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August 1, 2018
Ondi Timoner

Ondi Timoner

ONDI TIMONER has the rare distinction of winning the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival twice – for her 2004 documentary, DIG!, and her 2009 top prize-winner, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC. Other award-winning features include: THE NATURE OF THE BEAST (1994), JOIN US (2007), COOL IT (2010) and BRAND: A SECOND COMING (2015). Her 10-hour nonfiction series about the building of “the world’s most sustainable town” JUNGLETOWN (2017), for Viceland was also critically-acclaimed.

MAPPLETHORPE is Timoner’s first scripted feature, starring Matt Smith – which she, wrote, directed, edited. The film premiered at the 2018 TriBeCa Film Festival, where it took home an Audience Award and was picked up by Samuel Goldwyn Company for theatrical distribution.

Timoner’s most recent career achievement awards include: The Rogue Award (Ashland Film Festival, 2015), The No Limits Award (Sarasota Film Society, 2015), The Auteur Award (Kodak, 2017), and the Maverick Award (The Audience Awards, 2017).

Timoner also produced & hosted the digital series, BYOD (Bring Your Own Doc) for thelip.tv, creating 300 episodes in which she interviews top documentary filmmakers.She is the Founder & CEA (Chief Creative Artist) of A TOTAL DISRUPTION, an online network dedicated to telling the stories of entrepreneurs & artists who use technology to innovate the way we live. Subjects include Amanda Palmer, Shepard Fairey, Russell Brand, Moby, Jack Dorsey, Kevin Systrom, Tony Hsieh etc.

Timoner has released two master classes for filmmakers, LEAN CONTENT & HOW TO MAKE A GREAT DOCUMENTARY (IN MY OPINION). In 2014, Ondi gave a popular TEDxKC talk entitled “When Genius and Insanity Hold Hands” about why she tells the stories of “impossible visionaries.”

Current projects include WeTalk, her national talk show celebrating the women shaping our culture across arts, entrepreneurship, government and technology; a feature-length documentary about the Opioid epidemic through the eyes of an artist; and a nature series for Disney Digital. She is executive producing several films and series.
Timoner is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the DGA, the PGA, the International Documentary Association, Women in Film & Film Fatales.

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July 19, 2018
Anjali Nayar

Anjali Nayar

Anjali Nayar is a Fulbright scholar and award-winning writer and director based between Nairobi and North America. Her newest documentary feature SILAS (world premiere TIFF 2017) profiles a network of citizen reporters, using smartphones to expose land grabs and corruption in West Africa.

Anjali’s feature directorial debut, GUN RUNNERS (Hot Docs 2016), about Kenyan warriors turned marathoners, is now available on Netflix. Anjali is also directing JUST A BAND a hybrid documentary project about an Afro-electric pop group that wants to go to space, as well as a number of short creative and virtual reality films.

Beyond film, Anjali founded TIMBY (This Is My Backyard), a suite of digital tools that helps activists report, verify and tell stories safely. She has a Masters from Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, a Masters in Environmental Management from Oxford and a Graduate degree from the International Space University in the Netherlands.

Anjali directed ESCAPE, an award-winning branded, digital short for MEC, Mountain Equipment Co-op, the leading retailer of outdoor gear in Canada. In addition, she recently directed a 60-second spot for the San Diego Zoo.

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June 26, 2018
Laura Gabbert

Laura Gabbert

Documentary director Laura Gabbert’s critically acclaimed films deploy full measures of humor and drama to unflinchingly put a human face on a range of social and cultural issues.

Gabbert directed the feature film CITY OF GOLD (Sundance 2015) about Pulitzer Prize winning food writer Jonathan Gold. The film played theatrically in over 50 markets. The New York Times wrote “the film does as much to demystify and yet romanticize Los Angeles as any Chandler novel.” Vogue Magazine included CITY OF GOLD in their list of the “66 Best Documentaries of All Time”.  

Recently, Gabbert directed an episode of the the hit Netflix show UGLY DELICIOUS and directed a short film for Academy-Award winner Laura Poitras’ Field of Vision. The film titled MONUMENT | MONUMENTO focuses on a unique spot at the US-Mexico border. Currently, she is directing a feature documentary about the collaboration between chef Yotam Ottlenghi and the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the exhibit “Visitors to Versailles.”

She has directed promotional pieces for Room and Board and the Sundance Institute.

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June 26, 2018
Judith Helfand

Judith Helfand

Judith Helfand’s films have premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, with national broadcasts on PBS (POV), HBO and The Sundance Channel. They include: THE UPRISING OF ‘34, the Sundance award winning and twice Emmy-nominated, BLUE VINYL, its Peabody Award-winning prequel, A HEALTHY BABY GIRL, and EVERYTHING’S COOL. She has directed branded content for Frankfurt Kurnit, New York Times, and the Women’s Funding Network.

A committed field-builder and educator, Helfand co-founded Working Films in 1999, and Chicken & Egg Pictures in 2005. As part of her work at Chicken & Egg Pictures, where Helfand was Creative Director for almost a decade, she was a Producer on the Oscar-nominated, Dupont-winning short, THE BARBER OF BIRMINGHAM, and Executive Producer for the award-winning films SEMPER FI: ALWAYS FAITHFUL, PRIVATE VIOLENCE and HOT GIRLS WANTED. In 2007, Judith received a United States Artist Fellowship, one of 50 awarded annually to “America’s finest living artists.” In 2016 she was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She is currently in post on two films: COOKED, a feature documentary about extreme heat, the politics of disaster and survival by zip code, and LOVE & STUFF, a film about becoming a “new” mom at 50.

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June 26, 2018
Ilinca Calugareanu

Ilinca Calugareanu

Ilinca Calugareanu is a US and UK-based Romanian director. Her debut documentary feature,CHUCK NORRIS VS COMMUNISM, premiered in competition at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and played film festivals around the world. With a background in anthropology, Ilinca has a skill and passion for melding fiction and documentary into beautiful films. Her credits include VHS VS COMMUNISM (2014, commissioned by the New York Times Op-docs) and ERICA: MAN MADE (2017, commissioned by the Guardian) and COPS AND ROBBERS (2018, Guardian Documentaries). She is now in production with her second feature hybrid documentary, A COPS AND ROBBERS STORY and in development with feature documentary DEAD MAN WALKING. She is also a Berlinale Talents Alumi (2017), a 2018 Chicken & Egg Accelerator Lab Grantee, and the 2018 Sundance Institute | National Geographic Fellow. Together with her sister, and long-time collaborator, producer Mara Adina, llinca is in pre-production with the project I AM, which is one of the 2018 Sundance Creative Producing Fellowship projects.

 

Inspiration is a tiny beast that visits me. I can’t force it. All I can do is I try to absorb as much stuff related to a project or a task, and then I just let the ideas flow and run into inexplicable places until inspiration strikes. [Full Interview HERE]

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June 26, 2018
Elizabeth Wood

Elizabeth Wood

Elizabeth Wood was honored as one of Variety’s 10 Directors to Watch 2016. She wrote and directed WHITE GIRL, which premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and was a New York Times Critics’ Pick. Hailed as “electrifying” by the LA Times, the film was purchased out of Sundance by Netflix, and enjoyed a theatrical release through distributor FilmRise. Wood has also written a graphic novel for Chanel and Conde Nast called, “Stealing Time”, and created the concept and production bible for a 10-part narrative series for SAINT LAURENT called “FULL MOON.”

She holds an MFA from Columbia University’s Film program, where she was awarded a screenwriting fellowship. Before that Elizabeth studied writing, sex, drugs and fine arts at the New School (Eugene Lang & Parsons). After college she taught documentary film in New Orleans at schools that had lost their arts programs after Hurricane Katrina. With her mid-dle school students at the Dryades YMCA she made the feature documentary WADE IN THE WATER, CHILDREN from their footage documenting life post- flood. Wood is currently developing several fiction projects.

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June 25, 2018
Cynthia Hill

Cynthia Hill

Cynthia Hill is a Durham, NC-based filmmaker known for crafting story-driven and visually-rich documentaries. Hailing from Pink Hill, a rural crossroad in eastern North Carolina, Cynthia is co-creator and director of PBS’ Peabody and Emmy Award winning documentary series A CHEF’S LIFE which won the inaugural Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Culinary Program in 2018. In addition, Cynthia received a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing in a Lifestyle/Culinary/Travel program. The series received the 2016 James Beard Award for Outstanding Personality/Host.

Cynthia’s previous documentary work includes ROAD TO RACE DAY, a NASCAR documentary series executive produced by Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights) which premiered on go90, and PRIVATE VIOLENCE, which debuted at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, premiered on HBO, and garnered Cynthia an Emmy nomination.

She is currently directing a true crime documentary that is in development with HBO.

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