JUDGES

MACKENZIE FIRGENS

Actress

Mackenzie Firgens' career was launched when she co-starred in the 2000 Sundance cult film Groove. Since then, she's starred in the Lions Gate release The Hamiltons and Chris Columbus' movie version of RENT and shared the screen with Mickey Rooney, Rosario Dawson, John Ratzenberger, and Michael Madsen, among others.. Watch Blockbuster for Break, the noir action film with David Carradine and Chad Everett and the co-ed dark comedy The Book of Caleb with Paul Gleason from The Breakfast Club on HULU.com.

 PAUL BATTISTA

MindFusion Law

Paul's practice encompasses business, tax and entertainment law. Clients include established and start-up companies, film and television producers, production companies and distributors, independent filmmakers, and individual artists—such as writers, directors, actors, musicians and performers.

A R KELLY

Director, Writer, Producer, Actor

AR Kelly is a director, writer, producer, man about town of indy horror films. The creative force behind such indy classics as I’ll Bury You Tomorrow, The Blood Shed, Gallery of Fear and Don’t Look in the Basement. AR appears onscreen in Dead Serious, Vindication, The Pod, The Screening, Devoured, Pink Eye, Satan Hates You, Crossed, and Sculpture.

JOSHUA GRANNELL

Writer, Director, Actor

Joshua created and hosts as his drag character Peaches Christ. the hugely popular midnight movie event “Midnight Mass,” the longest running and most successful midnight movie event in the U.S. Joshua has written and directed a number of short films starring Peaches Christ:Season of the Troll, A Nightmare On Castro Street, and Whatever Happened to Peaches Christ? He expanded his fourth short film, Grindhouse, a gore comedy, iinto his first feature film and newest project, All About Evil.

RICHARD QUAN

Producer, animation supervisor

Richard Quan has produced for television film and interactive media for 20 years, including Pee-wee’s Playhouse and The Cosby Show, and Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers. He was the production manager for the Disney feature film, James and the Giant Peach, produced a great deal of short form content for such clients as ATT, Miller Brewing, Anheuser-Busch, and Coca-Cola; and contributed on Eddie Murphy’s The PJ’s, Nickelodeon's Doug, Wesley Snipes' Strays, and the Warner Bros. feature film, “Joe’s Apartment.” His most recent projects include the animated situation comedy based on cartoonist Angus Oblong's odd world for Warner Bros. Television.

JOHN HAYS

Director, Producer

Currently Animation Director for the indie feature film “Howl” (Telling Pictures and Radiant Cool), John has worked with ILM, Colossal Pictures, Lucasfilm, and co-founded Wildbrain Animation Studios. John’s diverse carreer spans all areas of animation, from TV to new media to film production.,as Director, Producer, Layout, Storyboard Artist, Visual Development, Writer, and Consultant. Some credits include: TV's Spawn (HBO), The Dangwoods (MTV’s Liquid Television),  Yo Gabba Gabba (Nick Jr.), The Misadventures of Ed Grimley (NBC); 100+ webisodes as Creative Director for “Joe Paradise,” “Glue,” and “Romanov” (WildBrain Film): and features Batteries Not Included (ILM), Dopamine (Kontent Films),  and La Mission (5 Stick Films).

DEBBIE BRUBAKER

Producer

Debbie Brubaker is known as the "godmother of the San Francisco independent film world." She has produced or line-produced over twenty-five features including the Sundance award-winning feature Dopamine (dir. Mark Decena),Swing, Teknolust (dir. Lynn Hershman), and director Finn Taylor's moviesCherish and The Darwin Awards, which premiered at Sundance in 2006.Debbie's recent work includes co-producing, La Mission, written and directed by Peter Bratt, producing  Joshua Grannell's All About Evil, and the almost finished morality tale, The Scene, directed by Amy Glazer.

RICHARD LEVIEN

Director, Editor

Richard co-edited the feature documentary D-TOUR, which won the Golden Gate award at the 2009 San Francisco International Film Festival, and airs on  PBS'  Independent Lens in  2009. He edited the short film On the Assassination of the President which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008 as well as the cult web hit "Store Wars" which was seen by 5.5 million people in the first 6 weeks of release. He recently directed his first film,Immersion, which debuted at the 2009 Slamdance Film Festival.

GRAHAM WILLCOX

 Writer, Director, Editor

Graham Willcox is a director and editor of feature films, music videos and TV commercials.  His current work includes the music video "Unpure Christian Offering" for Kenji Siratori & Die Elektrischen and the film series "Black Ball."

NICHOLAS TANA

Producer, Director, Writer

Nick Tana is an actor, musician, and multi-media producer. An award-winning playwright and published author, his play The Nun, The Bum and The Gun won both the NEAT 2000 Award and The Arts In The Park Award. His sketch comedy act "The Naked Model"  performed to a sell out crowd at Stand Up New York. He has recently written, produced, and directed a feature documentary film for BlindFolk entertainment, and his original children’s animated story The Adventures of Bony Macaroni is being distributed by Bejuba Entertainment.

IAN REINHARD

Producer

Ian has worked in all aspects of independent film for the last decade.  He has produced, written, distributed and, yes, occasionally acted in indy films. Recent work includes producer credits for The Californians and the PBS-screened documentary 24 Hours on Craigslist.  Ian is the founder and producer of Indie Roar.