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Talkhouse

Ela Thier is a writer-director based in New York City who has been writing screenplays for nearly 40 years, and receiving pass letters for about that long. In carving her own path, she wrote, directed, produced and sometimes performed in her award-winning feature films, Foreign Letters and Tomorrow Ever After. In 2026, she’ll be releasing her new feature film, 109 Billion Followers, a comedy-drama with J.K. Simmons. Her first non-fiction book, <a href="https://theindependentfilmschool.com/book/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://theindependentfilmschool.com/book/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1778263869469000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1ydiAjjwnkiDuDtbiLHvHl">How to Fail as an Artist: My Best Tips</a>, is now available on Amazon and book shops everywhere. She has created numerous award-winning short films, and is the founding director of the <a href="https://theindependentfilmschool.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Independent Film School</a>. When she’s not working, she spends time with her nephew and pretends to be interested in baseball. (Photo by Jess Osber.)

Ela Thier

Film

How Losing $200K and Two Producers Led to My Debut Feature

Josh Ethier is a Los Angeles-based film editor who has left a lasting mark on the horror, thriller and action genres. Most recently, he edited Companion, starring Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, and Harvey Guillén, and Netflix’s horror feature Don’t Move, produced by Sam Raimi. Ethier&#8217;s filmography includes other notable titles such as Oz Perkins&#8217; Gretel &amp; Hansel, William Brent Bell&#8217;s Orphan: First Kill, Henry Dunham&#8217;s thriller The Standoff at Sparrow Creek, and the dark action comedy Mayhem, starring Steven Yeun. Ethier is best known for his frequent collaborations with director Joe Begos, with whom he collaborated on the psychedelic horror Bliss, the gritty, action-packed thriller VFW, the holiday horror film Christmas Bloody Christmas, and most recently Jimmy &amp; Stiggs, a neon-drenched alien invasion film presented by horror legend Eli Roth. (Photo by Maarten de Boer.)

Josh Ethier

From Slashers to Downers

Matthew Shear is a filmmaker and actor based in New York. His debut feature as writer-director, <a href="https://fantasylifemovie.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fantasy Life</a>, in which he stars opposite Amanda Peet, Alessandro Nivola, Judd Hirsch and Bob Balaban, world premiered at SXSW 2025, where it won the Narrative Feature Audience Award. The film opens in New York on March 27 and plays nationwide from April 3. Shear also starred in Noah Baumbach&#8217;s Mistress America, alongside Greta Gerwig, as well as in the limited series The Alienist, opposite Dakota Fanning and Daniel Brühl. His other credits include Baumbach&#8217;s The Meyerowitz Stories, M. Night Shyamalan&#8217;s Old, Nathan Silver&#8217;s Between the Temples, and The Boy Downstairs, opposite Zosia Mamet. (Photo by Benno Kling.)

Matthew Shear

Battlestar Fantasy

Janek Ambros is an Independent Spirit Award–nominated producer and director whose films have won honors at Venice, Sundance and GLAAD, and have screened at major festivals around the world. As a producer, his credits include Human Capital (starring Maya Hawke and Marisa Tomei), Ten Thousand Saints (starring Ethan Hawke and Hailee Steinfeld), Monica (winner of the Arca CinemaGiovani Award at the Venice Film Festival) and In the Summers, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance 2024. As a writer and director, Ambros has helmed projects such as the psychedelic farce Mondo Hollywoodland, a sequel to the 1967 cult classic, executive produced by Oscar nominee James Cromwell, which is now available on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mondo-Hollywoodland-Janek-Ambros/dp/B0DFZM53LP" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Prime Video</a>; the political documentary Imminent Threat, examining the War on Terror’s impact on civil liberties; and Ukrainians in Exile, executive produced by Liev Schreiber and two-time Oscar winner Janusz Kamiński. He is the founder of <a href="https://www.assemblylineentertainment.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Assembly Line Entertainment</a>, established in 2012. You can find him on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/janekambros" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Instagram</a> and <a href="https://x.com/janekambros88" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Twitter</a>, and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/assemblylineent/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Assembly Line</a> on Instagram.

Janek Ambros

How Francis Ford Coppola Taught Me to Build, Not Just Direct

A former World Kickboxing Champion and United States Marine Corps combat instructor, German-born filmmaker Lexi Alexander worked her way up from stunt woman to Oscar-nominated director with her live action short film Johnny Flynton, a drama about a boxer. She has helmed feature films including the SXSW Jury &amp; Audience Award-winning drama Green Street Hooligans, Marvel&#8217;s Punisher: War Zone and the acclaimed military drama Lifted. Her latest feature, the martial arts movie <a href="https://www.giant.pictures/absolutedominion" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Absolute Dominion</a> starring Désiré Mia, Alex Winter, Andy Allo, Olunike Adeliyi and Patton Oswalt, is now in theaters through Giant Pictures.

Lexi Alexander

Revisited: The Impossibility of Promoting a Movie During a Genocide

Jane Weinstock is a director and writer based in New York City. Her most recent film, <a href="https://www.threebirthdays.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Three Birthdays</a>, received the NYWIFT narrative director award at the Woodstock Film Festival and is out now in theaters. It also won the best feature director award at the LA Femme International Film Festival. In 2013 she directed The Moment, a psychological thriller starring Jennifer Jason Leigh, Alia Shawkat and Marianne Jean-Baptiste. The film premiered at The Tribeca Film Festival. Her feature directorial debut, Easy (2003), starring Marguerite Moreau, Brían F. O&#8217;Byrne, and Naveen Andrews, was an official selection at The Sundance and Toronto Film Festivals. Weinstock also co-directed Sigmund Freud’s Dora, a short film that showed at The Berlin International Film Festival and the Whitney Museum. She attended the Sundance Director’s Lab. In addition to directing, Weinstock has written on film, art, and feminism. She has a masters in Cinema Studies from NYU and a BA from Princeton.

Jane Weinstock

Revisited: Sex and the Movies

Haroula Rose is a filmmaker and performer from Chicago, now living in Los Angeles. In 2025, All Happy Families, her sophomore feature film as writer, director and producer, was released in theaters nationwide. The film was executive produced by Michael Shannon and stars Josh Radnor, Becky Ann Baker, Chandra Russell, Rob Huebel, John Ashton, David Pasquesi and Colleen Camp. Her debut feature as writer-director, Once Upon a River, an adaptation of the bestselling novel, won 19 awards at over 40 festivals worldwide. Haroula was selected to be part of Hello Sunshine’s short film series, for which she wrote and directed a romcom fable called Hound of Love. Other acclaimed short films and videos include As They Slept, Lost &amp; Found, Wedding Dress, No Love Song and Baby Crazy. Rose received her BA and MA from the University of Chicago, and attended USC&#8217;s MFA program. As a producer she has worked on Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station, David Sington’s The Fear of Thirteen, Heaven Adores You, Permanent and Saint Frances. Rose has released three LPs as well as remixes, singles and EP’s with Thirty Tigers and Tone Tree Music. Her latest collaboration is a group of compositions with Oliver Hill, released on Ba Da Bing Records in early 2025.

Haroula Rose

Some Holiday Spirit: On Film and Chosen Families

Writer-director Rachel Wolther&#8216;s latest film, <a href="https://thefrenchitalianmovie.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The French Italian</a>, is available on VOD everywhere movies are rented and sold; you can follow the film <a href="https://www.instagram.com/thefrenchitalianfilm/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>. She is an alumna of the Sundance Screenwriter&#8217;s Lab, her work has appeared the Black List and in 2017 she was featured as one of Filmmaker magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film.” Her first film was <a href="https://www.snowybingbongs.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Snowy Bing Bongs Across the North Star Combat Zone</a>, which she directed with Alex Houston Fischer.

Rachel Wolther

I Put All My Best Ideas into the Movie Itself, So Don’t Expect Much From This Essay

Amy Herdy’s new documentary, <a href="https://www.parrotkindergartendoc.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Parrot Kindergarten</a>, about an attorney and cult survivor who heals by teaching her parrot to read, is in theaters from November 3. She is president and co-founder of Covetower, an investigative production company dedicated to high-impact storytelling across film and television, and has helped create some of the most impactful documentaries of the past decade. She first entered the film world as an expert researcher for the Oscar-nominated, Peabody-winning documentary The Invisible War (2012), her first, which exposed the epidemic of sexual assault in the U.S. military. With Dick and Ziering, she then produced The Hunting Ground (2015), that ignited the national conversation about campus sexual assault and reshaped school policies nationwide; The Bleeding Edge (2018), which investigated corruption in the medical device industry, catalyzing removals of dangerous devices from the market; On the Record (2020), a searing exposé at the intersection of Black Lives Matter and #MeToo; and the four-part HBO series Allen v. Farrow, which was nominated for seven Emmys. Before entering film, Ms. Herdy built her investigative skills in television news and newspapers, reporting in Florida and Kentucky before joining The Denver Post.

Amy Herdy

I Went to Film a Parrot. I Discovered a New Language.

Ido Fluk&#8216;s latest feature, <a href="https://zeitgeistfilms.com/film/koeln-75" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Köln 75</a> starring Mala Emde, John Magaro and Michael Chernus, is out now in theaters. Described by Variety as &#8220;a talent to be watched&#8221;, he was previously co-writer and director of the Tribeca competition title The Ticket (2017) and the Edinburgh title Never Too Late (2011), which also won the Regard D&#8217;Or at FIFF. He is currently working on the HBO series Empty Mansions in collaboration with Joe Wright and the legal thriller 24 Hours in June with James Schamus. Fluk is a graduate of NYU&#8217;s Tisch School of the Arts and lives in New York, where he used to play in bands but no longer does.

Ido Fluk

On Losing My Father and My New Film, Köln 75

Elliott Hasler is a 24-year-old award-winning British filmmaker whose debut feature, the historical biopic <a href="https://vindicationswimfilm.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Vindication Swim</a>, is out now in theaters. Hasler’s passion for filmmaking began at a young age, with the production of WII: The Long Road Home. Made whilst at school and completed in 2017 when Hasler was just 16 years old, the film garnered praise from New York film critic Graham Fuller, who described the film as &#8220;a miracle achievement for a schoolboy director.” In 2017, Hasler also founded the UK-based independent film company, Relsah Films. (Photo by Gabriela Matei.)

Elliott Hasler

Reliving History for Vindication Swim

Delilah Napier and Lucy Powers are a writing/filmmaking team, who have made four films together under Drama House Pictures. Their first feature film, Voyeur, which they made for $4,000 while undergraduates at Yale, is now on Amazon Prime and won Best US Feature and Audience Award at the 2020 SoHo International Film Festival. Their short film The Compound won the Special Jury Prize at the Chelsea Film Festival in 2021 and their comedy pilot, Victor Versus the Metaverse, won Best TV Pilot at the Rhode Island International Film Festival. Their second feature, Floating Carousel will have its world premiere at the <a href="https://woodstockfilmfestival.org/2025-film-guide?filmId=687e4450e65ffc8913359594" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Woodstock Film Festival</a> on October 17. They are represented by UTA and currently developing a feature with Star Thrower Entertainment (King Richard, The Post, Ingrid Goes West).

Directing