Jessica Chriesman
Director of Education - Sidewalk Film Festival

Jessica Chriesman is an award-winning filmmaker based in Birmingham, Alabama. She has worked as a director, producer, researcher, and/or cinematographer on projects for Twin Cities Public TV, Southern Foodways Alliance, Vox Creative, Alabama Public Television, Dirty Robber and more. She is the Director of Education and Outreach at Sidewalk Film Center and Cinema where she plans learning opportunities through the lens of film and media. In 2021, Jessica was named a Morgridge Acceleration Program Fellow working with the Jane Goodall Institute on their storytelling strategies. She has served as a grants panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Alabama State Council on the Arts and as a juror and programmer for film festivals across the South. Most recently, she programmed the Mississippi Made films for the 2024 Oxford Film Festival. She has led storytelling and filmmaking classes and workshops at UAB, Georgetown, and the University of Florida, and for the Jane Goodall Institute Africa Programs staff in Kigoma, Tanzania. Her films have screened across the United States and internationally.

Ryan Prows
Director, Writer

Ryan is a filmmaker, a gentleman, and a bon vivant par excellence. Or as Jason Bailey of The New York Times puts it: “Prows has a singular, gonzo energy and delirious sense of cinematic style.”

He won a Student Academy Award for NARCOCORRIDO, his thesis film at the American Film Institute, and his cult debut feature film LOWLIFE was hailed by audiences and critics alike. “The lean, brutal, surprisingly affecting package of Ryan Prows' feature debut LOWLIFE is a seriously nasty treat.” - The Hollywood Reporter.

LOWLIFE was released through IFC Midnight, and made several Best of the Year and Top Ten lists, drawing favorable comparisons to PULP FICTION and the early work of Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino himself called the film “a real stroke of genius” and praised its writing and originality. Seriously.

V/H/S/94, a recent entry in the wildly popular horror franchise, was a New York Times Critic's Pick, named on Variety's list for Best Horror Movies of 2021, and was a blockbuster hit for Shudder as the service's biggest premiere ever. TERROR, Ryan’s segment, was named the #1 V/H/S segment across the entire franchise's six film history by Dread Central. “TERROR is a playful, lo-fi lark directed with humor and visual invention by Ryan Prows.” - New York Times

Ryan resides in Inglewood, CA with his lovely wife Megan and his absolutely perfect baby Marvel.

Jermaine Johnson
Manager / Academy Award Nominated Producer - 3 Arts Entertainment

Jermaine Johnson is a manager and Academy Award-nominated producer at the Beverly Hills-based 3 Arts Entertainment. Originally from New Jersey, he graduated from Rutgers and has spent over ten years building an impressive client roster in Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago (and is currently spearheading 3 Art’s expansion into Atlanta). He was featured in The Hollywood Reporter’s 35 Under 35 Next Gen 2020. Jermaine was an Executive Producer on the Image Award-nominated series FROM SCRATCH, currently streaming on Netflix, and is a Producer on Cord Jefferson's TIFF Audience Award winner and Academy Award-nominated film AMERICAN FICTION starring Jeffrey Wright.

Jermaine represents a wide variety of writers, directors, journalists, and comedians from many different backgrounds. Amongst these clients are Attica Locke (FROM SCRATCH, LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE, award-winning author of BLUEBIRD, BLUEBIRD), Azie Dungey (UNBREAKABLE KIMMY SCHMIDT, SWEETBITTER, TWENTIES), Cord Jefferson (Academy Award Winner for AMERICAN FICTION, Emmy award winner for WATCHMEN, SUCCESSION, THE GOOD PLACE), Julia Bicknell (YELLOWJACKETS, THE HAUNTING, 13 REASONS WHY), Justin Hillian (THE CHI, SNOWFALL), Jia Tolentino (TRICK MIRROR), Leann Bowen (WGA and Emmy winner for TED LASSO) and more. He prides himself on finding fresh voices in places where others don’t often look and giving them a platform to share their unique points of view and opinions.

Alexandra Fredricks
Non-Theatrical Distribution & International Sales

​​Enthusiastic about functioning as a bridge between creators, industry, and audiences — Alexandra Fredricks handles Non-Theatrical Distribution and International Sales at Oscilloscope Laboratories, a Brooklyn-based independent film distribution company founded in 2008 by Adam Yauch. Previously, she held the positions of Programming and Operations Senior Manager at Metrograph and Film Screening Operations Manager at the Doha Film Institute (DFI). She has over 15 years of international experience in film exhibition organizations and festivals in New York, Qatar, Canada, Australia and The Netherlands, and has served over the years on a number of Jury and Screening Committees, and as a talent liaison for New York Film Festival (NYFF).

Darcy McKinnon
Documentary Producer

Darcy McKinnon is a documentary filmmaker based in New Orleans, whose work focuses on the American South and the Caribbean. Recently released projects include A King Like Me and Roleplay, premiering at SXSW 2024, Commuted (PBS, 2024), Algiers, America (Hulu, 2023), Under G-d (Sundance 2023), Look at Me! XXXTENTACION (SXSW, Hulu, 2022) and The Neutral Ground (Tribeca, POV, 2021), recipient of LEH Documentary of the Year 2022. Current projects in production include Jason Fitzroy Jeffers’ The First Plantation, A King Like Me, Abe Felix’s Turnaround, CJ Hunt’s Unlearned and Suzannah Herbert’s Natchez. Her work has been on POV, Reel South, LPB, Cinemax and Hulu, and has screened at Sundance, Tribeca, SXSW, CPH:DOX and more. Darcy is an alum of the Impact Partners Producing Fellowship and the Sundance Institute Creative Producing Fellowship, and a recipient of American Documentary’s Creative Visionary Award in 2023.

Larisa Apan
Programming Director

Larisa Apan is the Director of Programming for Montclair Film + The Clairidge. Originally from Romania, she currently resides in New York where she has been involved in the film industry for over a decade, including positions as a Senior Programmer for Hamptons International Film Festival and Sarasota Film Festival. Prior to that she worked on several award-winning shorts that screened internationally at festivals, including: Tribeca, TIFF, Austin, and SXSW. For several years she worked with Academy Award®-winning documentarian Murray Lerner, helping to manage his production company as well as overseeing the digitization of his archive for the Library of Congress. She has also collaborated with both Hamptons International Film Festival and I.F.P. (now Gotham) to select the screenplays for the HIFF Screenwriters’ Lab and I.F.P.’s Emerging Storytellers Lab.

Adesola Thomas
Filmmaker, Festival Programmer, East Coast Producer at Letterboxd

Summer of 2023, Adesola wrote and directed Ola Ola (9 min), a comedy short about a surprise reunion between two queer Nigerian cousins that’s been distributed by indie-streamer, No Budge and screened by Millenium Film, Southern Fried Queer Pride, and Deeper Than Movies in London. Adesola is a 2024 Bleecker Street BIPOC Mentorship Fellow, a 2024 Sundance Press Inclusion Initiative Fellow, and a proud member of the New York Script Supervisors network. She enjoys 1st AD’ing music videos, dancing at parties, and swimming with friends.

Jen Lynch
Director/Writer

Jen Lynch has been writing and directing film and television for more than two decades. Features, Boxing Helena, Surveillance and Chained, garnered attention and awards both in the States ans Europe. Jen has directed television for 15 years and is thrilled by it. From multiple episodes of the Walking Dead to four episodes of MONSTER: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, Jen plays with dark notes. In multiple other shows, 911, Jessica Jones, Daredevil, American Horror Story, (seasons 6-12) she has been able to explore comedy and drama, while enjoying the world of stunts and visual effects. Jen authored a novel, The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, for the series Twin Peaks, and In the documentary DESPITE THE GODS Jen’s struggle to make and ultimately lose a film in India is chronicled. Jen is 56 this April, and considers her daughter, Sydney Lynch, to be her finest production to date.

Adam Harris Engelhard
Head of Production, Buffalo 8 | Producer

Adam Harris Engelhard is a film producer & former literary manager with over 10 years of industry experience. Starting his career at ICM Partners, Adam worked in the MP Talent department where he cut his teeth in film packaging. From there he worked for Academy Award winning producer Dan Jinks at CBS Studios. In 2016 Adam founded Mailroom Entertainment where he managed a roster of 15 budding writers and directors. He graduated from The University of Alabama with a Bachelor of Science in Commerce and Business Administration. Currently he serves as the Head of Production for Buffalo 8.

Alexandra Kern
Filmmaker

She has produced commercial and independent acclaimed projects for artists such as Dua Lipa, Lil Nas X, and Kendrick Lamar. Her directorial debut, the short documentary Wild Magnolias, is currently on its festival circuit having screened at Oscar-qualifying festivals. The short was honored by a special screening at the New Orleans Jazz Museum where it was offered a permanent stay in their historical archive. The film premiered online on Short of the Week and is also available on Aeon Magazine.

Matthew Hashiguchi
Documentary Filmmaker and Associate Professor

Matthew Hashiguchi is a documentary filmmaker and Associate Professor in Multimedia & Film Production at Georgia Southern University. His most recent documentary, THE ONLY DOCTOR, had its world premiere at the 2023 Hot Docs Documentary Film Festival and was broadcast nationally on PBS Reel South. His previous documentary feature, GOOD LUCK SOUP, had a national broadcast on PBS World’s America ReFramed, and received a 2016 Documentary Fund Award from the Center for Asian American Media and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He is a recipient of a 2019 Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund Award, a 2021 American Stories Documentary Fund from Points North Institute and CNN Films, and successfully installed an irrigation system in his backyard.

Lisa Ferrell
Filmmaker/Educator

Lisa Ferrell is a seasoned production professional whose background encompasses television series and film development and production/post production for television, film and digital content.

Lisa began her career as a Development Assistant in an Atlanta-based studio with a First Look Deal with a major network. She has gone on to has serve as Executive Producer for several of Atlanta’s foremost post production, motion capture and VFX facilities, including the Toronto-based SPIN VFX, and has helped create creative for some of the foremost advertising agencies and brands in the world. Most recently, Lisa worked with animation firm SLOTHIQUE as a Producer for the animated film MINE, which premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival.

She has also worked in series and tele-film development for such companies as CBS, Lifetime Television/Hearst Entertainment, NBC and TBS. While at motion capture studio Giant Studios/Profile, she was involved in the post production of films that include New Line Cinema’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy and Sony Imageworks animated holiday feature “Polar Express” directed by Robert Zemekis and starring Tom Hanks. She was also instrumental in creating the pilot episode for the long-running “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!” series for TBS.

Lisa is a former President of the Georgia Production Partnership, serves on the Board of Directors for Film Impact Georgia and reimagineATL, is the Director of Education for the Milledgeville Eatonton Film Festival and serves on the Advisory Board of ASIFA South.

She is currently a Professor of Practice for Georgia State University’s Creative Media Industries Institute focusing on emerging technology.

Tiffany Kowalewicz
Production Manager

I have always loved art and animation and knew I wanted to be apart of that industry. I have worked in Production Management on film and television for the past decade or so. I studied at Savannah College of Art and Design where I received my BFA in Animation. Since then I have worked on multiple animation projects, working at multiples studios over the years including Laika, Blue Sky Studios and 9 Story Media Group. It’s always a wonderful experience to be apart of an animation project especially when you have such a passion for the artistry.

Benjamin Wiessner
Producer, Vanishing Angle

Benjamin Wiessner is a producer and VP of Sales & Distribution at Vanishing Angle. He was named to Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Indie Film in 2012 as part of ornana films, where he began producing and distributing shorts and features with partners across the world. He has produced short films in both hand-drawn animation and live action, with awards at festivals including SxSw and Sundance. He has also worked on numerous features with premieres at Sundance, Berlinale, SXSW, Cannes, and Tribeca, including producing and self-distributing THUNDER ROAD (SxSw 2018 Grand Jury Prize). He consults, mentors, and consoles numerous early career filmmakers. Raised by educators, he frequently speaks about filmmaking, distribution, and film marketing at film schools, festivals, and conferences from Cannes to Kazakhstan. In 2018, he co-founded the Short to Feature Filmmaking Lab and in 2020 he helped launch the Vanishing Angle Post Grant for short filmmakers.

Chris Poche
Filmmaker

Chris Poché is a screenwriter with a hand in writing over twenty films for Paramount, Dreamworks, Sony, Fox/New Regency, and others, including work on Kung Fu Panda, Charlotte's Web, and Smallfoot. He also recently wrote and directed an indie feature, The True Don Quixote, starring Tim Blake Nelson (Watchmen, Oh Brother Where Art Thou?) and Jacob Batalon (Spiderman: Homecoming, Avengers: Infinity War), which opened in 2019 and is now available on major streaming services. A reformed architect, he stubbornly lives in New Orleans with his wife and three boys.

Genevieve LeDoux
Creative Producer

Genevieve LeDoux left her position as Vice President of a nationally and internationally known architectural firm fifteen years ago when she was recruited by a former executive of Warner Brothers. Since then she has developed and creative produced children's content overseeing original concepts through completion as well as rebranding, and redeveloping well loved intellectual properties. She was an integral part of the creative development team on some of the most popular and successful children's television series in the world including Hasbro Studios', MY LITTLE PONY, TRANSFORMERS, GI JOE, Wildbrain's YO GABBA GABBA and Mattel's BARBIE and MONSTER HIGH. She was also one of the main development creators on the updated content for Kids II's BABY EINSTEIN pre-school series overseeing the entire three years of development and production. Most recently, she produced and directed a mini-pilot with her husband for the creators of the legendary purple dinasaur Barney.

Genevieve helped create and structure dozens of children's TV series from the ground up and was part of the original creative team and the main producer for Amazon's first pre-school series, TUMBLE LEAF. The celebrated series earned numerous awards including BAFTA, ANNECY JURY AWARD, 3 ANNIE awards and 14 EMMY awards. She received the EMMY for Best Children's TV Series.

A founding board member of Georgia Film Impact, Genevieve lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and two boys. She continues to work regularly as a creative consultant to guide companies and individuals in developing and producing fun, smart, and quality entertainment for kids and families. Together with her talented partner, VFX supervisor husband, Chris
LeDoux (Owner of Crafty Apes VFX), numerous animators and concept artists and composers, she is developing over a dozen of her own original series and owns manages her own production company, Silver Comet Productions.

LJ Simpson
Film/TV Acquisitions Executive

LJ Simpson is an Atlanta native with nearly a decade of film/TV industry experience working in content acquisitions and programming strategy. Having worked at Turner Broadcasting--across the entertainment networks (TBS, TNT, TruTV, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, and TCM)--HBO Max, HBO, and Tubi, LJ is highly acquainted with all genres of content and distribution formats.

Charlie Fisk
Director/Cinematographer

Growing up an isolated queer kid in the Catskill mountains, Charlie found solace in her imagination and began storytelling at a young age. An ex-Army sergeant turned Emmy award-winning filmmaker, she won the Audience Award at the ATLFF and Best Doc at LCFF for her documentary, THE FOUNDERS. She followed that film with four award winning short films LIMERENCE, THE LICK, RIDESHARE and THE MOTH. She directed the Emmy winning web series INTERSECTION and most recently she directed network episodes for Discovery and TLC. Her talents aren't confined to the director's chair, she also co-produced and edited MARGARET MITCHELL American Rebel for PBS, the feature film MAN MADE about trans bodybuilders and the short film HOME FIELD which premiered at Tribeca. As a cinematographer she has lensed shows for Magnolia Network, Discovery, Disney, ESPN as well as several short films and a web series. As a writer, her scripts have been selected for Stowe Story lab, Southern Producers lab, Cinestory lab and garnered recognition from Screen Craft and the Austin Film Festival. Beyond her professional achievements, Charlie remains a steadfast advocate for Atlanta's independent film community, generously supporting local filmmakers and the organizations that foster its vibrant creative environment. She believes deeply in the transformative power of storytelling both in practice and in consumption and sees it as a catalyst for profound change and connection within communities.

Matt Clegg
Cinematographer

Matt Clegg is a cinematographer from Richmond, VA. His love for visual storytelling has brought him all over the world lensing films, documentaries and commercials. Over the years he has had films premiere at Sundance, Venice, Toronto, and Tribeca film festivals. When not on set he is biking, gardening, or walking in the woods.

Victoria K. Warren
Filmmaker

Victoria is a Filmmaker and Cinematographer based in Atlanta, and working on projects from small independents and documentaries, to blockbusters worldwide. She is an ATLFF alum (V/H/S, Talk Show), and excited to explore & celebrate this year's selects in cinematography.