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Talkhouse

Nadhege Ptah is an award-winning actor, writer, producer, director, and dancer. Whether it&#8217;s a dance choreography, a visual project, or some of her acting work, it&#8217;s pertinent for Nadhege to tell compelling stories that depict the human condition to connect with the audience. Her work was acknowledged and praised in her teens by the United Nations. Television audiences might recognize Nadhege from her recent appearances as a recurring co-star on the Showtime television series City on a Hill. She has also starred as the lead in her produced films, and appeared on major networks such as CBS, PBS, ABC, NBC, and Fox, to mention only a few. Nadhege&#8217;s performances have the deeper goal of portraying the human experience&#8217;s truth and exploring its depth and nuances. With every character study, she is not afraid to go deep and take it to the next level to add a more genuine flair to her roles and creative works.

Nadhege Ptah

Film

Creative Light in Motion

Elle Callahan is an American genre film director, writer and sound designer. Her latest feature, the thriller-horror film <a href="http://www.momentumpictures.net/witch-hunt" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Witch Hunt</a>, which she wrote and directed, was selected for the 2020 SXSW Film Festival, premiered at SXSW 2021, also played at Sitges 2021, and is out now in theaters, On Demand and digital through Momentum Features. A firm believer in story above all else, Elle is an alumna of USC&#8217;s School of Cinematic Arts. Elle&#8217;s focus lies in the genres of mystery and magic realism – as she sees the world through amber-colored glasses. Her first feature film, Head Count, premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival in 2018, winning the Special Jury Prize in the Nightfall category. Elle commonly sound designs her own films and is an advocate for the Women in Film movement.

Elle Callahan

On Fear and Femininity

Aharon Keshales&#8216; new film, the action drama South of Heaven, starring Jason Sudeikis and Evangeline Lilly, is out now in theaters, on VOD and on digital through RLJE Films. Keshales was a film critic and a lecturer at the Tel Aviv University before he co-wrote and co-directed his 
first feature, Rabies, in 2010. Rabies (aka Kalevet) was Israel&#8217;s first horror film and it premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. In 2013, Keshales co-wrote and co-directed Big Bad Wolves. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and won the Saturn Award for Best International Film. The film was also named &#8220;The best film of 2013&#8221; by Quentin Tarantino.

Aharon Keshales

Intimate Spaces, Brutal Landscapes

Shaina Feinberg (she/her) is an award-winning American filmmaker and writer. She spent her twenties making a stoner, punk sketch show called The Spew. She has been on This American Life, was a resident at Space on Ryder Farms (2018) and Twenty Summers (2021), a Reel Families for Change grantee (2022) and a recipient of the Reboot Studios grant (2023). Her film My Mom&#8217;s Eggplant Sauce (2022) played festivals around the world, including Hot Docs, Rotterdam International Film Festival and Palm Springs, won her a Best Director award and is featured on Short of the Week. Her short doc A Brief History of Hating My Face (2023), was commissioned by the New York Times. Her film Cleo From 8:20 to 2:35 premiered at the Aspen Film Festival (2024). Shaina is the author of three books, has written for The New Yorker, The Washington Post and Tablet and writes regularly for the New York Times. Her films and books have been written about in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Bust, Broadly, Logo, THEM, Indiewire and more. She is currently working on a film about Joan Darling, the first woman to be nominated for an Emmy in directing. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner and their two children.

Shaina Feinberg

9½ Weeks, Fatal Attraction and Me

Kurt Mattila is the director of the award-winning documentary, <a href="https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/stuntman/1Bx6pcT39Txy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Stuntman</a>, which is executive produced by Dwayne Johnson and Dany Garcia. The gripping doc details the journey of famed stuntman Eddie Braun as he embarks on his quest to recreate the famous Snake River Canyon jump, originally attempted by daredevil Evel Knievel. Stuntman won the Audience Award at the Los Angeles Film Festival and is now streaming on Disney+. A graduate of RISD, Kurt got his start directing the famed precog sequences for Steven Spielberg&#8217;s Minority Report. He recently helmed a companion piece for the third chapter in the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy. The Hidden World was the first virtual reality film for Universal and DreamWorks and was nominated for a PGA Award, as well as winning a Lumieres Award. (Photo by Alona Forsythe, courtesy Disney+.)

Kurt Mattila

Stuntman: A Ghost Story

Nicholas Brennan is a documentary and commercial filmmaker working in London and New York City. He is the director of the feature documentary <a href="https://www.topic.com/los-ultimos-frikis" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Los Últimos Frikis</a> (Topic, 2021) and the producer of Reflection: a walk with water (Tribeca Film Festival, 2021). He was a founding director at Courageous, CNN&#8217;s award-winning branded content studio, where he directed acclaimed series and commercials for many of the world&#8217;s biggest brands. His work has won top industry awards including Cannes Lions, One Show, Webby, and Edward R Murrow Awards. As a documentary filmmaker, Brennan has told stories in over two dozen countries and worked for major outlets including VICE, ABC News, and the New York Times. Raised on the coast of Maine, he was a Willard TC Johnson Fellow at NYU&#8217;s Tisch School of the Arts.

Nicholas Brennan

Chasing the Forbidden Truth

Karen Cinorre is a writer-director living in New York City. Her latest film, <a href="http://www.magpictures.com/mayday/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mayday</a>, an action fantasy starring Grace Van Patten, Mia Goth and Juliette Lewis, is out now through Magnolia Pictures. Her work has shown internationally at such venues as the New York Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, and Opera Centrum Amsterdam. In addition to Mayday, she is also currently working on a documentary called The Last People. (Photo by Brigitte Lamombe, courtesy Magnolia Pictures.)

Karen Cinorre

“A Submarine Sinking and a Fleet of Underwater Sirens Celebrating”

Paul Kowalski was born in the U.K. to nomadic Polish immigrants, and grew up on four continents. While studying literature and writing at Brown University, he published a collection of short stories and made his earliest films. He later received his MFA in directing at the AFI Conservatory. His debut feature, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10365730/">Paper Tiger</a>, premiered at Austin Film Festival in 2020, winning the Audience Award and a Jury mention, and is now available on all digital platforms through Gravitas Ventures. His other films have won recognition from the ASC, Beijing Film Academy, CINE, Aesthetica, Raindance and Beverly Hills film festivals, among others. He is a BAFTA Newcomer and USC film directing professor – and was named by Austin Film Festival as one of “25 Screenwriters To Watch” in 2021. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, actress Sorel Carradine.

Paul Kowalski

Lawrence of Arabia & I

James DeMonaco is the writer and director of the feature films The Purge, The Purge: Anarchy, The Purge: Election Year and Staten Island, as well as co-founder of the Man in a Tree production company. He also wrote the films The Negotiator and Assault on Precinct 13. He created and executive produced The Purge TV series, as well as the cable television miniseries The Kill Point, which starred John Leguizamo. He recently co-wrote the novel Feral with Brian Evenson, which was published by Random House, and his children’s novel The Curious Chronicles of Jack Bokimble and His Peculiar Penumbra was published by Inkshares Inc. in 2017. The latest film he wrote and directed, This is the Night, starring Naomi Watts, Bobby Cannavale and Frank Grillo, is now <a href="https://www.uphe.com/movies/this-is-the-night-2021" target="_blank" rel="noopener">available to stream</a>. He lives in Staten Island with his wife and daughter. He is an avid New York Yankees fan.

James DeMonaco

Watching Movies in a Theater, as God Intended

Bill Morrison makes films that reframe long-forgotten moving images. His short film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW65ChIjur4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Incident </a> was nominated for Best Non-Fiction Short at the 2024 Academy Awards and his latest film, The Vanguard Tapes, will have its <a href="https://movingimage.org/event/zodiac-killer-project/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">North American premiere</a> as part of First Look 2025 at the Museum of the Moving Image, Saturday March 15 at 8:00pm. His films have premiered at the New York, Rotterdam, Sundance, and Venice film festivals. In 2014, Morrison had a mid career retrospective at MoMA. His found-footage opus Decasia (2002) was the first film of the 21st century to be selected to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. The Great Flood (2013), was recognized with the Smithsonian Ingenuity Award of 2014 for historical scholarship. Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016) was included on over 100 critics’ lists of the best films of the year, and on numerous lists ranking the best films of the decade, including those of the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times and Vanity Fair. (Photo by Wolfgang Wesener.)

Bill Morrison

The Quietude of Eternity: Finding The Village Detective

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

Rachel Boynton is an award-winning producer and director, known for getting access to places no one has filmed before. Her latest feature, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CivilWarDocFilm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Civil War (or, Who Do We Think We Are)</a>, launches in select theaters on September 17. Her previous films, Our Brand is Crisis and Big Men, have won the IDA’s Best Feature Documentary Award, and have been nominated for an Independent Spirit Award and multiple News and Documentary Emmys, including Best Documentary. Boynton’s work has screened at numerous festivals worldwide and aired on the BBC, ARTE, DR, VPRO, CPB, and PBS, among many others. (Photo by Justine Cooper.)

film essay