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Talkhouse

Hilary Brougher is a screenwriter and director living and working in New York City. <a href="https://southmountainfilm.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">South Mountain</a>, her third original feature, premiered at SXSW on 2019 and is on VOD from May 5. Her first feature, Sticky Fingers of Time, was an official selection at the Venice, Rotterdam, SXSW, and Toronto International Film Festivals and was released theatrically in 1997. Her second feature, Stephanie Daley, starred Tilda Swinton, Amber Tamblyn, Melissa Leo, Tim Hutton and Denis O’Hare, and premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Waldo Salt Award for Screenwriting. She is currently working on a documentary, Striper, co-directed with Maria Rosenblum. Brougher is the Chair of the Film Division at Columbia University’s School of the Arts as well as a full-time member of faculty in directing in the MFA program.

Hilary Brougher

Film

Try This at Home

Director and producer Spencer T. Folmar grew up in Central Pennsylvania in Clearfield. His time there brewed a passion and love for the area. Though he is based in Los Angeles, California, he attempts to pay homage to his home state when he can. He sees his latest film, Shooting Heroin, out on VOD April 3, as a way to help raise awareness of the opioid epidemic that is ravaging not only his home community, but others around the United States. Folmar is a member of the Producers Guild and Directors Guild of America, has directed four feature films, and has produced seven. His love for filmmaking and tackling real-world issues can be seen in the types of films and projects he has worked on. Folmar also has a passion for training and equipping the next generation of storytellers through his company Veritas Arts, which owns and operates a movie theater, and runs an international film festival.

Spencer T. Folmar

Telling Stories That Liberate

Cooper Raiff is a filmmaker-actor from Dallas, Texas, now based in Los Angeles. His innovative drama series <a href="https://mubi.com/en/us/series/hal-harper" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hal &amp; Harper</a>, starring Lili Reinhart, Mark Ruffalo and Raiff himself, is now streaming on Mubi. His debut feature, Shithouse, had its world premiere at the 2020 SXSW Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize for Narrative Feature, and his second film, Cha Cha Real Smooth, starring Raiff, Dakota Johnson, Vanessa Burghardt and Raúl Castillo, premiered at Sundance in 2022.

Cooper Raiff

The People in Shithouse

Rachel Elizabeth Seed is an LA-based nonfiction storyteller working in film, photography, and writing. Her debut feature film, <a href="https://www.rachelseed.com/#/apm/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A Photographic Memory</a>, premiered at True/False 2024 and was cited as “one of the best docs of the year” by Rogerebert.com and “an ingenious, meta doc” by Variety. Rachel’s work has been supported by the Sundance Institute, Chicken + Egg Pictures, NYFA, Field of Vision, the Jerome Foundation, NYSCA, the Maine Media Workshops, the Roy W. Dean grant, the Jewish Film Institute, Jewish Story Partners, and IFP/Gotham Labs, among many others. Formerly a photo editor at New York Magazine, her photography has been exhibited at the International Center of Photography and she was a cameraperson on several award-winning feature documentaries including Sacred by Academy-Award winning filmmaker Thomas Lennon. Rachel’s writing has been published by No Film School, the Sundance Institute and Talkhouse

Rachel Elizabeth Seed

Alone, Together: A Filmmaker’s Quarantine

Jonathan Jakubowicz is the director, writer and producer of Resistance, starring Jesse Eisenberg, Ed Harris, Clémence Poésy and Edgar Ramírez, which is out March 27 through IFC Films. It tells the story of how Marcel Mangel, an aspiring Jewish actor later known as Marcel Marceau, joined the French Resistance to save the lives of thousands of children orphaned at the hands of the Nazis. Jakubowicz is Venezuela&#8217;s most celebrated filmmaker and writer, and in 2005 his debut feature Secuestro Express, became Venezuela’s highest-grossing film, eclipsing such movies as Titanic. His second feature, Hands of Stone (2016), about the relationship between Panamanian boxer Roberto Durán (Edgar Ramírez) and his trainer Ray Arcel (Robert De Niro) premiered at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival and released theatrically worldwide. In November 2016, Jakubowicz published his first novel, Las Aventuras de Juan Planchard, which immediately became a best-seller in the Spanish language market and it is on its way to become the highest selling book of all time for a Venezuelan author. Jakubowicz is of Polish Jewish descent. He has a BA in Communications from the Universidad Central de Venezuela.

Jonathan Jakubowicz

What Scorsese Told Me

Deborah Kampmeier is an award-winning filmmaker. Her first feature Virgin, starring Elisabeth Moss and Robin Wright, was nominated for two 2004 Independent Spirit Awards, including Best Actress for Elisabeth Moss and the John Cassavetes Award. Her second feature, Hounddog, starring Dakota Fanning and Robin Wright, was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. Deborah’s third feature, Split, won Best of Show at the 2016 Female Eye Film Festival and was nominated for the Independent Vision Best Film at the 2016 Sarasota Film Festival. Kampmeier made her television directorial debut on Ava DuVernay’s critically acclaimed series Queen Sugar in 2019 and followed immediately with two episodes of DuVernay&#8217;s new series Cherish the Day. Her fourth feature, TAPE, starring Isabelle Fuhrman is having its <a href="https://www.tapevirtualpremiere.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">online virtual release</a> March 26, 2020, and will be available on Amazon and iTunes April 10th. Deborah is prepping her next feature, Dirt Rhapsody, as well as her limited series Pilgrim&#8217;s Wilderness.

Deborah Kampmeier

Take Your Shit and Turn It Into Gold

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

Trusting the Unknown Path

Ted Geoghegan is the writer and director of the acclaimed 2015 retro-horror feature We Are Still Here, which is currently available on Amazon Prime and Shudder, and the violent 1814-set action-drama Mohawk, now on Netflix. He lives in Manhattan with his wife and internet-famous cat.

Ted Geoghegan

The Movies We Love Can Get Us Through This

An actress, director, writer and producer, Deborah Twiss came to New York City to study acting when she was 17 and quickly got involved in also writing and producing indie films. Her first feature, A Gun for Jennifer, went to over 27 film festivals and is a European cult hit. She then produced and starred in the indie Molotov Samba. Shortly after, with her 18-month old son in a stroller and her baby girl on her chest in a Bjorn, Deborah wrote, starred in and directed In-Between, a supernatural 9/11 thriller (available to view <a href="https://vimeo.com/161253024" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>). She also wrote, starred in and was the supervising director on <a href="https://vimeo.com/94383987" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A Cry From Within</a> starring Eric Roberts, Cathy Moriarty and James McCaffrey, to be followed by <a href="https://vimeo.com/127830560" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Confidence Game</a> (as writer/director/lead actress), featuring Sean Young, James McCaffrey and Robert Clohessy. In the past couple years, Deborah has begun the dive into the exciting world of episodics and is currently in production on the supernatural thriller <a href="https://vimeo.com/260325859" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A Beautiful Distraction</a> (starring Sean Young, Adrian Paul and Vivica Fox) as well as a dark comedy about the strip club world, <a href="https://youtu.be/kYknHQ2wNII" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Crazytown</a> (featuring Robert Funaro and Eric Roberts, among many others).

Deborah Twiss

Creativity in Chaos

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

My Coronavirus Wedding

Standup comedian Kelli Dunham has been seen on Showtime, the Discovery Channel, the Moth Mainstage, the Cinderblock Comedy Festival, the Risk podcast, PBS Stories from Stage, the Gotham Storytelling Festival, and nationwide at colleges, prides, fundraisers and even the occasional livestock auction. Kelli was nominated as a 2015 White House Champion of Change (not under the current administration) for her work as the co-founder and producer of Queer Memoir, NYC’s longest-running most super earnest LGBT storytelling event. Kelli is the author of seven hilarious nonfiction books about very not humorous subjects (include kids’ guides to puberty) and recently helped set the Guinness World Record for longest comedy show/multiple performers. New York Mayor Bill De Blasio once called Kelli a show-off. To her face. Kelli&#8217;s newest comedy album, <a href="https://www.kellidunham.com/not-the-gym-teacher/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Not the Gym Teacher</a>, is out now on all digital platforms.

Kelli Dunham

How Eddie Izzard’s Dress to Kill Gave Me Hope as a Gender-Nonconforming Comic

Director and screenwriter Katharine OʼBrien&#8216;s directorial debut, Lost Transmissions, starring Simon Pegg, Juno Temple and Alexandra Daddario, is in theaters now. She was born in Santa Barbara, CA and studied English at Wellesley College. Katharine worked at Muse Film (Virgin Suicides, Buffalo ʼ66) and as a television writing assistant with Kids in the Hall and Russo Brothers before receiving her MFA in film directing at Columbia University’s graduate film program. Katharineʼs award-winning short films have played numerous film festivals. Her first feature film, The Automatic Hate, which she co-wrote, premiered at the 2015 SXSW Film Festival and played top international festivals such as Busan and Mar del Plata, winning the Audience Award at the Mill Valley Film Festival. Katharine currently resides in Silverlake, Los Angeles, where she is actively involved in promoting art and film culture, having served on the boards of LACMA and the Cinefamily Foundation. (Image by Luz Gallardo.)

film essay