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12th Annual!

2024 Theme Quote

Jury Award Winners

FIRST PLACE
"The Veil"
Filmmakers: Eric Thompson
Key Collaborator: Mike Schmidt

RUNNER UP
"Somebody Cares"
Filmmaker: Julien Lasseur
Key Collaborator: Brian Groh

HONORABLE MENTION
"Free"
Filmmaker: Asia Lynn Pitts
Key Collaborator: Nika Khitrova

Creative Pathfinder Award

Yasmeen Turayhi for "We The People: The Case for Julian Assange"

Key Collaborator Award Winners

FIRST PLACE
Nathaniel Krause

RUNNER UP
Richard Helou

HONORABLE MENTION
Dawn Church

Best Actor - Drama Winners

FIRST PLACE
Sara Spadacen for "What Do We Do"

RUNNER UP
Raymond-Kym Suttl for "Lots of J's"

Best actor - Comedy Winners

FIRST PLACE
Chauncey Trask for "Space Babe"

RUNNER UP
Shawn Parson for "Somebody Cares"

Best Cinematography Winners

FIRST PLACE
"Glance"
Luka Bazeli

RUNNER UP
"See You Tomorrow, Ms. Sally"
Nathaniel Kraus

Best Editing Winners

FIRST PLACE
"Glance"
Luka Bazeli

RUNNER UP
"Space Babe"
Patrick Mason

Best Writing Winners

FIRST PLACE
"Somebody Cares"
Brian Groh

RUNNER UP
"What Do We Doe"
Nate Huntley

Best Use of Quote Winners

FIRST PLACE
"See You Tomorrow, Ms. Sally"
Filmmaker: Kip Knight
Key Collaborator: Nathaniel Krause

RUNNER UP
"Badmouth Grandma"
Filmmaker: Timothy Blackwood
Key Collaborator: Heston Roewe

Best Audio and Sound Winners

FIRST PLACE
"Somebody Cares"
Ethan Lee

RUNNER UP
"See You Tomorrow, Ms. Sally"
Richard Helou

Best Music Winners

FIRST PLACE
"The Retreat"
Pavle Mara

FIRST PLACE
"The Veil"
Giovanni Bariona

Best Set Photo

"Glance"
Alexi Papalexopoulous

Grand Jury

Lauren Craniotes

Lauren Craniotes is an agent at the legendary Gersh Agency and the former Vice President of Production at Sony Stage 6. She is also a veteran Hollywood Producer and accomplished film executive. She formerly worked at Warner Bros and is also a producer of independent film.

Tanner Mobley

Tanner Mobley is the VP of Development for Millennium Media, producer of high-budget action features such as The Expendables franchise, Rambo: Last Blood, Olympus Has Fallen, and The Hitman's Bodyguard. Tanner graduated from the University of Iowa in 2010 with a degree in Cinema. With the help of an MPI internship, he relocated to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film.

Lana Link

Lana Link, the Moving Picture Institute's senior vice president, works with the executive staff to acquire, develop, and produce MPI films. She also works with rising filmmakers in MPI's talent development programs and runs MPI masterclasses with industry experts. Her various producer credits include narrative shorts Gringa, A Piece of Cake (Official Selection Tribeca Film Festival 2020, Nominated for Best Narrative Short), Melons, The Perfect One, Moving Violation, and Regulation; feature documentaries Project Home: 3D Printing the Future, Incarcerating US, and Los Ultimos Frikis; short doc Mama Rwanda; and feature narratives Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game and Miss Virginia. Lana also served as co-executive producer on the feature documentary The Dissident. She is currently producing MPI's forthcoming narrative features, Freedom Hair and Kemba.
Lana is a graduate of the University of Chicago and a former Fulbright grant recipient in Vienna, Austria. She earned her JD from Pepperdine University School of Law and her certificate in independent producing from UCLA Extension. Lana is an associate member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.

Mark Wheeler

Mark Wheeler is a manager and producer with over 20 years of experience representing writers, directors, producers and library rights.

He started his career in the mailroom at Innovative Artists and then worked for Superagent Lou Pitt for about 10 years. After working with Pitt, Wheeler co-founded Pathfinder Media with Fredrik Malmberg as a boutique IP management and production studio. Wheeler has structured financing for and is a producer on genre films such as Conan The Barbarian, Mutant Year Zero, and TV series Blood Drive as well as representing IP rights such as the Robert E. Howard Library, Roger Corman Library, Blake Edwards Library, and Fail-Safe.

Recently, Wheeler has built an Unreal Engine / Animation Content studio based in the UK and is working with the leading creatives in the virtual production field.

Donna Mills

Timeless television icon Donna Mills began her television career in the mid-1960’s with a recurring role on “The Secret Storm,” and in the same year appeared on Broadway in the Woody Allen comedy Don't Drink the Water. Mills made her film debut the following year opposite Beau Bridges, Martin Sheen and Ed McMahon in The Incident. She then starred for three years in the Emmy nominated soap “Love is a Many Splendored Thing,” before her star-making turn as Tobie Williams, the girlfriend of Clint Eastwood's character in the 1971 classic film Play Misty for Me.

Mills spent much of the 1970s appearing as a guest on top-rated television shows such as “The Six Million Dollar Man,” “Hawaii Five-O,” “The Love Boat,” “CHiPs,” “The F.B.I.,” “Quincy, M.E.,” the UK's Thriller series, “Police Woman,” and “Fantasy Island,” as well as many made-for-TV movies. Mills landed her most notable and iconic role of the scheming and manipulative vixen Abby Cunningham on the long-running primetime soap opera “Knots Landing.” After her incredibly successful series run, Mills launched her own production company, which was a rarity for a woman in the late eighties, and she began executive producing and starring in numerous TV movies exploring controversial social issues including False Arrest, In My Daughter's Name, Dangerous Intentions, The Stepford Husbands, and Ladies of the House.

Jon Amiel

Jon Amiel is a director/writer/producer with an illustrious career in theatre, film and television. After 10 years working his way from fringe theatre to the Royal Shakespeare Company, he moved to television and a career with the BBC that culminated with the award-winning SILENT TWINS and the multi-award-winning SINGING DETECTIVE. Over the next 15 years Amiel directed several major feature films including; SOMMERSBY with Jodie Foster and Richard Gere, COPYCAT with Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter, ENTRAPMENT with Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Jones, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO LITTLE with Bill Murray, THE CORE with Aaron Eckhart and Hilary Swank, and CREATION with Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly.

Since then Amiel has focused largely on television. He directed the pilots for “EYES”, REUNION, WEDDING BELLS, and DAMAGES, and has directed and produced episodes for shows as diverse as THE TUDORS, THE BORGIAS, HALT & CATCH FIRE, 7 SECONDS, AQUARIUS, OUTSIDERS, AMERICAN GODS, THE CLEANING LADY, CARNIVAL ROW and
THE WALKING DEAD.

Collin Black

Collin Black is a director, writer, and VFX artist who focuses in creating visually stunning genre films. Collin began his career in Ohio, crafting award-winning indie shorts. After moving to Los Angeles, he worked as a visual effects artist for a variety of clients including Jim Cummings (Thunder Road and The Wolf of Snow Hollow). The filmmaker additionally directs music videos and commercials, and has worked with brands such as Adobe, Nanlite, and Coors Light.

Collin participated in the 2023 CFC with the short film Shared Spaces, which won the Grand Jury Prize, Best Actress in a Comedy (Erin Bechler), Best Sound, and the Shout Factory Award. The last honor was from Shout Factory, which was the chance to work with the studio to develop his first feature film. Collin is currently writing the script. Collin has been busy with the festival circuit for his cosmic sci-fi short film Motherly Lovecraft, in which his unique blend of directing and knowledge of VFX was able to create a spectacle on an indie level. This short will debut later this year.

First Round Judges

Tiffany Brower

Tiffany Brower has been in Television and Film Production for 20 years, and has been a Post Production Supervisor for 10 years. Specializing in animation, but with an eye for detail and good writing, her love of film goes beyond any specific genre.

Gabriel Yaffe

Gabriel Yaffe is an actor, writer, comedian, and filmmaker. He is an alumnus of the Taliesin Nexus Smash Cut Film Lab and a graduate of Second City Hollywood. His short film "The Surge" won best comedy at the 2019 Anthem Film Festival and "Police Werk: 2020" was an official selection in 2021. Currently, Gabriel is a Film Fellow at Emergent Order in Austin, Texas, where he lives with his wife and newborn son. (To clarify, he lives in Austin, not at Emergent Order, which would be inappropriate workplace conduct.)

Brion Hambel

Brion Hambel is an independent producer living in Los Angeles. His credits include SXSW winner Natural Selection, Scenic Route, Better Watch Out, and Tone-Deaf. His latest producorial effort, Ike Boys (a family-friendly, kaiju fantasy adventure that mixes live-action with anime and tokusatsu), will be released in October.