XOLISWA SITHOLE

Xoliswa Sithole’s career began as an actress in the 1980s, appearing in landmark anti-apartheid films such as Cry Freedom, Mandela, and A Dry White Season. She later transitioned to producing and directing documentaries after serving as an Associate Producer at CNN International in 1998. A recipient of a Peabody Award and two BAFTA Awards for Zimbabwe’s Forgotten Children and Orphans of Inkandla, her work spans documentary, narrative, and corporate filmmaking and has been presented at major international festivals and cultural forums. Xoliswa Sithole is the founder of Nayanaya Pictures Pty Ltd, co-founder of Film Makers against Racism, and co-chair of the South African Documentary Filmmakers Association. Sithole also runs a gender film festival in the rural areas of South Africa, promoting social cohesion and nation-building.

KIM JACKSON

Kim Jackson is recognized for producing dozens of notable independent films. Her early creative expression began with dance and choreography, and that has remained the spark that ignites her creative passions. Majoring in environmental science, she has a natural curiosity for how things work. “Producers begin food chains which feed all life.” Technology is of special of interest to Kim, as it relates to serving and advancing humanity. She is currently active on several boards, including New York Women in Film & Television, ACE Programs for the Homeless and The Gwen Ifill College of Media, Arts and Humanities at Simmons University. Kim is a member of the p.g.a. and Producers Union.

CARTER BAYS

Carter Bays is an American television writer, producer, and novelist best known as the co-creator of the hit CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother. Bays studied English at Wesleyan University, where he met bandmate Craig Thomas who would later become his writing partner and his co-creator for the show. Bays and Thomas co-founded the band The Solids, who perform the theme song to How I Met Your Mother. Additionally, Bays wrote the novel "The Mutual Friend."

BRITTANI NICHOLS

Brittani Nichols is an American producer, actress, comedian, and writer. In 2016, Nichols wrote, produced, and starred in the film Suicide Kale, which won the Audience Award for Best U.S. Dramatic Feature at 2016 Outfest. She has written for the television programs A Black Lady Sketch Show, Take My Wife, Strangers, and Drop the Mic. Nichols is a writer and producer for Abbott Elementary and won the Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series award at the 54th NAACP Image Awards for the episode "Student Transfer". As part of the producing team of Abbott Elementary, Nichols was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series in 2023 and 2024. She attended Yale University, where she played on the women's basketball team and women's rugby team.

MICHAEL SARNOSKI

Michael Sarnoski is an American filmmaker. He graduated from Yale University, where he studied Art and Film, grounding his work in both visual composition and narrative craft. Sarnoski wrote and directed Pig (2021), a critically acclaimed drama starring Nicolas Cage. The film was celebrated for its emotional subtlety and subversion of revenge-thriller expectations, earning Sarnoski numerous awards and nominations and establishing him as a distinctive new voice in American independent cinema. He later directed A Quiet Place: Day One (2024), expanding the world of John Krasinski’s franchise while bringing his own tonal sensibility to the apocalyptic prequel. Recently, Sarnoski directed A24’s The Death of Robin Hood (2026).

CHRISTIE MARCHESE

Christie Marchese is the founder and CEO of Kinema. Kinema is a global film distribution and exhibition platform that leverages the power of community and social interaction to screen and stream films. She was previously the founder of the impact entertainment agency Picture Motion, which was acquired by Publicis Media/PMCI Entertainment in 2024 and where she also con-currently serves as EVP, Entertainment Partnerships. Prior to Picture Motion, she ran impact for Righteous Pictures, led digital strategy for the social action group at Participant Media, and handled program coordination and social media management at Norman Lear’s nonprofit Declare Yourself. Christie is also the co-author of The Distribution Playbook and won several industry recognitions, including being named one of Fortune’s Rising Female Founders in 2023 and Fast Company’s Most Creative People in 2021. She’s currently on the board of Subject Matter and The Reinvent Stockton Foundation, and on the Capacity Council for Brown Girls Doc Mafia.

ANNA BARNES

President of Little Monster Films, Anna Barnes is a film industry executive with a wide-ranging background in all aspects of filmmaking, from development to production and release, with a special focus on documentary. She works with many of the top documentary filmmakers and on some of the most critically and commercially successful documentary films of the last ten years, including Oscar winners Free Solo, OJ: Made in America, and Icarus; Oscar nominees Hale County This Morning, This Evening, Strong Island, Fire at Sea, Cartel Land, and Exit Through the Gift Shop; and critical and commercial hits Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Senna, and Meru, among many others. She is a graduate of Yale University.

LIZ MASSIE

Liz Massie is a veteran media executive who has worked in film and television for over 30 years. A graduate of Yale University with a degree in Humanities, she began her career working with legendary director Mike Nichols, an experience that grounded her in director-driven storytelling early on. She went on to co-direct and produce Compañeras, a feature documentary broadcast on PBS’s Independent Lens. In 2012, Liz joined Warner Bros. Discovery (formerly Discovery Inc.) as an executive producer and has since overseen production on more than 60 television series, documentary films, and limited specials across ID, TRVL, discovery+, and Max. Her recent credits include Hollywood Demons, Chris Brown: A History of Violence, The Matthew Shepard Story, They Called Him Mostly Harmless, Fallen Idols, Taken Together, A Radical Life, Little Blue Pill, and Deadly Influence.Liz received her MFA in Film Directing from the American Film Institute, combining formal craft training with decades of executive leadership across documentary and nonfiction television.

SHANA WATERMAN

Shana C. Waterman is Head of Film & Television at Royal Ties Productions. She produced Netflix’s limited series A Man in Full, starring Jeff Daniels, and is Executive Producer of Mara Brock Akil’s upcoming Forever, based on the novel by Judy Blume. Previously, she served as Head of Television at Universal-based One Race TV, where she developed projects including The Chronicles of Riddick companion series, executive produced the ABC pilot Get Christie Love, and consulted on Netflix’s Fast & Furious: Spy Racers. Earlier, as Senior Vice President at Fox Broadcasting Company, she oversaw major scripted series such as House, Glee, Fringe, Family Guy, and The Mindy Project, and helped commission event programming including 24: Live Another Day, Wayward Pines, and The People v. O.J. Simpson. A strong advocate for emerging talent, Waterman frequently speaks at institutions including Sundance, the Producers Guild, and Yale. She is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School.

TORY KAMEN

Tory Kamen is a screenwriter best known for writing Eleanor the Great, the feature film directed by Scarlett Johansson. The project marked Johansson’s directorial debut and brought Kamen’s character-driven storytelling to the screen in a film centered on intergenerational friendship and late-in-life reinvention. Kamen’s writing is recognized for its emotional intelligence, wit, and nuanced portrayals of complex female protagonists. With Eleanor the Great, she crafted a story that balances humor and poignancy, exploring themes of grief, aging, and unexpected connection with warmth and sharp observational detail.

DELIAH NAPIER

Delilah Napier is an actor and filmmaker based in New York City. Her most recent film,  Floating Carousel, which she co-wrote, directed, and acted in with her collaborator, Lucy Powers, just premiered at the Woodstock Film Festival in 2025 and won the "Ultra Indie Award" for Best Narrative Feature. Her first feature, Voyeur -  starred, co-writer/ director - won “Best US Feature Film” and “The Audience Award” at the SoHo Int. Film Festival, “Best Actor” at the Yale in Hollywood Film Festival and other awards. (Now streaming on Amazon Prime.) Other Acting Credits - TV: Criminal Minds, Billions, The Sinner, Gossip Girl. Theater: A Mother (Baryshnikov Arts Center) Our Class (BAM Fisher & Classic Stage Company), The Merchant Of Venice (Classic Stage Company) The Member of the Wedding (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Taming of the Shrew (Powerhouse/NYSAF) As writers, Delilah and Lucy are repped at UTA and are currently in development on a new screenplay with production company, Star Thrower (King Richard, The Post).

LUCY POWERS

Lucy Powers is a writer, actor, and filmmaker based out of New York. Her first feature film, Voyeur, which she co-wrote, directed, acted in and edited for a budget of $4000 alongside her filmmaking partner Delilah Napier, is now on Amazon Prime. Voyeur was selected for nine international film festivals and won “Best US Feature” and “Audience Award” at the 2020 SoHo International Film Festival. The team has written and directed three other films, including a short film, The Compound (Special Jury Prize at the Chelsea Film Festival in 2021), pilot, Victor Versus the Metaverse (Best TV Pilot at the Rhode Island International Film Festival) and feature Floating Carousel, which won the Ultra Indie Award for Best Narrative Feature at the Woodstock Film Festival. In addition, Lucy’s feature script, The Road to Hebron, was named by Wscripted as one of twenty five best screenplays at Cannes. Her acting work includes in Law & Order SVU (NBC), Midas (Starz), and other independent and commercial projects. She and Delilah Napier are repped by UTA and currently developing a feature with Star Thrower Entertainment (King Richard, The Post).

PAUL GRIMSTAD

Professor Paul Grimstad is Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Humanities Program at Yale University. A literary scholar and critic, he writes regularly for publications including The New York Times, The Believer, Bookforum, London Review of Books, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The New Republic. His essay “Miles the Mercurial” was selected as a notable entry in Best American Essays 2021. His forthcoming book, Interested in Everything and Nothing Else: On the Polymath, is under contract with Princeton University Press. Grimstad is also the author of Experience and Experimental Writing: Literary Pragmatism from Emerson to the Jameses and has contributed essays to numerous scholarly volumes on American literature and philosophy. While an assistant professor of English at Yale, he received the Sarai Ribicoff ’79 Teaching Prize for excellence in teaching. Most recently, he appeared as an actor in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another (2025) and Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme (2025).

BRIAN MEACHAM

Brian Meacham received his Master’s in Library and Information Science with a concentration in Archives Management from Simmons College and began working as Archive Coordinator at the Harvard Film Archive in 2002. In 2006, he earned a Certificate in Film Preservation from the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation at George Eastman House. From 2006 to 2008, he served as Public Access Coordinator at the Academy Film Archive, overseeing scholarly and public access to the collection and arranging print loans worldwide. As Short Film Preservationist from 2008 to 2013, he curated and preserved live-action and animated short films spanning more than a century of cinema. Since 2013, Brian has been Film Archivist at the Yale Film Archive, where he oversees acquisition, cataloging, and preservation of the collection and programs the 35mm series Treasures from the Yale Film Archive. Since 2021, he has served on the Board of the Association of Moving Image Archivists.

LUCY KITADA

Lucy Kitada is the Head of Film at Lord Miller and the Executive Producer of Project Hail Mary (2026).