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Talkhouse

Braden King’s most recent feature film, The Evening Hour, premiered in competition at the 2020 Sundance and Rotterdam Film Festivals. Previous work includes the feature film Here, the documentary Dutch Harbor: Where the Sea Breaks Its Back, the shorts National Disintegrations and Home Movie, and videos for Glen Hansard, Sonic Youth, Bonnie &#8220;Prince&#8221; Billy, and Laurie Anderson, among others. His films and installations have shown at venues worldwide, including the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Berlin International Film Festival, The Museum of Modern Art, and MASS MoCA.

Braden King

Film

On the Ross Brothers’ Second Star to the Right and Straight on ’Til Morning

Born in Iran, Matt Eskandari immigrated to the United States as a child, when his parents fled the oppressive religious regime that followed the Iranian revolution. He graduated with Honors from USC with a degree in Cinema/Television Critical Studies. At 21, his first short film, The Taking, won Best Short Film at ScreamFest, which helped him finance his first feature, the psychological thriller titled Victim (2010), which was distributed theatrically by IFC Films. Eskandari’s next feature, the action thriller Game of Assassins, starring Bai Ling and Dustin Nguyen, was shot primarily in mainland China and was distributed by Lionsgate in 2014. Following his third feature, 12 Feet Deep, starring Tobin Bell and Diane Farr, Eskandari signed a three-picture deal to direct action/thriller feature films for Lionsgate starring Bruce Willis, Trauma Center, Survive the Night and Open Source. Trauma Center was released theatrically in 2019, and <a href="https://www.lionsgate.com/movies/survive-the-night" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Survive the Night</a> is currently on release, via VOD.

Matt Eskandari

Don’t Let Anything Get in Your Way

Laura Terruso is a screenwriter, director and producer. Her latest comedy, Work It, will premiere on Netflix later this summer.&nbsp;Her previous film, Good Girls Get High, will be available on HBO Max in July. Her feature debut as writer-director, Fits And Starts,&nbsp;premiered at the 2017 SXSW Film Festival and is available on Amazon. She co-wrote and co-produced the film&nbsp;Hello, My Name Is Doris, starring Sally Field and directed by Michael Showalter. The feature is based on her short film&nbsp;Doris &amp; The Intern. Released by Roadside Attractions, Hello, My Name Is Doris went on to become one of the top grossing indies of 2016. Laura attended NYU&rsquo;s graduate film program at the Tisch School of the Arts. She is repped by CAA, Industry Entertainment and SGSBC.

Laura Terruso

How Do We Get Back to Work During Coronavirus? By Embracing Our Indie Roots

Delroy Lindo can now be seen in Spike Lee’s new film Da 5 Bloods. Lindo has had memorable roles in films such as The Cider House Rules and Heist, and previously garnered critical acclaim in a trio of films with director Lee: Clockers, Crooklyn and Malcolm X. Other notable films include Wondrous Oblivion, Ransom, Get Shorty, Romeo Must Die, This Christmas (also as executive producer), and Pixar’s Up! On TV, he currently appears as Adrian Boseman in CBS’ The Good Fight (sequel to The Good Wife) and won an NAACP Award for a guest appearance on Law and Order: SVU. Also for TV, he produced and directed documentary interview films featuring Spike Lee, Charles Burnett and Joan Chen. On Broadway, Lindo received Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations playing Herald Loomis in August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, and played Walter Lee in the Kennedy Center and Los Angeles productions of A Raisin in the Sun (Helen Hayes Award Nomination and NAACP Image Award, Best Actor). Lindo directed the plays Blue Door and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone to critical acclaim at Berkeley Repertory Theater, and won a Los Angeles Theater Weekly Award directing the play Medal of Honor Rag. (Photo by George Ligon.)

Delroy Lindo

The Way We Get By: Delroy Lindo is Finding Hope Through Volunteering, Protesting and the Young Generation

Megan Griffiths is a writer and director working in film and television whose latest film, the coming-of-age drama <a href="https://www.monumentreleasing.com/year-of-the-fox" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Year of the Fox</a>, starring Sarah Jeffery, is now available on digital. She has directed episodes of the Duplass Brothers’ Room 104 for HBO, Animal Kingdom for TNT, Prodigal Son for Fox, as well as shows for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and EPIX. Her recent features include I&#8217;ll Show You Mine, starring Poorna Jagannathan and Casey Thomas Brown, and Sadie, starring Sophia Mitri Schloss, Melanie Lynskey, John Gallagher Jr, Danielle Brooks and Tony Hale, which premiered at SXSW 2018 and is now streaming on Amazon Prime. Her feature work also includes The Night Stalker (starring Lou Diamond Phillips as serial killer Richard Ramirez), Lucky Them (starring Toni Collette, Thomas Haden Church, Oliver Platt and Johnny Depp), Eden (starring Jamie Chung, Matt O’Leary and Beau Bridges) and The Off Hours (starring Amy Seimetz, Ross Partridge and Scoot McNairy). More on Megan can be found at <a href="http://www.thecinechick.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">thecinechick.com</a>. (Photo by Susan Doupe.)

Megan Griffiths

The Clouds That Touch Us Out of Clear Skies

Victoria Negri is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker and actor. Her directorial debut, <a href="http://goldstar-film.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gold Star</a>, which she also wrote and stars in, world premiered at the Buffalo International Film Festival in October 2016, where it won the Audience Award, was released theatrically in fall 2017, and is currently available through Amazon Prime. Negri is currently in development on her second feature as writer-director, Ultra.

Victoria Negri

Short Film Premiere: This is No Time

Benjamin Shearn is a film editor and writer. His last feature, Ladyworld, premiered at BFI London, Fantastic Fest, TIFF: Next Wave and was presented as part of the Frontieres Showcase at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. Shearn&#8217;s work in narrative and documentary films has also been exhibited at ComicCon San Diego, the Louisiana Museum of Art in Copenhagen, la Gaîté lyrique in Paris, as well as official selections of the CPH:DOX, Melbourne International, Planete+Doc, TIFF After Dark, Court Metrage du Clermont, Chicago and Boston Underground Film Festivals, amongst others. For more of his work, go to <a href="http://benjaminshearn.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://benjaminshearn.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1589644928427000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGAhMmnBbieO5wc9yW6NKlNmCLJeA">benjaminshearn.com</a> and/or follow his absurd Instagram account @<a href="https://www.instagram.com/actorsupset/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.instagram.com/actorsupset/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1589644928427000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGdDQxohBJ2mOVPaPV2yyYrXWa22g">actorsupset</a>.

Benjamin Shearn

Video Essay: Modern Horror

Jasmine Batchelor plays Jess in Jeremy Hersh’s <a href="https://www.monumentreleasing.com/the-surrogate-theatrical" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Surrogate</a>, and is also an Associate Producer on the film, which is released by Monument Releasing on June 12. She is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Atlanta, Georgia. After discovering a love for acting in high school, Jasmine went on to study acting at Wright State University and The Juilliard School. Recent television credits include New Amsterdam, NCIS: New Orleans, The Good Fight, The Affair, Law &amp; Order: SVU and Miss 2059. In addition to film and television, Jasmine’s recent theater credits include projects at Manhattan Theatre Club, The Playwrights Realm, The Public Theater, Two River Theater, and Baltimore Center Stage. In his December 2019 New York Times review of Measure For Measure at the Public Theater, Jose Solís wrote, “Batchelor, whose expressive face recalls the oft-doomed heroines played by Lillian Gish, turns in an Isabella for the ages.”

Jasmine Batchelor

Say Her Name

Jason Wise is the director of the new documentary The Delicacy, which is now streaming worldwide exclusively on SOMM TV. He graduated from Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Television in 2005. In 2012, Jason directed the acclaimed wine documentary Somm, which put the existence of the sommelier into the American consciousness and was one of the most watched documentaries of the year. In 2015, it was turned into a television series by Esquire Network titled Uncorked, and Jason served as an executive producer of all six episodes. Jason’s follow-up film, Somm: Into The Bottle, was released worldwide by Samuel Goldwyn Films and spent several weeks as the number one documentary on iTunes in the United States, Canada, Germany, and the UK. Jason’s next film, Wait For Your Laugh, about the nearly 90-year career of showbiz performer Rose Marie, released in 2017. The third film in the Somm series, Somm 3, was released in 2018. In 2019, Jason was awarded the 2019 documentarian of the year from Kodak.

Jason Wise

How I Nearly Died Making My New Movie

Josephine Decker’s latest feature <a href="https://neonrated.com/films/shirley" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Shirley</a>, starring Elisabeth Moss, Michael Stuhlbarg, Odessa Young and Logan Lerman, premiered in competition at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and is released on Hulu, VOD and participating drive-ins June 5, 2020. Her previous feature, Madeline’s Madeline, world premiered at Sundance 2018; it was hailed as a “mind-scrambling masterpiece” and was nominated for Best Picture at IFP’s Gotham Awards and for two Independent Spirit Awards. Josephine premiered her first two narrative features, Thou Wast Mild and Lovely and Butter on the Latch, at the Berlinale Forum 2014 to critical acclaim. She also explores collaborative storytelling via TV directing, documentary making, performance art, accordion-playing, acting, teaching at CalArts and Princeton University, and leading artist residencies with the School of Making Thinking.

Josephine Decker

The Way We Get By: Josephine Decker Takes Us on a Poetry Walk

Jeff Simmermon is a storyteller and standup comic whose stories have appeared on Risk!, This American Life, The Moth&#8216;s podcast, PBS&#8217; Stories From the Stage and in written form on The Paris Review Daily. His new album, <a href="https://800pgr.lnk.to/SimmermonWE" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Why You Should Be Happy</a>, was released on May 5, 2020, by Eight Hundred Pound Gorilla Records and is available wherever the very finest digital music and comedy is sold. His previous album, And I Am Not Lying, was released in June 2017 and reached #1 on the iTunes comedy charts. It was pressed onto pink vinyl and is distributed by Dischord Records. He&#8217;s also the producer-performer behind And I Am Not Lying, a variety show that combined stand-up, storytelling, burlesque, sideshow and music for five years at UCB Theater in New York City. He taught storytelling to businesses, educational institutions and performers until the collapse.

Jeff Simmermon

Have Faith in Robocop

Kentucker Audley is a filmmaker, film programmer, actor and (former) Movies hat salesman. His debut album, <a href="https://kentuckeraudley.bandcamp.com/album/old-amateur" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Old Amateur</a>, is now out. His latest film, Strawberry Mansion (co-directed with Albert Birney), premiered at Sundance 2021. His previous directorial effort, Sylvio (also co-directed with Albert Birney), debuted at SXSW and was named one of the Best 10 Movies of the Year by The New Yorker. As an actor, he&#8217;s starred in indie films such as Christmas, Again and Sun Don&#8217;t Shine. He also founded <a href="http://nobudge.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NoBudge</a> and <a href="https://www.moviesbrand.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Movies Brand</a>.