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Talkhouse

Michael Felker is the director, writer, producer and editor of the new sci-fi thriller <a href="https://www.magnetreleasing.com/thingswillbedifferent/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Things Will Be Different</a>, which is out now through Magnet Releasing. Michael is known for editing feature films The Endless, Synchronic, Spring, Sunset on the River Styx, Get the Girl and, most recently Something in the Dirt. Michael has directed and produced several dozen short films over the last 15 years including most recently Would You Like to Try Again? and Save and Continue. He is from Huntsville, Alabama, and is a graduate of Florida State University’s College of Motion Picture Arts. (Photo by Jori Lynn Felker.)

Michael Felker

Film

“Where Else Can I Go?” Or, How I Reckoned With My Movie Almost Completely Falling Apart On Day One

Pascal Plante is a Montreal-based filmmaker whose third narrative feature, the psychological cyber-thriller Red Rooms, is out now in theaters through Utopia. His previous film, Nadia, Butterfly, premiered in the official selection of the 73rd edition of Cannes Film Festival in 2020. After his graduation from Concordia University’s Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema, Pascal co-founded the production company Nemesis Films, with which he directed numerous short films including Blast Beat (Slamdance 2019), Blue-Eyed Blonde (Best Canadian Short Film, VIFF 2015), and Nonna (Slamdance 2017). His first narrative feature, a punk romance entitled Fake Tattoos, competed at the Berlinale, in Generation 14plus, in 2018. Pascal considers himself like a cinephile that became a narrative filmmaker with documentarian tendencies.

Pascal Plante

How to Create in Darkness and (Mostly) Stay Sane

Emily Packer is the director/producer of the new documentary, <a href="https://www.holdingbackthetidefilm.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Holding Back the Tide</a>, opens September 6 at DCTV&#8217;s Firehouse Cinema in New York City and October 4 at Laemmle Theatres in Los Angeles, via Grasshopper Film. Emily’s directorial work has been screened at film festivals and theaters across the country, including at Anthology Film Archives, BlackStar, DOCNYC, and others. Emily’s short most recent film By Way of Canarsie, which she co-directed with Lesley Steele, is streaming on the Criterion Channel and was a part of POV Shorts Season 6. As an editor, Emily’s work has been featured in the New Yorker, PBS, and on Vimeo Staff Picks. Emily also serves on programming committees for film festivals in New York City, was a fellow in the 2018 Collaborative Studio at UnionDocs in Brooklyn, and is a proud alumna of the anomalous Hampshire College. Emily collects voicemails for future use; consider yourself notified.

Emily Packer

My Serendipitous Stint as Fishmonger-Filmmaker

Jake Allyn&#8216;s debut feature as directror, <a href="https://wellgousa.com/films/ride" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ride</a>, which he also stars in and wrote, is now in theaters and on demand. The film, a crime drama set in the world of rodeos, also stars C. Thomas Howell, Annabeth Gish. Allyn is also the writer of 2021 film No Man’s Land and starred in it alongside Frank Grillo, Jorge Jimenez, Andie MacDowell and George Lopez. After graduating from Cornell and deciding to pursue acting full time, Allyn landed his first series regular on BET’s one-hour drama The Quad, where he played BoJohn Folsom, a star quarterback forced to attend a historically black college who had to overcome a checkered past and race issues to win over his teammates. Jake’s performance was praised by The Hollywood Reporter and The Quad made The New York Times’ “Top Shows to Watch.” (Picture by Maarten de Boer.)

Jake Allyn

The Ride of My Life

Laura Hunter Drago is a producer living in Los Angeles, California. Originally from a small town in Virginia, Laura grew up performing in theatre both in school and professionally. She trained as an actress at New York University&#8217;s Tisch School of the Arts, where she studied at the Atlantic Theatre Company School and the Lee Strasberg Institute. She is a proud member of SAG-AFTRA, the Assistant Editor-in-Chief of <a href="http://msinthebiz.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ms. in the Biz</a>, a website founded by Helenna Santos that provides resources for female entrepreneurs in the entertainment industry, and co-founder of <a href="http://www.newgirlpictures.com/">New Girl Pictures</a> with one of her best friends from her high school theatre days, Samantha Macher. Their production company focuses on getting women into positions both in front of and behind the camera early in their careers. Her first feature film, <a href="https://www.tothenewgirl.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">To the New Girl</a>, which was made by an all-female cast and creative team, is released on VOD on August 11, 2020.

Laura Hunter Drago

The Industry is in Crisis, But Make Something Anyway

Emily MacKenzie and Noah Collier are the directors of the new documentary <a href="https://memory.is/carpet-cowboys" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Carpet Cowboys</a>, which is out now. Emily is a New Orleans-based director and producer who has produced and directed for HBO, Vice, MTV, Fuse, Discovery Networks, WEtv, and Channel 4, among others. Noah is a director and cinematographer born in New York City working primarily in the non-fiction sphere, with credits that include the Sundance Special Jury Award-winning Jawline (Hulu 2019), Santa Camp (HBO 2022), and The Come Up (Freeform 2022).

Emily MacKenzie and Noah Collier

“Then … a Volcano Erupted”

Devin Fei-Fan Tau is a gay, Asian-American filmmaker whose storytelling speaks out against the imposed silence he experienced from both his native and adopted cultures since immigrating to the United States as a child four decades ago. His latest film, <a href="https://nosunrisewasted.com/halfsisters" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Half Sisters</a>, is available digitally for rent/purchase on AppleTV/iTunes, Amazon Prime Video, GooglePlay and Vudu and his George Takei-narrated documentary <a href="https://nosunrisewasted.com/whosontop" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Who’s on Top?</a>, which tells the story of a group of LGBTQ+ athletes who set out to climb Mt. Hood, is also available to stream. He&#8217;s currently on his third career, having developed his financial and analytic skills in corporate finance and then adding an eye for fashion in apparel merchandising. BS University of California at Berkeley (Business), AAS Portland Community College (Video Production). He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Devin Fei-Fan Tau

Making Sure Every Voice is Heard

Byron Mann currently stars opposite K-pop star Nichkhun and legendary Hong Kong actor Kenneth Tsang in the indie romcom The Modelizer, which he also wrote and produced. Mann is best-known for his role opposite Steve Carell in the 2016 Best Picture Oscar nominee The Big Short, and also recently starred alongside Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in the actioner Skyscraper. On TV, Mann can currently be seen on The Recruit for Netflix, while his other notable credits include Arrow, Hell On Wheels, Altered Carbon and The Expanse. He also played attorney Ed Lan in Little Fires Everywhere with Reese Witherspoon, Kerry Washington, Rosemarie DeWitt and Joshua Jackson, based on Celeste Ng’s bestselling book. Mann grew up in Hong Kong, and studied at the University of California, in LA, graduating magna cum laude in Philosophy. He maintains residences in Los Angeles, Vancouver, and Hong Kong. (Photo by Narbeh Khodaverdi.)

Byron Mann

The Brazilian Actress and the Covid Quarantine Camp (Or, The Miraculous Making of The Modelizer)

Gabriel Bier Gislason is a writer-director from Copenhagen. Based out of London and New York for over a decade, he recently returned to his Denmark after graduating from NYU’s Grad Film Program. His first feature, Attachment, a Danish-UK horror romance steeped in Jewish mythology, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2022, followed by, among others, Fantastic Fest and the BFI London Film Festival and is streaming on Shudder from February 9. (Photo by Aleksander Hørup.)

Gabriel Bier Gislason

“Not Great!” Or, How I Fought COVID Claustrophobia While Writing My Apartment-Bound Jewish Folk-Horror Romance Attachment

Jared Frieder&#8216;s directorial debut, Three Months, starring Troye Sivan, Viveik Kalra and Brianne Tju, is streaming exclusively on Paramount Plus from February 23. He was born and raised in Hollywood, Florida and is a graduate of Columbia University with a major in creative writing. His screenplay of Three Months made the 2015 Annual Blacklist and was accepted into the Sundance Screenwriting Intensive. It also won the Austin Film Festival’s Comedy Screenplay Award, the Outfest Film Festival’s Screenwriting Lab Fellowship, the Screencraft Comedy Screenplay Grand Prize, and the Big Bear International Film Festival Screenwriting Prize. He lives in Los Angeles. (Photo by Lara Alameddine.)

Jared Frieder

How to Wait

Cristina Rosato can currently be seen opposite Josh Peck in the Disney+ action-comedy series Turner &amp; Hooch, inspired by the 1989 Tom Hanks film of the same name. She also recently starred in the Crackle drama series Art of More opposite Dennis Quaid, and her other TV credits include The Good Doctor, A Million Little Things, City on a Hill and Party of Five. Rosato recently wrapped the tango-themed Canadian-Argentinian indie drama Ariel, and her past film credits include the rom-com Little Italy, opposite Emma Roberts, Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! with Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem, and Bad Santa 2 with Billy Bob Thornton. Born and raised in Montréal, Québec, in an Italian-Canadian family, Rosato studied at the prestigious American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Los Angeles and was mentored by the late acting coach Jacqueline McClintock. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she wrote and published a children’s book, A Hero Too, with her cousin, Lara Villani, with proceeds going to Save the Children Canada. (Photo by Jonny Marlow, hair and make-up by Michaël Goyette, stylist Kelly Brown.)

Cristina Rosato

My Dream Role and Tango in the Time of Corona

Julia Marchese is a filmmaker, actor, podcaster, cinephile and film programmer living in Hollywood, California. Her first film was the award-winning documentary Out of Print, about the importance of revival cinema and 35 mm exhibition to culture, and she is currently the co-host of the popular horror podcast Horror Movie Survival Guide. She recently crowdfunded on <a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/i-know-what-you-need-a-stephen-king-adaptation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">IndieGoGo</a> for her forthcoming Dollar Baby short film I Know What You Need, based on Stephen King&#8217;s story of the same name from Night Shift. You can find her on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @juliacmarchese.

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