2008 Panelists scheduled to appear*

Jose Rivera, Series Moderator

Jose Rivera is a recipient of two Obie Awards for Playwriting -- for Marisol and Reference to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, both produced at The Joseph Papp Public Theatre/New York Shakespeare Festival. His screenplay The Motorcycle Diaries (directed by Walter Salles) was nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Adapted Screenplay, a British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award, and a Writers Guild Award. The screenplay received Spain's Goya Award and Argentina's top award for screenwriting. Other honors include the Imagen Foundation's 2005 Norman Lear Writing Award, a Fulbright Arts Fellowship in Playwriting, and a Rockefeller Foundation grant. In 1989 Rivera studied with Nobel Prize Winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez at the Sundance Institute. His plays Cloud Tectonics, Each Day Dies With Sleep, Sonnets for an Old Century, Sueno, Giants Have Us in Their Books, Maricela de la Luz Lights the World, Adoration of the Old Woman, Massacre (Sing to Your Children), School of the Americas, and Brainpeople have been produced around the country and translated into seven languages. His play Boleros for the Disenchanted will have its world premiere at Yale Repertory Theatre in the spring of 2008. In the works is a screen adaptation of Jack Kerouac's On the Road. Rivera will make his film directing debut with Celestina, based on his play Cloud Tectonics.

Lance Acord

Cinematographer Lance Acord has worked closely with Spike Jonze for many years, shooting many of the director's music videos, commercials, short films, and Spike's three features: Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and the forthcoming Where The Wild Things Are.   

Other credits include Peter Care's The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, Vincent Gallo's Buffalo 66, and Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, and Marie Antoinette.

Lance also directs commercials through his production company Park Pictures.

KK Barrett

KK Barrett was born in Omaha, Nebraska on the other side of the tracks from Alexander Payne.  Growing up in Oklahoma, he set aside a pursuit of painting for a detour in music. He moved to Los Angeles in 1977 to further wallow in several avant noise combos.  Backing into the film business by volunteering to design sets for an expressionist film that was never released, he dabbled in music videos and animation, in denial that this was work.  In the early 1990's a steady diet of commercials and videos led back to film with Being John Malkovich, Human Nature, and Adaptation.  He also worked with Sophia Coppola on Lost in Translation, filmed entirely in Tokyo on two shoelaces; and Marie Antoinette, filmed in France. Other credits include David O. Russell's I [Heart] Huckabees, and Spike Jonze's forthcoming Where The Wild Things Are.

Joan Churchill

Joan Churchill is a filmmaker/cinematographer dedicated to making experiential films. "The idea is to construct an intimacy and closeness with people ordinarily found only indramatic films, to throw the viewer into a first-hand experience with a "subjective' camera style that actively participates in the story, yet takes second place to the people themselves.  In editing, people's stories are interwoven so the material unfolds before the audience much as it does for the camera - by a  process of discovery.  The effect is entirley different from the more detached documentary approach we are so used to.  It's really more like a narrative film."

A graduate of UCLA Film School, Churchill began her career as an editor as well as doing camera work on a series of music films – including such seminal classics as Gimme Shelter, a Maysles film No Nukes, directed by Haskell Wexler and Barbara Kopple and Hail, Hail Rock and Roll, directed by Taylor Hackford.  Churchill also directed and photgraphed Jimi Plays Berkeley, now a cult classic, and spent seven months shooting on the PBS series An American Family, the definitive verite study of dysfunctional family life. 

She was cinematographer on the Peter Watkins feature, Punishment Park, a film about escalating domestic turmoil as the Viet Nam war dragged on.  It's premise was that anti-war protesters and radicals were being rounded up and put on trial.  If found guilty, they could choose to run a 70 mile course in the desert, Punishment Park, which the military/police used as a training ground.  The film was widely shown and controversial largely because audiences didn't realize it was fiction.  It has recently been re-released.

Churchill was invited to head up the documentary department at the National Film School in England where she took up residence for more than ten years.  A long-term collaboration began with Nick Broomfield, resulting in a number of highly acclaimed films.  Juvenile Liaison exposed the harsh practices of a British police crime prevention program in the schools.  Fifteen years later, they revisited the subjects of this film in a follow-up, Juvenile Liaison 2.  Tattooed Tears documents the indignity of life inside a California maximum security prison for youthful offenders.  Soldier Girls, released theatrically & winner of the British Academy Award, follows a platoon of women through the agonies of basic training after the Army was forced to take them in because of the new Equal Opportunity laws.  Lily Tomlin, also released theatrically, chronicles the evolution of Tomlin's Broadway hit, "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe."  She also shot on Broomfield's Kurt & Courtney, about musicians Cobain and Love, and was D.P. on Biggie & Tupac  both of which had theatrical releases.

Churchill also continued directing and shooting her own films  including One Generation More for the BBC about an Estonian family rediscovering their Jewish roots in the shadow of communism; Asylum, an Emmy-nomination for HBO, reveals life inside a prison for the criminally insane;  Arrested Development in the House, a feature length road movie about the grammy-winning hiphop group, Arrested Development; L.A.Race, a portrait of post-riot Los Angeles told through the vehicle of Mike Woo's mayoral campaign.  

She worked on two TV reality series, producing and shooting a 13 part show for TLC, called Residents, shot in a hospital in Los Angeles over a one year period.  This series and American High, (A PBS Emmy Award winning series also shot and produced by Churchill) were executive-produced by R.J. Cutler of Actual Reality.

Churchill shot and  co-directed Aileen Wuornos:  Life & Death of a Serial Killer with Broomfield. Theatrically released and shown on HBO, the film is about a tragic life that led to madness, the death of seven men and finally execution. The film won first prize at the Tribecca Film Festival and the Amnesty International-Doen Award as well as being nominated for the European Film Academy Documentary 2004-Prix Arte.

She has been working once again with Nick Broomfield on His Big White Self about what has happened in South Africa since the change in government.  Eugene Terreblanche, a paramilitary leader recently released from prison is traveling the Transvaal,  mesmerizing the white farmers who still own most of the arable land  and believe that they are the chosen race.  The blacks in the townships are  still  dispossessed and unemployed but surprisingly philosophical about their plight, thanks largely to the Truth and Reconciliaton Commission. 

Recent theatrical cinematography credits include the shooting of the memorial concert for George Harrison, Concert for George, at the Royal Albert Hall, a film by David Leland; Bearing Witness, about journalists in Iraq, directed by Barbara Kopple;  Home of the Brave,  about the death of Viola Liuzzo, the only white woman killed in the Civil Rights movement, directed by Paola di Florio; and  an Anne Makepeace film, Rain in a Dry Land, about the Somali Bantus, 12,000 of which are immigrating to the U.S. from Kakuma, a refugee camp in Kenya.  Recently released:  Dixie Chicks: Shut Up & Sing directed by Kopple & Bastards of the Party directed by Bone about the Crips & the Bloods, gangs in Los Angeles.  In production, a film on Jane Fonda.  Also a film about Haskell Wexler, the renowned cinematographer & activist. And an "American Masters" on Ted Turner.  She has just completed shooting the first Discovery feature doc intended for theatrical release, Snow Blind, about the lovely Rachael Scdoris, a blind Iditarod racer & her team of dogs.

David Fincher

David Fincher is a film, commercial, and music video director recognized for his stylish, aesthetically pioneering, and sometimes darkly ominous portraits of the human experience.

Inspired by the landmark 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Fincher began making 8mm movies at the age of eight.  Eschewing film school and more traditional avenues of fundamental filmmaking education, he instead landed a job loading cameras for John Korty's eponymous production company. He moved to Industrial Light and Magic in 1980 where his first screen credit appeared in Star Wars Episode VI:  Return of the Jedi.  After four years at ILM, he directed the musical documentary The Beat of the Live Drum, on the strength of which he was able to begin his noted career in television commercials.  His debut spot was a disturbing public service announcement for the American Cancer Society that depicted a fetus in utero smoking a cigarette. Although he would go on to create prominent spots for clients that included Revlon, Converse, Nike, Pepsi and Levi's, Fincher soon discovered that the longer format and emerging medium of music videos was an exciting forum for experimentation.

Propaganda Films
With his sights set on a broad-spectrum directing career, Fincher joined with producers Steve Golin and Sigurjón Sighvatsson and fellow directors Dominic Sena, Greg Gold, and Nigel Dick in 1986 to found the talent management, advertising and video-production house Propaganda Films.  The company would soon become the most powerful player in the field of broadcast advertising and music videos, garnering the lion's share of the industry's most coveted projects, international attention and accolades. Fincher, Golin and other key players also formed Anonymous Content, now a leader in feature, commercial, music video and new media production and innovation.

Music videos
The 2004 recipient of the MVPA Lifetime Achievement Award, Fincher is widely held as one of the most influential and revolutionary directors of the form.  His music videos credits include work for artists Madonna, Michael Jackson, George Michael, Aerosmith, Paula Abdul, Nine Inch Nails, The Wallflowers, A Perfect Circle and The Rolling Stones, a video for which he won a Grammy Award.

Feature Films
Fincher's debut was Alien3 1992), followed by the grisly detective story entitled Se7en (1995). Next came his dark aventure film, The Game (1997),  Fight Club (1999), followed by the thriller Panic Room (2002) and Zodiac in April, 2007.

Upcoming Projects:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a Paramount and Warner Bros. picture, is an adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story of the same name.  The film will star Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett and is slated to be released in December 2008.

Scott Frank

Scott Frank grew up in Los Gatos, California. He received a B.A. in Film Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1982.

His screenplays include Out of Sight which was nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Out of Sight also won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America as well as Best Screenplay awards from the National Society of Film Critics and the Boston Society of Film Critics

Scott Frank's other screenplay credits include: The Interpreter, Minority Report, Get Shorty (WGA nomination), Dead Again and Little Man Tate.

In 2006, he wrote and directed The Lookout starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jeff Daniels, Matthew Goode and Isla Fisher. In 2008, The Lookout was nominated for a Spirit Award for Best First Feature.

Tamara Jenkins

Writer/director Tamara Jenkins began her film career writing and directing several award-winning short films including Family Remains which received a Special Jury Prize for Excellence in Short Filmmaking at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival. Jenkins' first feature film outing was 1998's Slums of Beverly Hills, which premiered as part of the Directors' Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival that year. Starring Alan Arkin, Natasha Lyonne, and Marisa Tomei, the film was nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards (Best First Feature and Best First Screenplay) and has since become a cult hit.

In addition to her feature film work, Jenkins' writing has been published in Zoetrope: All-Story, Tin House Magazine, and most recently her essay, "Holy Innocents," appeared in the book Lisa Yuskavage: Small Paintings 1993-2004 published by Abrams. She has also directed theater at The New Group, worked with teens creating a sex education film for the non-profit organization Scenarios, and directed a series of public service announcements for Amnesty International.

The Savages, Jenkins' second directorial feature film which she also wrote, had its world premiere at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Laura Linney, and Philip Bosco, the Fox Searchlight film recently garnered two Academy Award® nominations: Best Actress (for Linney) and Best Original Screenplay (for Jenkins). The Savages also received four Spirit Award nominations, including two for Jenkins: Best Screenplay and Best Director.

Spike Jonze

Spike Jonze started out shooting skateboarding photographs and videos, and went on to make music videos for Beastie Boys, Bjork, Weezer, and Fat Boy Slim, among others. His videos have been nominated for dozens of MTV Video Music Awards, including three wins for Best Director.

His first film was Being John Malkovich, with John Malkovich, Cameron Diaz, and Catherine Keener, and was nominated for 3 Academy Awards®. His second film, Adaptation, with Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper, was nominated for 4 Academy Awards®, with a Best Supporting Actor win for Chris Cooper. After introducing Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman, he & Charlie produced Michel's first feature film, Human Nature, from a script Charlie had written.

Although most of his time is devoted to developing and directing films, he also spends his time on other interests ranging from creating and producing the Jackass TV shows and movies, to directing a day in the life video portrait of Al Gore for his 2000 Presidential campaign. In 1999, he co-starred in Three Kings, directed by David Russell.

Spike still directs skate videos for a skateboard company that he & his friends started in 1993, called Girl Skateboards and Chocolate. Girl's last full length video, Yeah Right, was one of the top selling skate videos of all time.

Currently, he's working on Where the Wild Things Are, on which he collaborated with Maurice Sendak and co-wrote with Dave Eggers. In addition, he is producing longtime friend and collaborator, Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York. He has fake teeth.

Callie Khouri

Callie Khouri galvanized women and sparked nationwide debate in 1991 with the hit movie Thelma and Louise, her screenwriting debut, for which she received an Oscar® from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She was honored by the Writers Guild of America for "Best Original Screenplay," and won a Golden Globe Award and a PEN Literary Award. Thelma and Louise took home the London Film Critics Circle Award for "Film of the Year,” and was nominated for "Best Original Screenplay” by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. In 1992, she was recipient of the second annual Los Angeles Women Making history Award and the New York Women in Communications Matrix Award. Glamour magazine named her one of their top ten women of the year as well.

Her second picture, released in August 1995, was Something to Talk About for Warner Brothers pictures, starring Julia Roberts, Dennis Quaid, Gena Rowlands, Robert Duvall, and Kyra Sedgwick.

Her directorial debut was in June 2002 with Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, which she also adapted for the screen. It starred Sandra Bullock, Ashley Judd, Ellen Burstyn, and James Garner.

In 2006, Ms. Khouri collaborated with legendary television producer Steven Bochco to create an original television series for ABC/Touchstone titled Hollis and Rae. She wrote and directed the pilot. Bochco Media produced the project.

Most recently, Ms. Khouri has finished directing her second feature film titled Mad Money. The film stars Diane Keaton, Queen Latifa, Katie Holmes and Ted Danson. It was released in January 2008.

Born in Texas and raised in Kentucky, Callie Khouri attended Purdue University, where she majored in drama. She pursued additional training at the Lee Strasberg Institute in Los Angeles and later with Peggy Fuery. In 1985, she began working in film production, producing commercials and music videos.

Callie Khouri served on the board of directors of the Writer's Guild of America in 1996-1998 and 2000-2002. She also served on the board of trustees of the Writer's Guild Foundation from 2001 to 2004.

In 2005 she was awarded the Horton Foote Award for special achievement in screenwriting.

Ren Klyce

Ren Klyce was born in 1963 in Kyoto, Japan and was raised in Mill Valley, California.  He studied piano from early childhood and became increasingly interested in music and sound upon receiving a tape recorder and blank tapes from his godfather and recording arts maverick Henry "Sandy" Jacobs.  Klyce would record hours and hours of music, sound effects, and stories on cassette and direct his sister and neighborhood kids in super 8 films.  Klyce majored in music at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he studied music composition with Professors David Cope and Gordon Mumma.  He went on to study computer music with John Cowning at Stanford University's CCRMA lab.

On a summer vacation in 1982, Klyce got a job as an art assistant at Korty Films, at which time he met a young special effects animator named David Fincher.  In 1983, David Fincher directed the graphic and controversial public service announcement for the American Cancer Society which depicted a fetus smoking a cigarette in utero. Fincher asked Klyce to compose music and sound for the PSA , which was honored by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences-- thus commencing their 25 year working relationship that would develop into further collaborations on numerous commercial and film projects including Se7en, The Game, Fight Club, Panic Room, Zodiac, and the upcoming The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Ray McKinnon

Raymond McKinnon was born and raised in Adel, Georgia, attended Valdosta State College, and began his acting career on stage in Atlanta, Georgia. McKinnon has also been writing in one form or other since he was in his teens. He wrote and directed his first film, a 38-minute, dark comedy, The Accountant, that went on to win the Academy Award® for Best Live Action Short Film in 2002. Chrystal, McKinnon's feature writing and directing debut was selected was one of sixteen films for the dramatic competition in 2004 at the Sundance Film Festival and was released in the spring of 2005 into theatres. McKinnon's latest effort, Randy And The Mob, was released in the fall of 2007 into theatres throughout the south and will be released in the video in the spring. As an actor, McKinnon has appeared in numerous films and television efforts including Bugsy, Oh Brother Where Art Thou?, The Missing, and Come Early Morning. In television, he was in the HBO acclaimed series Deadwood as the Reverend H.W. Smith, and last scene in the Mini-Series Comanche Moon as Long Bill Coleman. McKinnon is producing the indie script, I Hate To See That Evening Sun Go Down as well as developing a new television series with his frequent collaborator, Walton Goggins. McKinnon is married to actress and producing partner, Lisa Blount.

Lisa Leeman

Lisa Leeman writes, produces, directs and edits documentary films. She has served as a judge at the Sundance Film Festival, the president of the International Documentary Association, and on the boards of the IDA and the National Coalition of Independent Public Broadcasting Producers.  She writes articles specializing in the ethics of documentary filmmaking for the International Documentary Association.  She is on the faculty of USC's School of Cinematic Arts, and has taught documentary filmmaking in Beijing, China, and Amman, Jordan.  Honors include the once-in-a-lifetime American Film Institute's Independent Filmmaker Grant, the Western States Media Arts Fellowship, and the ITVS/PMN Station-Independent Partnership Program Grant, as well as numerous awards her films have received.

Lisa is currently directing the feature doc One Lucky Elephant, the poignant story of one man's determined quest to find a permanent home for Flora, the 24 year-old African elephant he rescued 23 years ago after she was orphaned in a culling.  Lisa is also producing the feature documentary Crazy Wisdom: The Life & Times Of Chogyam Trunga, which profiles the influential and controversial Tibetan Buddhist teacher and his deep impact on the West.

In 2006, Lisa finished directing the feature documentary Out Of Faith, filmed over four years.  Out Of Faith is a character-driven doc that explores conflicts over intermarriage and assimilation as seen through three generations of a family headed by Holocaust survivors.  The film is close to her heart, as she herself is the product of an interfaith marriage.  Out Of Faith has so far screened in over two dozen festivals internationally, premiered theatrically in March, 2008, and will be broadcast nationally on PBS primetime in the fall of '08.  

Leeman co-directed and edited the feature documentary Who Needs Sleep with renowned cinematographer and director Haskell Wexler (Sundance Film Festival, 2006).  Who Needs Sleep investigates the perils of sleep deprivation and long work hours in the movie business, and in our culture at large, and asks who is really protecting American workers. 

Writing credits include Made in LA, which follows three Latina immigrants working in LA's garment factories and their struggle for self-empowerment as they wage a three-year battle to bring a major clothing retailer to the negotiating table (Silverdocs 2007; Los Angeles Film Festival 2007; POV/PBS 2007), and the theatrically released feature doc Naked In Ashes, which  follows an ascetic yogi in India, and a young disciple who undergoes a secret initiation. Lisa recently wrapped  co-writing Not In God's Name (featuring the Dalai Lama), which explores the similar values underlying all faiths, and their potential for bridging perceived differences.

Lisa's first film, Metamorphosis: Man Into Woman, won the Filmmakers' Trophy upon its premiere at Sundance in 1990.  Metamorphosis was the first documentary film to intimately follow one person's transformation from man to woman.  Sheila Benson of the LA Times wrote:

"The power and intimacy in Leeman's unsentimental portrait of animator Gary/Gabi and his/her four-year quest for a sexual identity change is equaled only by the honesty and bravery of the film's subject."

PBS broadcast Metamorphosis on its celebrated series POV, where it earned the highest audience rating of any POV broadcast.  It has won many awards, screened in festivals around the world, been broadcast in a dozen countries, and is screened frequently in university classes on psychology, sociology, sexuality, and women's studies. 

In 1997, Lisa received an Emmy nomination for Fender Philosophers, a portrait of Americans as seen through our bumper stickers.  That program, funded by an ITVS Station-Independent Partnership Program grant (co-produced with KPBS, San Diego), was presented by PBS's National Programming Service.   Two years later, Lisa's comedic video diary Breaking Up, which explores the heartbreak and humor at the end of romance, premiered on ARTE, Europe's noted arts & culture station.

Lisa wrote, produced and directed for the 2000 & 2001 seasons of the highly-rated series  Medical  Diary for the Discovery Health Network.  Prior to that, she was commissioned to produce a short documentary for the World Festival of Sacred Music, a multi-cultural, multi-venue nine day event in Los Angeles, initiated by the Dalai Lama and attended by over 60,000 people across L.A.  Other commissions include work for KCET's  Independent Eye; FNN's Appreciating Art; and the Liberty Hill Foundation.

She spent a decade editing award-winning social issue documentaries, including Renee Tajima-Pena's The Journey Home (PBS Special); Michelle LeBrun's Death: A Love Story  (Sundance ‘99); Laura's Simon's Fear and Learning at Hoover Elementary  (POV; Winner, Freedom of Expression Award, Sundance ‘97); Marco Williams' In Search of Our Fathers, on women-headed African-American families (FRONTLINE, PBS); Will My Mother Go to Berlin?,  Micha Peled's personal essay on Jewish-German relations (ARD, PBS); Stanley Nelson's Methadone: Curse or Cure?  (PBS); It Was A Wonderful Life,  Michele Ohayon's film on middle-class homeless women (PBS); and the TBS series The Native Americans and America's Music: The Roots Of Country.

Lisa frequently consults on documentaries for broadcasters (editorial and script consultant for the PBS series POV), and for documentaries such as Big Mama (Academy Award, Best Short Documentary, 2001 /HBO), Lost in La Mancha (Berlin Film Festival; Quixote Films); Home of the Brave (Paola Di Florio, Sundance, 2004); Homeland (Audience Award AFI Fest 2000); Good Kurds, Bad Kurds: No Friends But the Mountains (Best Documentary, Atlanta Film Festival); Who is Bernard Tapie? (LAIFF, 2001), Sonic Convergence, (Courtney Ross, Ross School); and A Place at the Table (Teaching Tolerance & the Southern Poverty Law Center).

Diana Ossana

Diana Ossana, of Italian/Irish descent, was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. Diana attended Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, New Mexico, majoring in both English and Political Science.  She is the published author of several short stories and numerous essays. 

Diana has been both a devoted bibliophile and passionate cinephile since early childhood, and so in 1992, at his request, she began a writing collaboration with the novelist and screenwriter Larry McMurtry, which continues to this day.  Their collaboration includes two novels, Pretty Boy Floyd and Zeke and Ned, published by Simon and Schuster, as well as nearly twenty feature film scripts. They were co-writers and co-executive producers on four award-winning miniseries: Streets Of Laredo and Comanche Moon for CBS; Dead Man's Walk for ABC; and Johnson County War for Hallmark Entertainment.  Diana and Larry received the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar® for Brokeback Mountain, directed by Ang Lee.  Diana was also a producer on the movie, joining cast and crew during filming in and around Calgary, Alberta. 

Most recently, Diana and Larry have written a screenplay for Playtone and Universal Studios to star Tom Hanks, based upon Larry's novel, Boone's Lick.  Once the WGA strike is over, Diana and Larry will begin adapting his four Berrybender novels, and Diana will complete her feature script, entitled Crashing Through, for Twentieth Century Fox.  She divides her peripatetic life among Arizona, California, Missouri, New Mexico, Rhode Island, South Dakota and Texas.

Molly Parker

An actress of fierce intelligence, strength and delicacy, Molly Parker consistently garners acclaim for her craft and her bold, diverse choices in characters.  She plays Alma Garrett on HBO's critically heralded Deadwood, the former New York society woman who reinvents herself by working her claim, adopting an orphan girl and falling for Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant).  Parker also appears in a trio of recent films She stars with Ben Affleck, Adrien Brody and Diane Lane in  Focus Features' Hollywoodland, a drama about the mysterious death of George Reeves (television's "Superman").  In Neil LaBute's version of the cult classic The Wicker Man, Parker appears opposite Nicolas Cage and Ellen Burstyn as an island community teacher.  Finally, she stars opposite Lukas Haas and Adam Scott in Matt Bissonnette's independent feature Who Loves The Sun, which centers on the rivalry between two reunited childhood friends who compete for the love of the same woman.

Parker most recently appeared in Rodrigo Garcia's Nine Lives, which topped numerous critics' best films of 2005 lists, and Gillies MacKinnon's Pure.  Her credits also include Wayne Wang's Center Of The World (Independent Spirit Award nomination, Best Female Lead) opposite Peter Sarsgaard; the Golden Globe-nominated drama, Sunshine, in which she co-starred with Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz; Keith Gordon's Waking The Dead, with Billy Crudup and Jennifer Connelly; Menno Meyjes' Max, co-starring John Cusack; and Michael Winterbottom's acclaimed Wonderland. 

Parker also starred in Wiebke von Carolsfeld's Marion Bridge (Genie Award winner, Best Supporting Actress); Looking For Leonard, which she also executive produced; the comedies Men With Brooms and Last Wedding, for which she received Genie Award nominations; Rare Birds with William Hurt; Jeremy Podeswa's The Five Senses with Mary Louise-Parker and the Venice Film Festival entry Suspicious River.  Parker made her feature film debut as an alluring necrophiliac in Lynne Stopkewich's stunning Kissed, for which she received a Genie Award for Best Actress. 

Parker began a relationship with HBO when she appeared as Rabbi Ari on the award-winning series Six Feet Under and subsequently starred with Hilary Swank and Angelica Houston as a young suffragette in Iron Jawed Angels.  Additional television credits include Twitch City, the Fox miniseries Intensity and the telefilm Serving in Silence with Glenn Close. 

Stacy Peralta

West Los Angeles native Stacy Peralta became a skateboarding world champion by the age of 19, earning product endorsements and TV and film appearances in the process.

He is credited with inspiring the Action Sports Video revolution having conceived, produced, directed and edited 10 of the very first action sports videos for Powell & Peralta skateboards.

Peralta directed second unit on three motion pictures, and suffered seven years directing TV pilots, specials and series for various networks.

In 2000, he wrote and directed the critically acclaimed Dogtown and Z-Boyz, which won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary in 2001.It also won the Audience Award and Directing Award at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival.

Peralta's other credits include 2004's surfing doc Riding Giants, which opened the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, and his latest documentary, Made In America, which chronicles the history of South Central Los Angeles, and the rise of gang culture.

Jason Reitman

With two feature films under his belt, Jason Reitman has established himself as an original, smart and funny storyteller known for his keen pitch-perfect satirical commentaries on our society.

On December 7, 2007, Fox Searchlight released Reitman's second feature, Juno, which follows the story of a pregnant teenager who makes an unusual decision regarding her unborn child. The film, written by first-time screenwriter Diablo Cody, stars Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner. Juno has garnered widespread praise since its debut at the 2007 Telluride Film Festival. It recently received four Academy Award® nominations including Best Feature, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Actress; and is nominated for four Spirit Awards.

He made his feature film directing debut with the 2006 hit Thank You for Smoking, based on the acclaimed novel by Christopher Buckley, which Reitman adapted for the screen. The film had its world premiere at the 2005 Toronto Film Festival, where it was acquired by Fox Searchlight.

The film went on to screen at the 2006 Sundance and SXSW Film Festivals, and earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture and an Independent Spirit Award for best screenplay and a WGA nomination for best adapted screenplay. In 2006, Reitman was named best debut director by the National Board of Review and U.S. Comedy Arts. Reitman was born in Montreal on October 19, 1977. He was on his first film set (Animal House) 11 days later. The son of director Ivan Reitman, he spent most of his childhood on or around film sets. At 15, the budding filmmaker made an AIDS public service announcement with actors from his high school that went on to win awards and playon network television.

At age 19, his first short film, Operation, a comedy about kidney stealing, premiered at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. This began a string of shorts, including H@ (premiered at SXSW 1999), In God We Trust (premiered at Sundance 2000, went on to play Toronto, Edinburgh, New Directors/New Films and won best short at many fests including Los Angeles, Aspen, Austin, Seattle, and Florida), GULP (premiered at Sundance 2001), and Consent (premiered at Aspen 2004). Reitman's short films have played in over a hundred film festivals worldwide. Reitman has directed commercials through Tate USA since 2001. He has received honors from the Cannes commercial awards, the Addys, as well as the One Show. Clients include Miller Light, Heineken, Honda, Nintendo, BMW, Kyocera, Asics, GM, and Burger King.

In the wake of the success of Smoking Reitman and his producing partner, Daniel Dubiecki, formed a new production company, Hard C, based at Fox Searchlight. Hard C is developing a number of projects, including Bonzai Shadowhands with Rainn Wilson and the spec script The Ornate Anatomy of Living Things. Hard C will also produce, alongside Mason Novick, Jennifer's Body, Diablo Cody's latest script, for Fox Atomic. Production is planned to start early 2008.

Jeremy Renner

Jeremy Renner next stars in The Hurt Locker for director Kathryn Bigelow. In the film, Jeremy plays the leader of an Army Explosive Ordinance Disposal team in Baghdad as he contends with not only diffusing bombs in the backdrop of a war but also the psychological and emotional strain that it inflicts. The film also stars Academy Award® nominee Ralph Fiennes and Guy Pierce.

In 2007, Jeremy starred in 28 Weeks Later the highly anticipated sequel to 28 Days Later for director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and opposite Rose Byrne and Robert Carlyle. He played the heroic 'Doyle' who goes against military orders to save a group of survivors. Jeremy can also currently be seen in The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford for Warner Bros. and directed by Andrew Dominik.  In the film, Renner stars alongside Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck playing a key member of James' gang, Wood Hide. Jeremy also co-starred opposite Minnie Driver in the independent film Take which is scheduled to be released later this year.   

In Warner Bros.' North Country Renner starred opposite Academy Award® wthCharlize Theron.  A fictionalized account of the first major successful sexual harassment case in the U.S., Renner is at the center of the unfolding drama as 'Bobby Sharp.'  Working with 'Josie Aimes' (Theron) at the mine in their hometown, 'Bobby' often clashes with the single mother over his view that women shouldn't work in such a demanding environment.  Their disagreements drive the drama, leading 'Josie' to file a class action lawsuit against the company.

Jeremy also starred in the acclaimed independent film 12 And Holding (Independent Spirit Award Nominee – John Cassavetes Award) demonstrating his dramatic range playing 'Gus,' a firefighter who moves to a new town after the haunting loss of a young girl in a fire and who finds a way to heal himself by helping a young girl in his new town cope with her own loss and grief. Jeremy's other recent credits include the independent film Neo Ned in which he starred opposite Gabrielle Union.  Neo Ned was screened at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival and swept the feature film category at the 11th Annual Palm Beach International Film Festival in 2006.  Neo Ned was awarded Best Feature Film, Best Director and Best Actor went to Jeremy.  The film was also awarded the Outstanding Achievement in Filmmaking Best Feature Film Award at the Newport Beach Film Festival in April 2006.  These awards come after winning the Audience Award at the Slamdance, Sarasota and Ashland film festivals.

Renner's other credits include A Little Trip To Heaven in which he starred opposite Julia Stiles playing the diabolical con man 'Kelvin' who breaks out of prison to find his partner-in-crime/lover 'Isold' (Stiles), murdering her current lover, faking his own death and convincing her to join him in a new scheme; The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things directed by Asia Argento as adapted from the critically acclaimed novel by J.T. Leroy; Columbia Pictures; Lords Of Dogtown for helmer Catherine Hardwicke; and Aura Entertainment's independent film Love Comes To The Executioner written and directed by Kyle Bergersen.

In 2003, Jeremy was seen in the summer hit S.W.A.T. opposite Colin Farrell and Samuel L. Jackson, However the role that put Renner on the map and that earned the actor an Independent Spirit Award nomination, was his role as Jeffrey Dahmer in the indie Dahmer.

With a background in theater, Renner keeps in "shape" by performing in plays throughout the Los Angeles area.  His most memorable was Search and Destroy which he not only starred in but also co-directed, and was produced by Barry Levinson to stellar reviews.  Daily Variety said, "Renner is excellent as a low-keyed sociopath," while L.A. Weekly boasted "...dapper, would be wise guy, Renner is terrific in finding eccentric comedy...expertly executed."

Between film and theater, he finds the time to write, record, and perform his own music brand of contemporary rock. Renner has written songs for Warner Chapel Publishing and Universal Publishing.

Julian Schnabel

Julian Schnabel was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1951. At 15, he moved with his family to Brownsville, Texas. He attended the University of Houston, receiving a BFA, and returned to New York in 1973 to participate in the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. In 1978 Schnabel made his first plate painting, The Patients and the Doctors. His first solo painting exhibition took place in 1979 at the Mary Boone Gallery, New York. Since then, Schnabel's work has been exhibited all over the world. His paintings, sculptures and works on paper have been the subject of retrospective exhibitions at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; The Whitechapel Gallery, London; The Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; The Tate Gallery, London; and The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

In 1996, he wrote and directed the feature film Basquiat, about fellow New York artist Jean Michel Basquiat. Schnabel's second film, Before Night Falls, won the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival 2000 and earned Javier Bardem an Academy Award® nomination for best actor.

In 2004, a retrospective of Schnabel's paintings took place at the Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; Palacio Velazquez, Madrid; and Mostra d'Oltremare, Napoli. Recent exhibitions of Schnabel's paintings and sculpture have taken place at the Palazzo Venezia, Rome; Schloss Derneburg, Derneburg, Germany; Rotonda della Besana, Milan; and Tabacalera, San Sebastian, Spain.

In 2007, Schnabel directed The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, based on the memoir by Jean-Dominique Bauby. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for four Spirit Awards, including Best Feature and Best Director. Schnabel also received an Academy Award® nomination for Best Director.

Schnabel lives with his wife Olatz Lopez Garmendia, who plays Marie in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and their family in New York City.

Emily Schweber

Emily Schweber has been casting for almost twenty years.

She was trained by Mali Finn, one of the most respected casting directors in the business, for ten years. During Emily's time with Mali, they worked with such directors as James Cameron, Curtis Hanson, Joel Schumacher, Frank Darabont, Larry and Andy Wachowski, Brian DePalma, and Steven Shainberg. Together, she and Mali cast Tigerland, The Wood, and Joyride.

Emily has established a reputation as one of the top independent casting directors.

Some of the films she's cast have appeared at the Sundance Film Festival, including, The United States of Leland, Bookies, Chrystal, Steel City, Right At Your Door, and The Go-Getter. Scott Caan's The Dog Problem premiered at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival.

Other credits include Second Hand Lions, Billy Bob Thornton's Daddy and Them, and Gregory Nava's award winning PBS series, American Family, "I love the creative input I can contribute to the director and producers. It's a thrill to bring talent to a small film and even a bigger thrill to discover new talent." Recent projects: The Other End of the Line, a romantic comedy for Hyde Park Entertainment, and The Thacker Case, a court room drama based on a true case, for director Brian Jun (Steel City). Currently casting: Hanging Out Hooking Up Falling In Love starring Richard E. Grant.

Haskell Wexler

Haskell Wexler is considered to be one of the most important cinematographers working in the film industry today.   Wexler has photographed a wide range of films that have earned him five Academy Award nominations and two Oscars® for Best Cinematography.  His nominations came for his work on his first feature documentary, The Living City; a short film T For Tumbleweed; Milos Forman's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest; and Touchstone Pictures Blaze.  He took home statuettes for his work on Mike Nichols' Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf and Hal Ashby's Bound For Glory.  Other films shot for Ashby include Coming Home, Second-Hand Heart and Lookin' To Get Out.

Born in Chicago, Wexler attended the University of California at Berkeley for a year before joining the Merchant Marines.  He stayed at sea for five years, became a second officer, then returned to Chicago where he spent ten years making documentary and educational films before moving to California in 1955.

Among Wexler's other credits are three films for Norman Jewison: In The Heat Of The Night, The Thomas Crown Affair and Other People's Money; George Lucas' American Graffiti; Dennis Hopper's controversial hit, COLORS and Touchstone Pictures' hit comedy, Three Fugitives; the film, The Babe, a Universal Picture; and the Rolling Stones World Tour At The Max, an IMAX film which was a photographic breakthrough. Other credits include John Sayles' films Matewan, The Secret Of Roan Inish, Limbo, and Silver City; Michael Moore's Canadian Bacon; an IMAX film, Imax:Mexico,; the MGM/Zanuck Co. film Mulholland Falls; Rich Man's Wife, and HBO's 61*, directed by Billy Crystal, which has received several Emmy nominations including Outstanding Cinematography.

As a director, Wexler crafted two features, Medium Cool, a groundbreaking film shot during the Democratic convention in Chicago and Latino in Nicaragua which received a special honor at the Cannes Film Festival.  Both films broke the mold of conventional story telling by using the immediacy of documentary-style filmmaking.  He has directed over fifty documentaries, rock videos and award winning commercials.  Including The Bus, Bus II and Bus Riders Union; Introduction To The Enemy, shot in Vietnam with Jane Fonda; Interview With My Lai Veterans, which also won an Academy Award, No Nukes with Barbara Kopple, and Target Nicaragua: Inside A Secret War. He has recently completed his latest documentary, Who Needs Sleep?, a film about sleep deprivation and long hours in the motion picture business, which has premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2006.

Wexler has been elected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to the Board of Governors to represent the Cinematographers Branch. 

Wexler has also received many honors, including The American Society of Cinematographers' Lifetime Achievement Award, Liberty Hill Foundation Upton Sinclair Award, Poland's Camerimage Lifetime Achievement Award, Eastman Kodak Outstanding Photographic Achievement for Blaze and Matewan, to name a few.

Wexler has received Honorary Doctorates from Columbia College, American Film Institute, California Institute of the Arts and Brooks Institute of Photography Honorary Master of Science.

Wexler is the first Cinematographer in over thirty-five years to receive a "Star" on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.

Jessica Yu

Jessica Yu is a filmmaker based in Los Angeles. She won the 1997 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short for Breathing Lessons: The Life And Work Of Mark O'brien, an intimate portrait of the writer who lived for four decades paralyzed by polio and confined to an iron lung. The film also won over 20 festival awards, including the IDA Achievement Award, the Audience Award at Aspen Shortsfest, and First Prize at the St. Petersburg International Film Festival, since its debut at the Sundance Film Festival. She also won a Primetime Emmy and a Cable Ace Award for Best Documentary Director.

Yu's current documentary, Protagonist, looks at extremism through the lives of a spectrum of individuals. Funded by the Carr Foundation, it premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival to critical acclaim and was released theatrically through IFC Films and Red Envelope. It also won the Grand Jury Prize at the Atlanta Film Festival.

In 2007, Yu also directed a feature comedy for Cherry Sky Films, called Ping Pong Playa, which she co-wrote with Jimmy Tsai. Scheduled for release in the fall of 2008, it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival to enthusiastic audiences and reviews. Recently Yu was also a segment director on HBO's landmark series Addiction, which was nominated for an IDA Award.

In The Realms Of The Unreal, Yu's celebrated feature documentary about the enigmatic "outsider" artist Henry Darger, debuted in competition at Sundance. Realms won Best Documentary at the Vancouver International Film Festival, Best Documentary at the Newport Beach Film Festival, Best Editing at the Atlanta Film Festival and a Gotham Award nomination for Best Documentary. She was also nominated for the Writers Guild Award for Documentary Screenplay. Released nationally by Wellspring Films and broadcast on PBS' independent documentary series, P.O.V., REALMS was nominated for P.O.V.'s first Primetime Emmy Award (Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking) and featured on several publications' 2004 “top ten” lists, including the Christian Science Monitor.

Yu's film The Living Museum, the award-winning HBO documentary about an art community in a New York mental institution, premiered at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. Yu's narrative short Better Late was the debut film for the fXM Shorts Series. It has been featured in 60 festivals since its premiere at Sundance 1997, and it won First Prize for Short Drama at the New York Festivals. Her other films include Men Of Reenaction, a documentary about Civil War reenactors, for which she received grants from ITVS and NEA; the popular black & white short Sour Death Balls, which won several awards, including Best Live Action Short at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, was featured at Berlin, Sundance, Telluride, Toronto, San Francisco, Sydney and the national PBS series Alive TV; The Conductor, a musical comedy short featuring Mark Salzman (Iron And Silk) and the documentary Home Base, winner of several festival awards. She also directs commercials with Nonfiction Spots of Santa Monica, for which she has won a New York Emmy.

Yu has also written articles and fiction for the Los Angeles Times Magazine, Buzz, Worth, and the Pacific News Service. She received the Murrow Award for Journalism from the Skeptics Society, the Dream Media Award from the Western Law Center for Disability Rights and ACV's Asian American Media Award. She has lectured at various universities and conferences. She is a MacDowell Colony Fellow and a Yaddo Fellow. Yu graduated from Yale University, Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude, with a B.A. in English.

As the first director selected for the John Wells Director Diversity Program, she has directed episodes of the NBC dramas The West Wing, and ER, as well as various other shows including ABC's Gray's Anatomy. In 2000, Yu was the artist-in-residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. She has been a board member of the International Documentary Association, and more recently, an artist trustee of the Sundance Institute.

Marina Zenovich

Marina Zenovich is a director and producer.  Her most recent film, Roman Polanski: Wanted And Desired - called "a documentary of rare fascination and power" by Entertainment Weekly -  just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.  It will air on HBO in June.  Other films include: Who Is Bernard Tapie? -- a study of the French former politician/convicted criminal turned actor and Estonia Dreams Of Eurovision! about the wacky world of Tallin, Estonia as it prepares to host the Eurovision Song Contest.  Both films have aired on Sundance Channel, the BBC and around the world.  Her first documentary was Independent's Day --  a look at the struggles of independent filmmakers set at the Sundance and Slamdance Film Festivals.  It has been translated into several languages and can be found on Netflix.   She also works for Gallery HD's series Art in Progress where she has profiled Julian Schnabel, Robert Wilson, John Baldessari and Takashi Murakami, among others. Next up is a documentary about French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Eric Zumbrunnen

Eric Zumbrunnen has been editing for 18 years, working on numerous music videos, commercials, short films, and documentaries.  He has also edited the feature films of Spike Jonze: Being John Malkovich, for which he won the American Cinema Editors award (The "Eddie") for Best Edited Feature Film (Comedy or Musical); and Adaptation, for which he received an Eddie nomination for Best Edited Feature (Comedy or Musical).

Eric twice won the MTV Award for best editing for videos directed by Spike Jonze: Weezer's "Buddy Holly," and Fat Boy Slim's "Weapon of Choice."

Eric is currently in post-production on Spike Jonze's adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic children's book, Where The Wild Things Are.

 

* Panelists subject to change without notice.