Director, Queer Genius
Chet Pancake is an award-winning filmmaker, video, new media, and sound artist. They have exhibited at national and international venues such as MoMA, Royal Ontario Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art, and Academy of Fine Arts, Prague. Pancake’s narrative and experimental documentary work has been screened at over 150 venues nationally, as well as broadcast on the Sundance Channel, PBS, FreeSpeech Television, and the Community Channel UK. Their films are nationally & internationally distributed by Bullfrog Films and Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Center and are held in permanent collections in over 75 university and museum archives nationally. Pancake is an Assistant Professor in the Film and Media Arts Program at Temple University.
Director, Lingua Franca
Isabel Sandoval is a trans Filipina filmmaker and actress. Recognized by the Museum of Modern Art as a “rarity among the young generation of Filipino filmmakers for her muted, serene aesthetic,” Isabel Sandoval has premiered her films at major festivals like Venice, Locarno, London, and Busan. Her most recent feature, Lingua Franca, was acquired in North America by Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY and premiered on Netflix.
Director, I Saw the TV Glow
Jane Schoenbrun is a non-binary filmmaker, and the writer/director of the upcoming A24 film I Saw the TV Glow (produced by Emma Stone & Dave McCary’s Fruit Tree Productions). Their directorial debut We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (Sundance 2021, New Directors/New Films) will be released this summer by Utopia Pictures and HBOMAX. Jane’s previous projects include co-creating the touring variety series The Eyeslicer (Tribeca 2017), founding the Radical Film Fair (a punk film fleamarket that drew thousands of attendees), producing Chained for Life (Kino Lorber 2018), and directing the experimental documentary A Self-Induced Hallucination (Rotterdam 2019).
Director, Tahara
Olivia Peace (she/they) is an award winning interdisciplinary artist whose films have been supported by Sundance, TIFF, Outfest, and the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. After garnering critical and institutional praise for their 2017 short film Pangaea, Olivia landed a fellowship with the Sundance Institute in the year-long Ignite Fellowship Program. Their feature debut, Tahara, premiered in January at the 2020 Slamdance Film Festival to rave reviews. Currently, Olivia is hard at work writing their next feature film, In Case of Apocalypse, and is building and organizing with the artist’s collective, Indefinite Village.
Director, The Whistle
StormMiguel Florez is a trans, queer Xicane filmmaker, whose work includes award-winning documentaries, The Whistle (Producer/Director) and MAJOR! (Editor/Co-Producer 2015). StormMiguel is also an event and media producer, actor, and a life-long musician. He was a 2020 San Francisco Pride virtual Community Grand Marshal and a recipient of NALAC (National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures), The San Francisco Arts Commission, and Horizons Foundation grants. He’s originally from Albuquerque, NM, which he very much considers to be his homeland, and has lived in the SF Bay Area for over 24 years.
Director, Framing Agnes
Chase Joynt is a director and writer whose films have won jury and audience awards internationally. His debut documentary feature, Framing Agnes, premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival where it won the NEXT Innovator Award and the NEXT Audience Award. With Aisling Chin-Yee, Chase co-directed No Ordinary Man, a feature-length documentary about jazz musician Billy Tipton, which was presented at Cannes Docs 2020 as part of the Canadian Showcase of Docs-in-Progress. Since premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2020, No Ordinary Man has been hailed by The New Yorker as “a genre unto itself” and Indiewire as “the future of trans cinema.” The film has won 9 awards on the international festival circuit, including being named to TIFF Canada’s Top Ten. Joynt’s first book You Only Live Twice (co-authored with Mike Hoolboom) was a Lambda Literary Award Finalist and named one of the best books of the year by The Globe and Mail and CBC. Most recently, he directed episodes of Two Sentence Horror Stories for the CW, which are now streaming on Netflix. With Samantha Curley, Chase runs Level Ground Productions in Los Angeles.
Director, Over Stigmatized 2: The Stigma Stops Here
Giselle Ari Bleuz is a writer, actress, and media educator. She began her filmmaking work as a youth producer with the Global Action Project’s SupaFriends social justice media-arts leadership program and has since gone on to write, direct, and act in four short films—including Over Stigmatized, which has been screened in festivals across the United States. At Global Action Project, she was both a Community Media and Action Fellow and an Outreach and Distribution Fellow. She has also been a Safe Sex Educator at the Hetrick Martin Institute. A graduate of Harvey Milk High School, Bleuz was recently featured in HuffPost’s “10 Trans Filmmakers You Should Know.”
Creator, Transparent
Joey Soloway (they/them) is an artist, activist and filmmaker. They created the Emmy– and Golden Globe–winning series Transparent and cult feminist series I Love Dick, both from Amazon Studios. Joey founded Topple Books, a publishing imprint at Little A, and is currently releasing memoirs by Precious Brady Davis, Alexandra Billings, and Pigeon Pagonis, among others. Joey is currently working on The South Commons Experiment, a limited series about growing up in a ‘racial utopia’ and The Amtlai Tapes, a podcast dedicated to the mysterious story of Amtlai, the mother of Abraham, who was almost written out of history. They are co-founder of 5050 by 2020, a strategic initiative of TimesUp and co-creator of The Disruptors Fellowship, bringing trans, undocumented and disabled artists of color into Hollywood. They launched the community organization East Side Jews and are on the board of Temple Nefesh, a trans-denominational Jewish space for activism and spirituality. They are amidst development on podcast, television, and film projects that fulfill the Topple mission of elevating marginalized artists and their stories.
Director, STILL BLACK: A Portrait of Black Transmen
Dr. Kortney Ryan Ziegler is an American entrepreneur, filmmaker, visual artist,blogger, writer, and scholar based in Oakland, California. His artistic and academic work focuses on queer/trans issues, body image, racialized sexualities, gender, performance and black queer theory. With notable contributions in film, academia, and business, he effectively uses art and technology as a means of discussing diversity and social justice. Dr. Ziegler directed the acclaimed 2008 documentary STILL BLACK: A Portrait of Black Transmen. Through six profiles, the film presents a nuanced picture of the intersections of masculinity, blackness, and the experience of being transgender.
Director, Ma Belle, My Beauty
Marion Hill is a filmmaker whose roots spread from Vietnam to France and England, and is now based in New Orleans. Marion’s work is devoted to narratives and visuals of queer femininity and femme power, using the camera to authentically center the nuances of queer sensibility, sexuality, sensuality and feminine agency across cultures. Ma Belle, My Beauty first premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival and received the Audience Award for Best Film in the NEXT category. The film has also played at 2021’s SXSW, San Francisco International, Seattle International, Outfest and Newfest, and was recommended in the New York Times’ Sundance lineup. Marion’s early short films Bird of Prey (2016) and Goddess House (2018) played at festivals including Frameline, Sidewalk, and Outfest Fusion, and collectively now have over 5 million views online. Marion regularly produces work for New Orleans multi-media station, WWOZ, and is co-founder and video director of the People’s Media Front of New Orleans.
Director, See You Then
Mari Walker (she/her) is an award-winning filmmaker whose work has been accepted into over 250 film festivals including Sundance, SXSW, Frameline, and Outfest, garnering a total of 76 awards & 52 nominations. Mari’s work consistently explores identity through multiple forms and genres, championing the shared humanity of others through narratives that promote empathy and understanding. Her film The Soul of a Tree won Best Short Documentary at the Kerry Film Festival in 2016. SWIM, her first narrative short, won the Audience Award at the 2017 Los Angeles Film Festival. Her most recent work See You Then premiered at SXSW and received CAAMFEST’s Honorable Mention Award.
Actor, Tales of the City
Marquise Vilsón is an actor, activist and man with trans experience. He made his feature film debut as Leon in Peter Hedges’ Ben is Back opposite Lucas Hedges. Recent projects include The Kitchen, starring Melissa McCarthy and Tiffany Haddish, NBC’s The Blacklist, and Netflix’s Tales of the City. Marquise is currently shooting a series regular role on the CW series Tom Swift. Marquise is a long-standing member and participant of the underground ballroom scene. Currently as a member of the House of Balenciaga, in 2018 he received the Octavia St. Laurent Trans Activist Award, the Masquerade Blue Print Award and was acknowledged as a Transman ICON, one of the few Transmen to have had such an impact in and outside of the ballroom community.
Director, Altered Carbon
M.J. Bassett is a feature film and television writer/director. She began her career directing the cult horror film, Deathwatch, starring Jamie Bell, Matthew Rhys, and Andy Serkis. She then directed the horror feature Wilderness, the fantasy adventure Solomon Kane, and the video game adaptation Silent Hill: Revelation starring Sean Bean, Adelaide Clemens, and Kit Harrington, and the recent films Rogue and Endangered Species, both of which she wrote, produced, and directed. Her television directing career began with guest directing episodes of the Cinemax/HBO/Sky action show Strike Back and then the first season finale of Starz’ show, DaVinci’s Demons, created by David Goyer. She was invited back to Strike Back as lead director, writer, and later executive producer. Additional television credits include such shows as Iron Fist for Marvel/Netflix, Nightflyers, based on the George R.R. Martin novel, Power on Starz, Altered Carbon, Reacher, and the upcoming Amazon series The Terminal List.
Director, Pride
Ro Haber is an aesthetically-minded writer and director whose work spans across the Narrative, Documentary, and VR spaces. They are a graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts and have been a fellow in Film Independent/Netflix Episodic Lab, Outfest’s Screenwriting lab, AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women, Universal’s inaugural Directing Program, and the 2018 Sundance Momentum Fellowship. They were listed on The Alice Initiative’s 2018 list of directors ready to helm studio films and most recently was a 2018 Ryan Murphy TV HALF Program fellow, shadowing on FX’s new series, Pose. Their films have played at Tribeca, AFI Fest, LA Film Festival, New Orleans Film Festival, Palm Springs Shortfest, Outfest, and numerous others.
Director, Disclosure
Sam Feder is a Peabody Award nominated film director. Sam’s films have been programmed by Sundance, Tribeca, CPH:DOX, MOMA PS-1, The BFI, The Hammer Museum, and in hundreds of film festivals around the world. The Netflix Original Documentary, Disclosure (Sundance, 2020) is an unprecedented, eye-opening look at transgender depictions in film and television, revealing how Hollywood simultaneously reflects and manufactures our deepest anxieties about gender. Kate Bornstein is a Queer and Pleasant Danger (2014), a portrait of trans icon Kate Bornstein, was named one of the best documentaries of 2014 by The Advocate, won the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, and multiple best feature film awards.
Producer, Transparent
Zackary Druker is an independent artist, filmmaker, and cultural producer. She has performed and exhibited her work internationally in museums, galleries, and film festivals including the Whitney Biennial 2014, MoMa PS1, Hammer Museum, Art Gallery of Ontario, MCA San Diego, and SF MoMA, among others. Drucker is an Emmy nominated producer for the docuseries This Is Me, and was a producer on the Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning Amazon show Transparent. The Lady and The Dale, her directorial debut for television, premiered on HBO in early 2021.
Grace Evangelista is a filmmaker born in the Philippines and raised in California’s Bay Area. Evangelista was recently named a 2023 United States Artists (USA) Fellow. Their debut feature film, Burning Well, currently in development, has been supported by Tribeca, Array, the Torino Feature Lab and the Film Fatales: Trans Stories Fellowship. Their feature is based on their short film Fran this Summer which won the Grand Jury Prize at Outfest before playing in thirty festivals including Sundance.
Ley Comas is an Afro-Latinx Trans non-binary filmmaker. They were born in Costa Rica and raised in the Dominican Republic. After coming to US in 2013, they received their Associate’s degree in Video Arts and Technology from Burrough of Manhattan Community College in 2015. Ley obtained their Bachelor’s degree in Cinema and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies from Binghamton University in 2017. They received their Master’s degree in Documentary Filmmaking from The City College of New York, Spring 2020. Ley is a production sound mixer by trade. Their work as a production sound mixer has been included in several film festivals and major streaming platforms. As a non-binary filmmaker of trans experiece, Ley’s work is grounded in collaborating on and creating films that highlight and empower the narratives of underrepresented and erased identities. Ley currently lives in the Bronx; they enjoy bike riding, cooking, and spending time with their cat.
Nyala Moon is a filmmaker, writer, and actress of trans experience. After working in the nonprofit community helping other transgender and queer people of color access affirming health care, Nyala took a leap of faith and pursued her passion for filmmaking. Before going to film school, Nyala worked with the indie LGBT film scene as a director, writer, and producer. Nyala was also a contributor for the anthology, Written on the Body: Letters from Trans and Non-Binary Survivors of Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence by Lexi Bean. Nyala Moon has been touring colleges with her other anthology contributors, speaking to college students about sexuality, gender identity, and sexual assault. In May 2020, Nyala graduated from City College with her MFA in film production. Last year her student thesis film, One Last Deal, was screened at NewFest, Inside Out Toronto, Outfest, and many other film festivals. Nyala was also a 2020-2021 QueerArt Film fellow with Tu Me Manques director Rodrigo Bellot as her mentor. She also is a TV writing fellow for Hillman Grad 2021 inaugural class.
Sepand Mashiahof is a second generation Iranian-American immigrant and trans-femme filmmaker, screenwriter, and musician. She holds a BA in Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she wrote her senior thesis on Horror Film, using a feminist lens to explore the queer signifiers of canonized monsters throughout film history. After graduating, she moved to Oakland, CA where she cultivated relationships with the queer underground arts community through her work as Executive Director at Bay Area Girls Rock Camp, host of the cult Scream Queens Radio program, and member of industrial no wave band SBSM. These connections allowed her to pursue her passions as a filmmaker, where she directed a plethora of music videos before making her short film debut with Love You Forever, a psychological arthouse horror film which she wrote, directed, acted in, and composed the soundtrack for. Currently, Sepand is keeping a nest of nine feature screenplays warm while pursuing relationships with producers who love horror films and want to see queer/trans stories through them. As part of her own empowerment journey, she utilizes genre storytelling to create worlds of nuance in which trans protagonists can experience their arcs without the pressure of cissexist expectations. As seen with the praise Love You Forever has received from film festival audiences in 2021, she is pushing the discourse around trans representation beyond assimilationist conjectures and bringing power back into the hands of queers, where we can celebrate the beauty within the ugliness we’ve experienced from our struggles.
Seyi is a Queer Gender-Non-Conforming Nigerian artist who raises awareness around social issues through video. Seyi’s work exists at the intersection of art, imagination, ritual and politics. Seyi is a 2023 Sundance: Trans Possibilities Fellow. Seyi was awarded a residency with The Laundromat Project, and Fatales Forward: Trans Stories Fellowship. Seyi’s current project Afromystic is a lyrical documentary guided by four LGBTQ Yorùbá practitioners across the waters of Nigeria, the US, and Brazil reclaiming lost mythologies.
Alanna Francis (Seattle Queer Film Festival)
Alex Schmider (GLAAD)
Allegra Madsen (Frameline)
Aubree Bernier-Clarke (Filmmaker)
Kase Peña (Filmmaker)
Kieran Medina (Outfest)
Kristal Sotomayor (Philadelphia Latino Film Festival)
Maddy Szmidt (Three Dollar Bill Cinema)
Mari Walker (Filmmaker)
Rain Valdez (Filmmaker)
Sav Rodgers (Transgender Film Center)
Scott Turner Schofield (Speaking of Transgender)
Set Hernandez Rongkilyo (Undocumented Filmmakers Collective)
Shawna Virago (SF Trans Film Festival)
Shireen Alihaji (Islamic Scholarship Foundation)
Vanessa Haroutunian (Queer Art)
