She recently produced the zombie horror/relationship drama short, Until the End. She lives with her husband and daughter in the LA area. Her work focuses mainly on motherhood, gender disparity, disability and having fun getting your rage out. You can find her on socials at @alisonstarlocke.

Alison Star Locke

Seeing My Family at the Movies

Celyn Jones is a critically acclaimed actor and BAFTA nominated screenwriter from Wales who is the director, co-writer and one of the lead actors in the acclaimed drama <a href="https://www.ifcfilms.com/films/the-almond-and-the-seahorse" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Almond and the Seahorse</a>, also starring Rebel Wilson, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Trine Dyrholm, which is out December 16 through IFC Films. He started his producing career with a series of award-winning short films. Celyn is the co-founder of Mad As Birds Films and has produced on every one of their feature films including the Diane Keaton comedy Poms, which he developed from a one-line pitch. Celyn wrote Set Fire to the Stars (2014), in which he starred as Dylan Thomas opposite Elijah Wood. Since then he has written the critically acclaimed, BAFTA and BIFA-nominated, noir-thriller The Vanishing, starring Gerard Butler and Peter Mullan, and co-wrote Eddie Izzard’s first screenplay, Six Minutes to Midnight, starring Judi Dench and Jim Broadbent, which was released by Lionsgate. He co-wrote the screenplay for The Almond and the Seahorse after originating the role of Joe on stage. (Photo by Jemima Marriott.)

Celyn Jones

Failing Better

Geeta Gandbhir and Sam Pollard are the directors of the documentary <a href="https://greenwichentertainment.com/film/lowndes-county-and-the-road-to-black-power/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power</a>, a timely and compelling look at the struggle and determination to correct the political imbalance within a small-town Black community, which is out now in theaters and on VOD through Greenwich Entertainment. Geeta Gandbhir is an award-winning director, producer and editor with more than 25 years of experience in the film industry. She started her career in narrative film under Spike Lee and Sam Pollard. After working for 11 years in the edit room in scripted film, with filmmakers including Merchant Ivory, the Coen Brothers, Robert Altman, she branched into documentary film. Her most recent films include Hungry to Learn and I Am Evidence. Sam Pollard is a veteran feature film and television video editor, and documentary producer/director. Between 1990 and 2010, he edited a number of Spike Lee films, including Mo’ Better Blues, Jungle Fever, Girl 6, Clockers, and Bamboozled. Pollard and Lee co-produced a number of documentary productions for the small and big screen, including Four Little Girls, which was nominated for an Academy Award® in 1998 and When The Levees Broke, a four-part documentary that won numerous awards, including a Peabody and three Emmy Awards. A prolific documentarian, his most recent films include Citizen Ashe, MLK/FBI, Mr. Soul and Sammy Davis, Jr.: I&#8217;ve Gotta Be Me. (Photo via <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spike_Lee,_Geeta_Gandbhir_and_Samuel_D._Pollard,_May_2011_%289%29.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Wikipedia</a>.)