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Talkhouse

Jeremy Pion-Berlin is an award-winning filmmaker whose documentary about the inherently flawed childcare system, Failure to Protect, is now available on all digital platform. He is currently serving as the co-executive producer for the sixth season of Discovery&#8217;s Murder in the Heartland. His one-hour special What Happened to Valentino Dixon?, which tells the gripping tale of an individual wrongly convicted of murder and how his art became a catalyst for seeking justice, recently aired on MAX. He has also worked on the Hulu documentary series Defining Moments, the Vice TV feature documentary Bernie Blackout, and A&amp;E&#8217;s 24 to Life.

Jeremy Pion-Berlin

Film

Exploring the Dark Side of the Child Welfare System

Shannon Plumb has shot over 200 short films, which have been exhibited in museums, galleries, and on international screens. She started by shooting herself as various characters, acting out three-minute situations using humor and silence as her vehicles for storytelling. In 2013, her first feature film, Towheads, premiered at MoMA as part of New Directors / New Films; it is now streaming on the <a href="https://www.criterionchannel.com/towheads" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Criterion Channel</a>. You can see her short films at <a href="http://shannonplumb.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shannonplumb.com</a> and Towheads is available on Netflix and iTunes. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, director Derek Cianfrance, and their two sons.

Shannon Plumb

Finding My Stage

Lizzie Borden is an independent writer-director of films such as Born in Flames (1983) and Working Girls (1986). Born in Flames was re-released in a 35mm restoration print by the Anthology Film Archives in 2016 and shown worldwide, including the London and Edinburgh Film Festivals, MOMA and BAM. Working Girls has been restored by the Criterion Collection and written about extensively. Whorephobia, her anthology of stories written by strippers with interviews by them, published by Seven Stories Press, including pieces by Kathy Acker, Cookie Mueller, Chris Kraus, Antonia Crane, Lily Burana, Reese Piper and 18 additional writers, was published in December 2022. Her new film, Rialto – set in 1953, about a woman running a movie theater and attacked by the Legion of Decency for showing foreign films, but hiding a dark secret – is in pre-production. She also works as a script consultant and teach screenwriting.

Lizzie Borden

The Corner

Alexander Canepa is president of Eight Hills Productions and the writer-director of the new feature film <a href="https://www.eighthillsproductions.com/mrsbooker" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mrs. Booker on 8th Avenue</a>, which he also edited and scored. Mrs Booker has played at a number of film festivals and received the Reel Life award at the Chattanooga Film Festival. He wrote, directed and produced his first short feature, Meringue, in 2020, which was accepted into the Los Angeles Shorts Film Festival.
Danielle Canepa is an entertainment marketing executive and the CEO of Eight Hills Productions. She launched her career at Lionsgate and worked on a wide variety of film releases, ranging from independent films to big-budget wide-theatrical releases. She founded Eight Hills Productions in 2020 with her brother, Alexander Canepa. Danielle graduated with Honors from USC, earning a degree that combined Communications from the Annenberg School with a focus on Consumer Behavior from the Marshall School of Business.

Alexander and Danielle Canepa

Polar Opposites

Jesse Locke is a writer and musician based in Vancouver. He is the co-founder of the record label <a href="https://wearetime.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">We Are Time</a> with NYC post-punk pre-teen <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/nov/13/chandra-oppenheim-interview" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Chandra Oppenheim</a>, and the author of <a href="https://eternalcavalierpress.square.site/product/heavy-metalloid-music-the-story-of-simply-saucer/8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Heavy Metalloid Music</a>, the biography of 1970s psych/proto-punk band Simply Saucer, published by Eternal Cavalier Press. Jesse currently writes for outlets including Pitchfork, Bandcamp Daily, and CBC Music, and plays drums for bands such as Tough Age, Big Rig, and CHANDRA. Follow him on social media at <a href="https://twitter.com/wipeoutbeat">@wipeoutbeat</a>.

Jesse Locke

Music

CBGB is the Most Cringe-Inducing Musical Biopic

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.

Julia Marchese

My Wall of VHS

Kailey and Sam Spear are director-writer-actors (and twin sisters) currently based in Vancouver and represented out of Los Angeles. Their passion lies in character-based genre film, particularly world building in fantasy and sci-fi. They have directed both in both theatre and film, winning awards for many of their short films. (Links for their short films can be found on <a href="https://www.thespearsisters.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">their website</a>.) Their first television directing job was for season 2 of CW’s horror anthology Two Sentence Horror Stories; they were brought back for two more episodes in the next season (one of which ended up becoming the season 3 premiere). Their latest work, the second episode of season 4 of Shudder’s <a href="https://www.amc.com/shows/creepshow--1002218">Creepshow</a>, “The Hat / Grieving Process,” airs on October 20. (Photo by Kristine Cofsky.)

Kailey and Sam Spear

The Spear Sisters on Discovering Where the Story Lives

Noah Schamus is a filmmaker of both documentary and narrative films. Their first feature, Summer Solstice, had its world premiere at Provincetown Film Festival in June 2023, and has played at festivals including Deauville, Mill Valley and Woodstock, among others, and <a href="https://newfest.org/events/summersolstice/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">screens at NewFest on October 21</a>. The film was the recipient of the Panavision New Filmmaker grant, was a Notable Writer Project at the Outfest Screenwriting Lab, and won the Platige Image Award at US in Progress at the American Film Festival. Their most recent hybrid documentary short, The Script, co-directed with Brit Fryer, and produced by Multitude Films, was supported by Chicken &amp; Egg Pictures and the Ford Foundation. The film premiered at CPH:DOX 2023, and has screened at Frameline, BlackStar and others. (Photo by Leah James.)

Noah Schamus

How Watching The Real Housewives Made Me a Better Filmmaker

Sonia Kennebeck is an independent documentary filmmaker and investigative journalist with more than 20 years of directing and producing experience. She has directed eight television documentaries and more than 50 investigative reports. National Bird, her first feature-length film, premiered at the Berlin Film Festival 2016 and was also selected for Tribeca, Sheffield, and IDFA. She lives in New York where she runs her own production company, Codebreaker Films, that makes films about international politics and human rights. Her latest film, <a href="https://www.codebreakerfilms.com/reality-winner" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reality Winner</a>, is currently playing in select theaters across the United States.
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Sonia Kennebeck

The (Real) Reason I Made a Film About Reality Winner

Luis De Filippis is a Canadian-Italian filmmaker whose debut feature, Something You Said Last Night (2022) which received the TIFF Change Maker Award, the Sebastiáne Award at the San Sebastián Film Festival, and the Rotterdam Youth Jury Award, is out now in theaters. Her other work includes the short film For Nonna Anna (2017), which received a Sundance Special Jury Prize. (Photograph by Mar Marriott, courtesy Luis De Filippis.)

Luis De Filippis

On Being My Own Muse

Signe Baumane’s new animated feature, <a href="https://www.myloveaffairwithmarriagemovie.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">My Love Affair with Marriage</a>, which fuses animation with music, theater, science, photography, three-dimensional sets and traditional hand-drawn animation to tell the story of a spirited young woman&#8217;s quest for perfect Love and lasting Marriage, opens October 6 in New York City. She is a Latvian-born, Brooklyn-based independent filmmaker, artist, writer, and animator. She has made 17 award-winning animated shorts and is best known for her first animated feature, Rocks in my Pockets, which covers a 100-year history of depression and suicide of women in her family, including herself. It premiered at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2014 where it won a FIPRESCI prize, went on to over 130 international festivals and opened theatrically in the U.S. through Zeitgeist Films. Signe is a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fellow in Film for New York Foundation for the Arts. She has a degree in Philosophy from Moscow State University.

Signe Baumane

On Lasse, Lisa and Some Like It Hot

Sarah Labowitz is the producer of <a href="https://www.texasusafilm.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Texas, USA</a>, which is out in theaters on October 6. She is a Houston-based policy expert. She is a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and previously worked in leadership roles at the ACLU of Texas and the City of Houston Housing and Community Development Department, and was a policy advisor at the U.S. Department of State. She co-founded and co-directed the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights. Sarah was included in Forbes’ inaugural 30 Under 30 list for law and policy. Texas, USA is her first film project.

film essay