Filmocracy Virtual FestivalsFilmocracy Virtual Festivals
May 19th – Drama Genre Edition
David-Matthew is the bestselling author of fifteen novels, three collections of poetry, seven short stories, and more than seventy stage plays that have been performed in three languages in twelve countries. He was named a finalist for the Sundance Institute - YouTube New Voices Lab and was nationally selected to serve as the Emerging Writer-in-Residence at Pennsylvania State University.
Recent honors graduate at the London Film School; Emilie Biason is a French-Brazilian writer-director devoted to design for originality and awe-inspiring stories. Duas Texas, her first short film, which she wrote, directed, and starred in, was a semi-finalist in great festivals. Now based in London, Emilie has joined the One Minute Academy team, and is preparing to release her newest short film: PINKS.
Ben is a writer, educator, and filmmaker, currently residing in Chicago. His lifelong love for storytelling ultimately morphed into a professional obsession, combining his passion for narrative writing with video production. Ben graduated from The Second City’s Harold Ramis Film School, the only film school of its kind dedicated exclusively to comedic storytelling for the film and television industries.
Koura founded Space Dream Productions, a production company grounded in the idea that filmmakers are ambassadors of humanity. Since 2016, over 50 projects have moved through Space Dream Productions. In 2019, Koura was awarded the Mico Award for courage, innovation, and excellence in a career in film. She works to mentor other filmmakers through her podcast, Filmmaking [actually].
Kevin is the writer and director of Award Winning short film "DARK" 2021 and "The Conversation" 2021. He has been a finalist at various film festivals, such as Cannes World Film Festival and New Filmmakers NY film Festival and has won awards for his scripts and short films at London Indie Short Festival, Vegas Movie Award, Atlantic City Cinefest, Las Vegas Independent Film Fest, and more.
Emel Saat is a filmmaker/entrepreneur. She has worked on a variety of projects. Her first short film “I’m Not Here” was accepted to 7 festivals. The script was a finalist at Nantucket’s SHOWTIME Tony Cox Screenplay Competition in 2017. Saat submitted a vlog of her day for a contest called Vlog Buster in 2016. She was in the top 10 out of hundreds of submissions and was screened at the festival.
Lisa was a Washington DC catering chef, but after years of feeding some of the most prestigious people in politics Lisa discovered she is plagued with a vivid fantasy life, filled with fantastic daydreams. She began writing stories about people who have traditionally been unrepresented in Hollywood films, giving a voice to those who need to be heard. Lisa has placed well in major screenwriting contests, including Athena Film Festival, TV Lab, Austin Film Festival, and twice placed in the Top 5% of the Nicholl Fellowship.
Xandar is an award-winning screenwriter. He was born in Eastern Europe and immigrated to the United States at an early age. He made his short film festival debut as Director with the project award–winning short drama "Worth Fighting For", which he also served as a story editor and screenwriter. Xandar is currently running his short horror screenplay "Dear Agony" through the film festival circuit.
March 19th – Women’s History Month
Diana Aydin is a screenwriter, comedy writer and journalist based in New York. She is a recent recipient of the Sesame Workshop Writers Room fellowship and has trained at The Second City, UCB and NYU. She frequently writes comedies featuring lovable, oddball characters inspired by her Syriac American family and upbringing.
Brown is a screenplay writer, director, production manager, and now she can call herself a DP since she just started DP’ing her own films. She owns DRIP Productions and she loves everything film. The very first film she directed has won 3 awards. The script she entered as a sample has won 5 awards, 2 semi finalist, and 1 quarter-finalist.
Danielle Evenson has staffed on The New Adventures of Old Christine, Noggin’s Tales From The Playground, the PBS digital hit Frankenstein MD, and the 2018 CBS Diversity Sketch Comedy Showcase. She has developed with Fullscreen, Audible, Endless Entertainment/NBC, and Gotham (Audio) Project Market; and sold a short-form series to Disney. She is fresh off her successful True Crime parody podcast Unsolved Death Murder Crimes and romcom podcast, The Kiss for Meet Cute.
Shannon Fewster created Lady Ada's Secret Society with the motivation to encourage teen girls in computer science by giving them comedic role models of girls who code, invent and make mischief. Lady Ada's Secret Society was the 2018 winner of the Cayle Chernin Award for Media Production, is funded by Ontario Creates and Shaw Rocket Fund releasing Spring 2022.
Marjory E. Leposky is a filmmaker and children's chapter book author with more than 10 years of production experience on a broad spectrum of projects that include TV commercials, music videos for local artists, and feature film productions. Marjory earned degrees in television and media production from Miami Dade College formally Miami-Dade Community College and Florida State University.
Jeri is an actress, writer, and graduate of The Harold Ramis Film School at Second City in Chicago - the only school dedicated entirely to comedic storytelling. Her actor training helped bridge the gap into comedy writing. Jeri is a recipient of the NBC+HRFS Emerging Voices Scholarship. Her adult animated pilot GUMBO placed as a Quarterfinalist in the 2021 Austin Film Festival.
The daughter of a Dominican and Uruguayan, Vyky has traveled extensively and started her career in the classroom. She always valued the opportunity to shift perspectives: her own, those of her high school students, and, eventually through film, those of whole generations. Vyky is in training as a director at Florida State University's College of Motion Picture Arts. Her deadpan, laser focus often misconstrues her deep love for people and community.
Leandra is a writer and actress hailing from Montreal, Quebec Canada. Leandra currently has her first feature film optioned with Viola Films in Italy, and has written across genres, from an hour-long family mobster series to a Christmas murder comedy caper feature. Leandra is passionate about telling unique, female centered stories but no matter the form of expression, communing and connecting with others via storytelling is her driving force.
Rosa is a Afro-Latina of Puerto Rican decent, Screenwriter who focuses on family-friendly content and characters with disabilities. She has a MA in Screenwriting from New York Film Academy, a BA in Theater and Communications from Temple University. She is currently on the screening committee for Diversity in Cannes Short Film and Webseries Showcase, for the fourth year. Rosa is a jurist for the Crown Awards and a programmer for Slamdance. In 2019 she was a winner and finalist at the Widescreen Film Festival for Best Screenplay with two scripts simultaneously. Shows also a finalist in the Global Screenplay Challenge at Oaxaca Film Fest in both 2019 and 2017.
Vernard S. Fields is a Cincinnati native filmmaker. For nearly 15 collective years he’s been involved with producing video content. He began his filmmaking journey at the age of 11 with the video and audio department at the church he attended. After high school, Vernard went off to college to earn his associate's degree in graphic design. Vernard is currently the president and co-founder of Black Cincinnati Cinema Collective since 2017 and city producer for the 48 Hour Film Project since 2019.
Madelyn Gee was born and raised in Houston. She graduated in 2020 with her Bachelor’s in Journalism and Film and Digital Media from Baylor University. She recently graduated with her Master’s in Journalism from the University of Texas-Austin. She has written over 150 articles for publications such as “Black Girl Nerds,” “Mediaversity” and more. She currently serves as a Staff Writer for Blavity, Inc. and the SEO Writer for TheSkimm’s “Well” Section. She has a passion for writing and eventually directing inclusive and entertaining content, especially focusing on the Black community or horror.
Mason Greer is an Iowa City-born and raised writer, director, and actor. He's appeared in multiple feature films and produced and directed numerous films for various platforms. Currently, he is optioning one of his feature screenplays to be produced this year (fingers crossed). Mason's film THROUGH THE NIGHT was also featured in an anthology series on Amazon.
Lina was born in Anaheim, California, and currently is pursuing her bachelor's degree in film production with a focus on screenwriting at the Los Angeles Film School. Besides her acting training at Atlanta's Alliance Theatre, she also participated in Sundance Collab's screenwriting program. In 2019, she was a finalist in Scriptapalooza's Screenplay Competition with her pilot "My Bro's a Hero" which ranked #10 on Coverfly's Redlist for sci-fi half-hour scripts that year.
Jamila A. Jackson is a screenwriter from Fort Wayne, Indiana and is making a name for herself as an alumnus from The Second City Film School-Chicago. Jamila is the recipient of the NBC + HRFS Emerging Voices Scholarship 2020-2021 and winner of multiple film festivals. She creates strong female protagonists and is raising her teen daughter through the pandemic, with the holy power of patience and laughter.
Jasmine Ogunjimi is a Nigerian-American Professional Athlete turned Screenwriter and Filmmaker from Chicago. Before selling her soul to FinalDraft, you could catch her playing basketball across the globe, dancing backup for celebrities - although no one ever believes her, and adding to her running list of ways people mispronounce her name. She enjoys writing dramedies that explore faith, sports, social institutions, and grounded characters with skin dark enough to make Beverly Hills nervous - demonstrated in her most recent film, BERMUDA which is set to premiere May of 2022.
Foster is an actor, writer, and director. In the late 90's he was the host of a Discovery Channel show called TRAVELERS. Foster and his cohosts went all over the world and during their downtime, he realized he had actors, a camera, and beautiful locations. Why not make short films? Thus his career in filmmaking began! His feature film, "HAWKS RIDGE," is now streaming on Amazon and Tubi.
Marjory E. Leposky is a filmmaker and children's chapter book author with more than 10 years of production experience on a broad spectrum of projects that include TV commercials, music videos for local artists, and feature film productions. Marjory earned degrees in television and media production from Miami Dade College formally Miami-Dade Community College and Florida State University.
Jeri is an actress, writer, and graduate of The Harold Ramis Film School at Second City in Chicago - the only school dedicated entirely to comedic storytelling. Her actor training helped bridge the gap into comedy writing. Jeri is a recipient of the NBC+HRFS Emerging Voices Scholarship. Her adult animated pilot GUMBO placed as a Quarterfinalist in the 2021 Austin Film Festival.
The daughter of a Dominican and Uruguayan, Vyky has traveled extensively and started her career in the classroom. She always valued the opportunity to shift perspectives: her own, those of her high school students, and, eventually through film, those of whole generations. Vyky is in training as a director at Florida State University's College of Motion Picture Arts. Her deadpan, laser focus often misconstrues her deep love for people and community.
Leandra is a writer and actress hailing from Montreal, Quebec Canada. Leandra currently has her first feature film optioned with Viola Films in Italy, and has written across genres, from an hour-long family mobster series to a Christmas murder comedy caper feature. Leandra is passionate about telling unique, female centered stories but no matter the form of expression, communing and connecting with others via storytelling is her driving force.
