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Talkhouse

Kelly Murtagh is a mom, Louisiana-native, and an award-winning actress, writer, producer, singer and children&#8217;s book author who works in film, television and theatre. She has received multiple awards including the Best Actress Award at Festival South, and the Best Actress Award at the 48 Independent Short Film Festival. Kelly wrote the feature-length film <a href="https://www.instagram.com/shapelessthefilm/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Shapeless</a>, telling of her personal struggle with an eating disorder, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and is now out in theaters and on VOD. Kelly also executive-produced and was lead actress of the film. She also co-owns production company, Water Meter Productions, with Bobby Gilchrist. Kelly is the founder of SoulStar Space, an online spiritual safe space for mystic mindfulness and healing. Kelly also authored the children&#8217;s book Zoo Krewe – which was illustrated by Samantha Aldana, who also directed Shapeless. She also works with the organization Project Heal which helps break down systemic, healthcare and financial barriers to eating disorder treatment. (Photo by Dana Patrick.)

Kelly Murtagh

Film

How I Healed From an Eating Disorder with My Mind (and Body and Spirit)

Josef Kubota Wladyka’s latest film, <a href="https://www.catchthefairone.movie/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Catch the Fair One</a>, a taut thriller starring Kali Reis (who is nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for her role), is out now in theaters and on demand. Wladyka’s debut feature, Manos Sucias, won Best New Narrative Director at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival and was nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards, Best First Feature and Best Editing. Josef has also directed episodes of the acclaimed television shows Narcos, Fear the Walking Dead and The Terror. Residing in Brooklyn, New York, Josef holds an MFA from New York University&#8217;s Graduate Film Program and was named one of Filmmaker magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film. He remains committed to making socially conscious genre films.

Josef Kubota Wladyka

In the Never-Ending Sea of Content, We Have to Champion Films Like Ainu Mosir

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

Allison Gabriel currently plays Mary Vaughn Lewis on Netflix’s hit romantic-drama series Sweet Magnolias, whose second season just debuted on Netflix. In film, Allison had a memorable role in director Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver,” for which The New Yorker praised her performance as being “the most natural” among the star-studded cast, while her other film credits include Thank You for Your Service, starring Miles Teller, Jeff Nichols’ Midnight Special, with Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst and Adam Driver, and most recently Braden King’s The Evening Hour, which premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Allison has also appeared on some of the most popular television shows, including Better Call Saul, The Resident, The Purge, Homecoming and Revenge, among others. When not acting, she enjoys cooking and crafting. (Photo by Emily Sandifer.)

Allison Gabriel

How Walking the Camino de Santiago Helped Me Realize I Wanted to Be an Actress

Born to hippie artists, Jeremiah Zagar grew up in South Philly spending most afternoons in a dark movie theater or wandering the aisles of his local TLA video store. Later, on trips home from Emerson College, he started filming his parents, resulting in the documentary, In A Dream, which premiered at the SXSW Film Festival and screened theatrically across the US and in film festivals around the world. It was broadcast on HBO, shortlisted for an Academy Award and received two Emmy nominations, including Best Documentary. His next feature-length documentary, Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart, premiered in competition at the Sundance Film Festival and aired on HBO to much fanfare in 2014. He directed and co-wrote the feature We The Animals – based on Justin Torres&#8217; best-selling novel of the same name – which was selected for the Sundance Directing and Screenwriting Lab fellowships and premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. His latest work, the documentary series <a href="https://bit.ly/3qMu0my" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Fix</a>, based on Johann Hari&#8217;s book Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, is now streaming on Roku.j

Jeremiah Zagar

For My Brother

Alex Thompson grew up watching Humphrey Bogart films with his Popou and making movies, back when Coltneck Lane was still a cul de sac. He graduated from DePauw University and worked in casting before directing his first short, starring Olympia Dukakis and Rose Gregorio. He directed and produced Saint Frances, which won the Audience Award at SXSW in 2019. His second feature, Rounding, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2022 while Ghostlight, which he co-directed with Kelly O&rsquo;Sullivan, opened the Sundance Film Festival in 2024. He has been nominated for the Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Prize at the Gotham Awards and the Cassavetes Award at the Independent Spirit Awards. His latest feature, Mouse, which he co-directed with O&rsquo;Sullivan, premiered at the 2026 Berlin Film Festival.

Alex Thompson

Play It Again, Kim: Keeping Up with the Kardashians is the 21st Century’s Casablanca

John Cameron Mitchell’s 2006 film <a href="https://shortbus.oscilloscope.net/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Shortbus</a>, which he wrote and directed, is being re-released in theaters by Oscilloscope from January 26. He co-created and starred in the stage/film musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, for which he won Best Director at the 2001 Sundance Festival, four Tony Awards, and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor. He also directed the films Rabbit Hole (2010), featuring an Oscar-nominated performance by Nicole Kidman, and How to Talk to Girls at Parties (2017). He appears on TV in Hulu’s Shrill and in 2022 will be seen in Netflix’s Sandman and in the title role of Peacock Channel’s Joe Exotic adapted series. His musical podcast series Anthem: Homunculus starring Glenn Close, Patti Lupone, and Cynthia Erivo, was just rereleased as a free podcast. In 2020, he put out the collaborative album New American Dream and his ongoing The Origin of Love World Tour resumed in December 2021. (Photo by Matthew Placek.)

John Cameron Mitchell

Best of 2021: John Cameron Mitchell on Veneno

Andrew Herr stars in the hilarious Hulu comedy series Letterkenny as the cocky but at times, dim-witted hockey player Jonesy. The series, which has been praised by critics and audiences alike and won the award for ‘Best Comedy Series’ at the Canadian Screen Awards in 2017, is now in its tenth season and is now streaming on Hulu. A Toronto native, Andrew made his acting debut starring as Mark Howe,’ a former NHL player and the son of legendary hockey player Gordie Howe, in the film Mr. Hockey: The Gordie Howe Story. A former junior hockey player for the Gananoque Islanders and the Napanee Raiders, Herr found an interest in acting after appearing in a high school production of the satirical play Never Swim Alone. Herr went on to attend the University of British Columbia (UBC), and upon graduation attended the Vancouver Institute of Media Arts.

Andrew Herr

My Biggest Failure (and How it Led to Where I Am Today)

Gianna Toboni is the director of the new three-part series Small Town Secrets: The Disappearance of Denise Pflum, which premieres on Vice TV on January 11. She is a multi-award-winning filmmaker with more than 40 films that have aired on HBO, Showtime, Hulu and VICE. She serves as a senior correspondent and producer for VICE News. Toboni was one of the first journalists in the world to interview ISIS fighters on the frontlines in Iraq. She’s covered escalating cartel violence and political corruption in Mexico, embedded with two Saudi sisters as they escaped their abusive family, forced marriages and country’s archaic guardianship system, interviewed the founder of Hamas in Gaza during the 2014 Palestinian uprising, tracked down Nigerian pirates at their illegal oil refineries, and interviewed an American death row inmate hours before his scheduled execution. Before joining VICE News in 2013, she worked as a correspondent for Al Jazeera and as a producer for ABC News. Toboni was named to Forbes&#8216; 30 Under 30 list for Media, is a TEDx Speaker and Peabody Finalist. She’s received an Emmy, GLAAD, Front Page, Gracie, and Webby Award for Best Documentary Series.

Gianna Toboni

To My Fellow True Crime Fans

Ebonée Noel is currently starring as the lead of OWN’s <a href="https://www.oprah.com/own-thekingsofnapa/kings-of-napa-coming-to-own-january-2022" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Kings of Napa</a>, a drama series centered on the power struggle between wealthy vineyard-owning siblings which premieres on January 11. Her additional television credits include series regular roles in FBI and Still Star Crossed, along with work on TBS&#8217;s Wrecked, Law &amp; Order: SVU and Eye Candy for Jason Blum, and her feature credits include I Love You Daddy and Long Nights, Short Mornings. Ebonée grew up around the world attending school in Cambodia, Croatia, Ethiopia, and Israel. She is a graduate of New York University&#8217;s Tisch School of the Arts and trained at the prestigious Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts. She resides in New York. (Photo by Emily Assiran.)

Ebonée Noel

Five Essential Truths About Performing I Learned From Watching Wrestling

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

Revisited: 9½ Weeks, Fatal Attraction and Me

Stacy Rukeyser is an award-winning creator, showrunner and executive producer whose new show is the Netflix hit Sex/Life, about a suburban mother who takes a fantasy-charged trip down memory lane. Previously, Stacy was the showrunner and executive producer of the critically acclaimed, award-winning drama UnREAL, about the inner workings of a reality TV show. Her other writing credits include the Golden Globe Award-winning and Emmy® Award-nominated series Without a Trace, as well as Crash, One Tree Hill, October Road, Standoff, Greek and The Lying Game. A cum laude graduate of Princeton University, she resides in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons.

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