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Talkhouse

Twice SAG Award-nominated, Jenna Lyng Adams works both in front and behind the camera as an actor and producer in Los Angeles. The pandemic thriller Before the Fire, which she stars in and also wrote, is out now in virtual cinemas and digital/VOD through Dark Sky Films. She has produced music videos for major artists and digital content for a long list of big brands garnering millions of views online. Her most notable acting roles include the Golden Globe-winning Netflix comedy The Kominsky Method by Chuck Lorre with Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin and indie film Uncle John (official SXSW selection) with John Ashton and Alex Moffat. Jenna is currently penning a dark comedy TV pilot for HBO Max called So Much. She is a graduate of Emerson College in Boston. (Image by Jackson Adams.)

Jenna Lyng Adams

Film

Parrots and Pandemics

Tuppence Middleton is an English actress who currently stars as Alwyn in the inspiring real-life drama Fisherman’s Friends, opposite Daniel Mays, James Purefoy and David Hayman, which is now available on demand. She is well-known for her performances in such TV series as War and Peace, Dickensian, The Lady Vanishes and the Wachowskis’ Netflix show Sense8, and her film work includes roles in the Wachowskis’ Jupiter Ascending, Danny Boyle’s Trance, and The Imitation Game and The Current War, both opposite Benedict Cumberbatch. Her upcoming projects include Shadowplay, the new thriller from The Bridge creator Måns Mårlind, and Mank, starring Gary Oldman and directed by David Fincher, about screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz. (Photo by Rob Harper.)

Tuppence Middleton

The Way Forward: Tuppence Middleton on Painting During Lockdown and Her Plans to Write and Direct

Iranian-born artist and filmmaker Marjane Satrapi&rsquo;s latest film, Radioactive, a biopic of Marie Curie starring Rosamund Pike and Sam Riley based on Lauren Redniss&rsquo; graphic novel Radioactive: Marie &amp; Pierre Curie: A Tale Of Love And Fallout, is out now on Amazon Prime. Satrapi, who lives in Paris, is the author of the hugely acclaimed, award-winning series of Persepolis graphic novels, which tell the story of Satrapi&rsquo;s youth in Iran in the 1970s and 80s, living through the Islamic Revolution and the war with Iraq. (Satrapi&rsquo;s other books include Embroideries and Chicken with Plums, and she is also the author of several children&rsquo;s books, including Monsters are Afraid of the Moon.) The 2007 animated film adaptation of Persepolis, which Satrapi wrote and directed with Vincent Paronnaud, garnered huge international acclaim, won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film and won two Cesar Awards for Best First Film and Best Adaptation. Her other films include Chicken with Plums (2011), based on her book by the same name, the crime comedy Gang of the Jotas (2013), and 2014 black comedy The Voices starring Ryan Reynolds, Gemma Arterton and Anna Kendrick. Satrapi lives in Paris, where her illustrations appear regularly in newspapers and magazines all around the world.

Marjane Satrapi

The Way Forward: In Post-Quarantine Paris, Marjane Satrapi is Getting Back to Creativity

Romola Garai’s debut feature film as writer-director, the horror film Amulet, starring Alec Secareanu, Carla Juri and Imelda Staunton, is released by Magnolia Pictures on July 24. Garai is a multi-award-nominated actor whose extensive film, TV and stage resume includes work with some of the world’s finest writers and directors, including Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette, Joe Wright’s Atonement, Francois Ozon’s Angel, Lone Scherfig’s One Day and Stephen Poliakoff’s Glorious 39. She also has an extensive list of TV credits including playing the lead in Marc Munden’s TV mini series The Crimson Petal and the White. On stage, she has played major roles in plays for the Royal Court (The Village Bike), the Young Vic (Measure for Measure), the Almeida (The Writer) and the RSC (Queen ANNE and Lear/The Seagull). As well as her extensive performing credits, Romola is also known for her writing/directing work, including Sundance Best Short Film-nominated Scrubber. She has a feature film in development with UK top production company The Bureau and a number of TV projects.

Romola Garai

My Monster

Nijla Mu&#8217;min is a writer and filmmaker from the East Bay Area. Named one of the 2017 <a href="http://filmmakermagazine.com/people/nijla-mumin/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=http://filmmakermagazine.com/people/nijla-mumin/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1524571778612000&amp;usg=AFQjCNE-Amz57jqB--hxi4Jr0H5o9kv4XA">&#8220;25 New Faces of Independent Film&#8221;</a> by Filmmaker magazine, she tells stories about black girls and women who find themselves between worlds and identities. Her short films have screened at festivals across the country. Her filmmaking and screenwriting have been recognized by the Sundance Institute, IFP, Film Independent and the Princess Grace Foundation. In 2011, she worked as a Production Assistant on Ava DuVernay’s film Middle of Nowhere. Her debut feature film, Jinn, starring Zoe Renee and Simone Missick (Netflix’s Luke Cage), premiered at the 2018 SXSW Film Festival, where she won the Special Jury Recognition Award for Writing. Her short film Dream was acquired by Issa Rae Productions (Insecure, HBO) for online streaming. She is a 2013 dual-degree graduate of CalArts MFA Film Directing and Writing Programs. Her writing has appeared in VICE, Shadow and Act, The East Bay Express and The Los Angeles Times.

Nijla Mu’min

The Myth of the Small Black Film

Deborah Goodwin is a writer-director-producer whose work in film and television began as a development executive for Sanford-Pillsbury Productions (Desperately Seeking Susan, River’s Edge, How to Make an American Quilt). Deborah’s Urbanworld Film Festival Best Screenplay win for her darkly provocative family drama Cherrys launched her filmmaking path. She has written for Emmy-winning and Independent Spirit Award-nominated producers, and for shows like the cult favorite horror series Tales from the Cryptkeeper. She is a Film Independent and IFP lab fellow and an ABC and NBC diversity showcase director, best known for her horror fable Vampires in Venice and her action/drama The Pastor, released by Fathom Events and AMC. Her Icelandic noir Snaeland, which she co-wrote and produced, premiered at the Vail Film Festival and screens in the Brooklyn Film Festival 2020. Deborah is a Sundance Collab advisor and screenwriting professor at Brooklyn College, and a newly minted co-creator and writer of the noir-crime-thriller series Hot Freeze, with Canadian producer Nomadic Pictures (Hell on Wheels, Van Helsing, Fargo).

Deborah Goodwin

On Black Storytelling and Why Hollywood Must Irrevocably Change

Originally from India, Jenna Mattison Mirza moved to Chicago at seven years old. She started her career in Chicago at 14, appearing in theatre productions, writing short stories and modeling. Upon her move to Los Angeles, Jenna wrote her first screenplay titled Fish Without a Bicycle. The movie went into production in 2003 and had a limited U.S. theatrical release, thus kickstarting her career as a writer, producer and actress. In 2007, her acting career was cut short, after signing on to play Brenda Starr, Reporter in a TV series based on the iconic comic strip character, when she sustained an injury that would force her into five years of surgeries and rehabilitation. Her first project back, For the Love of Money, a Jewish gangster biopic starring James Caan, Paul Sorvino, Edward Furlong and Jeffrey Tambor which she wrote and produced, was released by Lionsgate. Her most recent film, The Sound starring Rose McGowan and Christopher Lloyd, was released by MGM&#8217;s Orion and Samuel Goldwyn in select theaters to critical acclaim. Jenna is currently writing for television and releasing her fourth installment of her Liza Radley Housewife Detective best-selling mystery novel series.

Jenna Mattison Mirza

How I Faked My Race to Make It in Hollywood

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

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

William Nicholson is the writer-director of Hope Gap, starring Annette Bening, Bill Nighy and Josh O&rsquo;Connor, which is in theaters through Roadside Attractions from March 6. Nicholson initially worked as a documentary filmmaker for BBC TV, where his ambition to write, initially directed into novels, was channelled into television drama. His plays for television include Shadowlands and Life Story, both of which won the BAFTA Best Television Drama award in their respective years. His first play, a stage adaptation of Shadowlands, ran for a year in the West End and went on to a Tony Award winning run on Broadway. He was nominated for an Oscar for the screenplay of the film version, which was directed by Richard Attenborough and starred Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger. Since then he has written more films &ndash; Sarafina, Nell, First Knight, Grey Owl, Gladiator (as co-writer, for which he received a second Oscar nomination), Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Les Miserables, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, Unbroken, Everest, and Breathe. In 1997 he wrote and directed Firelight. He has also written novels for both children and adults. He lives in Sussex with his wife Virginia and their three children.(Photo by Robert Viglasky.)

William Nicholson

How To Escape the Endings Trap (Maybe)

As actor, writer, director and producer, Andrew Heckler has participated in all aspects of the entertainment industry. Heckler directed the feature film <a href="https://www.101studiosco.com/projects/burden" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Burden</a>, starring Forest Whitaker, Garrett Hedlund, Usher Raymond, Andrea Riseborough and Tom Wilkinson, which is in theaters from February 28 through 101 Studios. Burden received the Audience Award at both the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and Nantucket Film Festival, where Heckler was presented with the Visionary Award for screenwriting. Heckler also founded the Tribeca-based Workhouse Theater in 1992, where he produced, directed and acted in over 35 plays over the course of six years.

Andrew Heckler

Get Out of the Fuckin’ Office and See the World

&#8220;We met 11 years ago as competitors on On the Lot, Steven Spielberg’s reality show search for up-and-coming filmmakers. We made a new short film every week and lived together for a summer, sequestered in a bungalow on a studio lot in Los Angeles.
Out of the 12,000 filmmakers who started the competition, we both finished in the top 5 but short of the prize. But we won something better than the competition: a lasting friendship and collaboration. Over the years we’ve directed digital and TV projects, most recently the live-action version of Disney’s Kim Possible.
Freaks is our first feature film, and the first project that we’ve written. As a result, it’s the most personal and artistic expression of who we are as filmmakers.”

screenwriting