2022 Festival Panelists
Thursday, Sept 1st, 2022
10:00am - Virtual Panel with American Actress Dee Wallace
Friday, Sept 2nd, 2022
10:45am - Key Art & Film Marketing with Shout! Studios
Saturday, Sept 3rd, 2022
11:00am - International Filmmaking
Sunday, Sept 4th, 2022
11:00am - Diversity & Inclusion in Filmmaking & Writing
DEE WALLACE
VIRTUAL PANEL. SEPT 1st 10:00 am Pacific Time. Tickets on Eventbrite.
Originally from Kansas City, Kansas, Dee Wallace has worked as an author, teacher, dancer and actress in film, television, and stage for over 40 years. Her career began in New York where she studied with famous acting legend Uta Hagen before moving to Los Angeles where she found her mentor, Charles Conrad. With over 200 credits to her name, Ms. Wallace is a true tour de force in the industry, working with countless producers and directors and some of Hollywood’s biggest names, including Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Wes Craven, Joe Dante, Lewis Teague, Stephen King, Blake Edwards and Rob Zombie. Her many film credits include The Hills Have Eyes, The Howling, Cujo, Secret Admirer, The Frighteners, 10 and of course, her role as Mary in Steven Spielberg’s E.T., The Extraterrestrial. She has appeared in almost 200 films, 5 television series, and 400 commercials. Ms. Wallace has just completed three films for release in 2019: Every Other Holiday, Rob Zombie’s 3 From Hell, and Jingle Belle. Other recent credits include NCIS, Shooter, and Law and Order L.A. Ms. Wallace is also starring in Amazon’s series Just Add Magic.
KARRIE STOUFFER
EXCLUSIVE PANEL SEPT 2nd 10:45 am
at the WhiteFire Theatre in Sherman Oaks, CA
Karrie Stouffer, VP of Creative Services at Shout! Factory, is a Los Angeles-based creative director and designer specializing in entertainment properties. In this role, she oversees key art and packaging development for a slew of theatrical, television, digital and home entertainment projects. Karrie’s expertise spans numerous functions including leading and managing creative campaigns, art direction and design, key art/logo/brand/title treatment development, and project management. Most recently, Karrie has helped spearhead the branding/merchandising of the reboot of the beloved series, Mystery Science Theater 3000, in step with Shout! Factory’s leap into original content.
Prior to joining Shout! Factory in 2008, Karrie worked on the agency side, crafting entertainment campaigns for the likes of Disney, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Warner Brothers and even the Sundance Film Festival, freelancing for The Daily Insider. Karrie started her career in Los Angeles at an independent record label, building the art department from the ground up. She has a BA from Colorado State University.
LANDI MADURO
EXCLUSIVE PANEL SEPT 4th 11 am Pacific Time
at the WhiteFire Theatre in Sherman Oaks, CA
Landi Maduro is no stranger to making her own path. She has worked professionally as a singer and actress for over 10 years. However, unhappy with the lack of roles available to African American women, she decided to go a different route and explore writing, producing and photography. The first project she produced was, "I Can't Pretend". She developed a fondness for producing and discovered a propensity for wearing many hats. Next she co-produced and starred in "Sheroes". The dual role as co-producer and star was an exhilarating experience. Not content to stop there, she decided to take on the ultimate challenge of directing. She made her directorial debut shooting the infomercial for the book, "Faces I Have Seen" and she has continued to direct and produced short films, features, music videos, small business commercials, business tutorials and documentaries since launching her production company, Bluechild Entertainment, in 2012. Her most fulfilling project to date is, The Silent Killer: Prostate Cancer In The African American Community. With this documentary she challenged herself as a writer, producer, and director and began touring and lecturing nationwide advocating prostate cancer awareness. Landi is a member of the Zero Health Disparities Task Force, where she works with various doctors, scientist and community leaders to promote advocacy and affordable care for veterans and minority men dealing with prostate cancer. She is also the proud founder & President of Women of Color Filmmakers; a nonprofit organization of over 1000 members that garners support, skill building and networking for female filmmakers as they pursue careers in film and television.
LIGIAH VILLALOBOS
EXCLUSIVE PANEL SEPT 4th 11 am Pacific Time
at the WhiteFire Theatre in Sherman Oaks, CA
Ligiah Villalobos is a Writer, Producer, Consultant, Educator and Lecturer. She is best known for writing and executive producing the indie feature film Under the Same Moon, (La Misma Luna). Acquired by Fox Searchlight and The Weinstein Company at the Sundance Film Festival, the film became the highest sale for a Spanish-language film in the history of Sundance. Made for under $2M, the film earned over $23M worldwide.
Villalobos has developed projects for multiple studios and networks, including ABC, NBC, ABC/Family, Lifetime, Hallmark Hall of Fame, F/X, Showtime, BET, HBO Max and STARZ, among others. And she was a Cultural Consultant on the Academy Award winning Pixar movie, COCO and the Disney movie, Planes.
Before becoming a writer/producer, Villalobos was a studio executive at The Walt Disney Company, where she oversaw television production in Latin America for five years, launching eight #1 children shows in seven countries. She then oversaw the Writing Fellowship Program and launched the Directors Training Program for the Studio. Villalobos was then hired as a Current Programming Executive at The WB, where she oversaw six prime times shows, including the four highest rated shows on the network.
Currently, Villalobos is a writer on the upcoming animated series Rosie’s Rules and she is Executive Producing 20 animated shorts for Dreamworks TV Animation. She is also developing a 6-part music-driven limited series titled Q, inspired by the classic novel Don Quijote de la Mancha, and she is attached to do an American adaptation of the South African feature film Sink. The animated feature film Koati, which she co-wrote and is associate producer on, was released in theatres on October 15, 2021.
Villalobos teaches full-time at Cal State LA and is an adjunct professor at USC School of Cinematic Arts and at LMU. She is on the Board of Immigrant Defenders Law Center and on the Honorary Board of The Point Foundation, the largest scholarship-granting organization for LGBTQ students of merit. She is the recipient of the Humanitas Prize and two films she has written and/or produced, La Misma Luna and Walkout, were nominated by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus for the National Film Registry. She received her MFA from Antioch University in Creative Writing.
CHARLES BURNETT
EXCLUSIVE PANEL SEPT 4th 11 am Pacific Time
at the WhiteFire Theatre in Sherman Oaks, CA
His first film Killer of Sheep made in 1972, his UCLA thesis film is a poetic evocation of African American life in South Central LA was never theatrically released when it was made. It was only when Milestone film became the distributor that it was released theatrically in 2007.
Charles Burnett is the recipient of numerous awards. The MacArthur Grant, and The Rockefeller. His film Killer of Sheep was one the first films to be selected to be In the Unite Stated Library of Congress and one of the first Fifty films selected for the National Registry. The Museum of Modern Art did a retrospective of his work in April 2011.
In February of 2008 Charles Burnett’s epic film about Sam Nujoma, the Namibian revolution entitle Namibia: A Struggle For Liberation premiered as the Opening Night film at the Pan- African Film Festival in Los Angeles.
Burnett headed the jury at the Mar del Plata Film Festival in Argentina in 2008, and in 2008 his work was the subject of two retrospective, one presented the British Film Institute in London. In November2017, Charles Burnett received an Honorary Oscar from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts an Sciences.
LEXIE HEREDIA
EXCLUSIVE PANEL SEPT 2nd 10:45 am
at the WhiteFire Theatre in Sherman Oaks, CA
Lexie Heredia serves as VP of Financial Planning & Analysis at Shout! Factory. In this role, she manages all new deal evaluations within Shout’s content acquisition process. She also manages overall budgets annually as well as the long-range plan, constantly focused on aligning Shout’s strategic goals with overall forecasting into the future. Additionally, she is a member of Shout’s DEI taskforce, a committee which leads the company’s internal efforts with regards to diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace, as well as serves to find outreach opportunities within the community also focused on these efforts such as internship/mentorship partnerships with Academy Gold Rising and continued sponsorship of the City of Angels Women’s Film Festival.
Through her 10 years at Shout, she remains passionate about the company’s growth and success as both a distributor of film and television content as well as its culture and core values.
GREGG MASUAK
EXCLUSIVE PANEL SEPT 3rd 11:00 am
at the WhiteFire Theatre in Sherman Oaks, CA
Director, Producer, Writer and Adventurer Gregg Masuak's extensive and eclectic career has spanned all forms of communication, entertainment, and media. A multiple graduate with a Certificate in Cinematography (NSTC) and a BA in Communications (University of Technology, Sydney), Masuak initially gained the attention of music executives with his earliest, avant-garde shorts, launching a career that found him directing such iconic stars as Spice Girls, Kylie Minogue, Celine Dion and Take That. His expertise in bringing out the best in people earned him a Juno and two MTV Awards and subsequently led the ad industry to his doorstep.
Masuak moved to putting his acclaimed emotional and visual stamp on such diverse brands as Emporio Armani, Barclays, NEC, Olay and NSPCC, all the while honing his passion for his own special brand of unusual storytelling. He gained a reputation for extracting great performances from both novices and celebrities, working with actors like Penelope Cruz, Courtney Cox and Salma Hayek. His film "Born With Glasses" won Best Comedy/Satire in the Chicago International Film Festival, and beyond the accolades Masuak has championed a truly international voice and is a fierce supporter of the alternative. The Independent and The Huffington Post dubbed his Aids Alliance "Come Together" spot as "one of the most provocative ads to be screened on British television." His short film "I'll Meet You There" was exhibited at the prestigious Tate Modern in London and will be unfolding as a feature film, "Everything Depends On This", expected to be presented at the Tate Modern again, this coming year.
Masuak's visual style has recently further evolved with him returning more and more to combining the roles of Director and Director of Photography for projects that require his signature nuanced, intimate point of view. On the front-burner Masuak is engaged in a series of self-penned feature film and television projects, notably "Flycatcher" - a darkly comic thriller which won rave reviews in a staged version recently in London and which recently won "Most Innovative Screenplay" at City of Angels Women's Film Festival; "Canoga Faults" - a 1-hour TV dramedy/metaphysical thriller gaining alliances in Hollywood; "Jammed In Zero", a timely farce about belief systems collapsing in our overwhelming world; and "The Keeper", a haunting metaphysical thriller dealing with themes of addiction, loss, reality and forgiveness, based on true events. Meanwhile Masuak is also author of the irreverent "The Spiritual Slob", a self-help book like no other, set to feature Masuak on-screen as the world's mouthiest anti-guru in a series of oblique adventures around this crazy planet of ours.
SÉVERINE TIBI
EXCLUSIVE PANEL SEPT 3rd 11:00 am
at the WhiteFire Theatre in Sherman Oaks, CA
Born and raised in Cannes, Séverine Tibi is a film producer currently living in Los Angeles.
After working in film distribution in the south of France and in sponsorship at the British Film Institute in London, Séverine founded the Cannes-based production company Sevana Films with Anaïs Calmels in 2017. Their purpose is to find, nurture and promote talented and unique filmmakers with distinctive voices in order to produce meaningful high-quality films that people across the globe can engage with.
Since then, they have produced documentary and fiction films on four continents and with international teams, which have screened at festivals across the globe. Their feature documentary, ‘Fenua Aihere: The Heart of Tahiti’, was broadcast on France Télévisions and is currently available to watch on Air Tahiti Nui flights. Sevana Films is now at different stage of production on several projects, including Lara Zeidan’s debut feature in Lebanon, which won the French Film Institute’s Development Award at the Crossroads Co- Production Forum, the Rotterdam Lab Award at Beirut Cinema Platform and the Special Mention Award at the Red Sea Souk.
Séverine regularly attends events and festivals as a consultant, through talent development programs and to discover the next generation of storytellers. In
2022, she was invited to join the Cannes Film Festival's Producers Network and the Sundance Producers Summit. She has also been a mentor for SXSW for three years, selected to the Zurich Film Festival Academy and won the Film & TV Charity’s John Brabourne Awards in 2019.
JORDAN FIELDS
EXCLUSIVE PANEL SEPT 2nd 10:45 am
at the WhiteFire Theatre in Sherman Oaks, CA
Jordan Fields joined Shout! Factory in 2007 and heads all acquisition efforts for Shout! Factory, Shout! Studios and Shout Factory TV. He also oversees original feature and TV development for Shout! Studios. Recent Shout acquisitions include Language Lessons, the SXSW Audience Award winner from Mark Duplass and Natalie Morales, Roland Emmerich’s The Magic Flute and Linoleum, starring Jim Gaffigan and Rhea Seehorn. Fields recently EP’d Shout’s original western, Old Henry, starring Tim Blake Nelson, which premiered at the 2021 Venice International Film Festival, as well as Shout’s remake of Roger Corman’s Syfy hit Slumber Party Massacre. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Film and Television from Northwestern University.
PAUL DUBOIS
