Un-Locking Down

Adrienne Becker is CEO and Co-Founder of Level Forward, an entertainment company developing, producing and financing stories for screens and stages of all sizes. Through its unique model, Level Forward works to extend the opportunity and influence of creative excellence, supporting new voices and advancing economic transformation. Ms. Becker is formerly CEO and Co-Founder of Killer Content, entrepreneur-in-residence at Creative Artists Agency, CEO of DailyCandy, Inc., SVP at The Nielsen Company and InterActive Corp. She got her start on an airport tarmac in Philadelphia, where she held her first critically important position “rope line holder” for then-Governor Bill Clinton. Ms. Becker executive produced the Emmy-winning Tower from Keith Maitland, Holler from Nicole Riegel and Topside from Celine Held and Logan George, and as part of the Level Forward Team, Kitty Green’s The Assistant, as well as the Tony-nominated Broadway shows Oklahoma!, and What the Constitution Means to Me, and current runs of Slave Play and Jagged Little Pill. Ms. Becker is also a co-founder of Rotten Apples and Glass Elevator. She holds Board seats with Youth + Tech + Health, Story Pirates, Film Fatales and Killer Content.

Iram Parveen Bilal, raised in Nigeria and Pakistan, is a Physics Olympian turned filmmaker. In 2007, she formed Parveen Shah Productions which is a global short and long form media production company that focuses on telling stories that matter – stories that elevate the human condition. Her third feature, I’ll Meet You There, was in narrative competition at SXSW 2020. The project was a Film Independent writer/director and CAPE writing fellowship project. She was 1 of 15 directors invited to Cinefondation’s L’Atelier at Cannes 2019 for her feature project Wakhri (One of A Kind), based on a social media star in Pakistan. Bilal is currently actively looking to direct TV and is also developing TV projects set in the US, UK and South Asia. Her past noted feature length works include Josh (Against The Grain), Pakistan’s first film to be on Netflix and in the permanent selection at the US Library of Congress and The PhD Movie: Still in Grad School. An avid public speaker, activist and entrepreneur, she was just inducted as a Charter Member for OPEN and is an active board member for the Caltech Y, a leading community service organization affiliated with her alma mater, the California Institute of Technology. Bilal initiated the Pakistani Oscar committee and is the founder of Pakistan’s first professional screenwriting lab (QALAMBAAZ).

Smriti Mundhra is an award-winning filmmaker who has been working in the film and television industry for over fifteen years. Her latest film, A Suitable Girl, world premiered in the documentary competition section of the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival to rave reviews from Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, New York Magazine and more. Smriti was awarded the Albert Maysles Best Documentary Director prize at the festival. Prior to A Suitable Girl, Smriti produced Bomb the System, a 2004 Independent Spirit Award nominee for Best First Feature, and the SXSW Audience Award winning feature film Waterborne. She also co-produced Punching at the Sun, an official selection of the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, as well as over one dozen award-winning short films, including the 2010 Sundance Film Festival official selection and Women In Film award-winner New Media. Her other production credits include Oliver Stone’s Wall Street 2, Spike Jonze’s Being John Malkovich, Neil LaBute’s Nurse Betty and both the Coen Brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? and The Man Who Wasn’t There. Her writing has appeared in Filmmaker Magazine, Latina, the New York Daily News, Esquire and Vogue India. She is a regular culture contributor to BET.com and Global Grind. Smriti holds an MFA in Film from Columbia University. In 2009, she was given the Mira Nair Rising Female Filmmaker Award by the Harlem Film Festival. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, screenwriter Christian Magalhaes, and their daughter Isabel.

Leah Meyerhoff is the founder of FILM FATALES, a non-profit arts organization which advocates for parity in the film industry and supports a membership community of over one thousand women and non-binary feature filmmakers around the world. Meyerhoff wrote and directed the narrative feature film I Believe in Unicorns, starring Natalia Dyer and Peter Vack, which was released theatrically after premiering at SXSW and winning the Atlanta Film Festival Grand Jury Prize. Her previous work has screened in over 200 film festivals and aired on IFC, PBS, LOGO and MTV. She is a fellow of the IFP Narrative Labs, Tribeca All Access Labs, and Emerging Visions program at the New York Film Festival. She holds a BA in Art-Semiotics from Brown University and an MFA in Directing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.