Amy Reedy

Carmella Cardina

Cassie C.M. Landrus

Christine Irons  

Deena Adar  

Joy Gohring

Julia Lerman

Juliana Sakae 

Kristin Ellingson

Kristin Slaysman

Laurens Grant 

Marisé Samitier

Michelle A. Boley 

Nancy Hendrickson

Philiane Phang

Rani DeMuth

Roja Gashtili

Sally Nellson Barrett

Shari Berman

Susan Dynner

NEW MEMBER BIOS  

These were submitted for publication and edited for length. 

Carmella Cardina started as a P.A. with ESPN just as it was getting off the ground. Her first short film, ...the fan! screened at the IFFM Kino Film Festival, the Kent International Film Festival, the 1998 Spring FlixTour and won the reelshort.com online film competition. Other credits include The Tempest, Butterflies (Short Film Corner at Cannes International Film Festival), When Night Falls and The Scrapbook which starred George Carlin's daughter Kelly Carlin-McCall. Carmella was supervising producer on Showtime's The Green Room with Paul Provenza and directed two episodes of the series. Carmella produced the live show, Set List: Standup without a Net at the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the Soho Theatre in London, and the series for Sky Atlantic Television. Carmella also directed the Showtime Network special, House of Lies-LIVE. She's currently prepping to direct a music video and writing.

Christine Irons is an Austin native now residing in Los Angeles. She started producing with the "Wrecked" segment of the film,  Six in Austin . She was also a producer on the award winning indie,  Sexless . Her directorial debut was on the male stripper documentary Ladies Nite; she has since directed numerous shorts, music videos, and advertising pieces. Most recently, Christine co-produced the documentary feature My Amity Horror released by IFC.  

Deena Adar's career began as a stand up at The Comedy Store and The Improv, and sharpened her sills at The Groundlings, IMprov Olympic and LA Connection. Adar co-wrote/produced/directed the short film The LIfestyle which premiered at the LA International Film Festival. Her award-winning original series Miriam and Shoshanna was featured on the homepages of YouTube and Myspace, and viewed by millions of fans worldwide. Adar co-wrote/directed the comedy pilot thirty*ish* which premiered at NewFilmmakers LA Film Festival and won Best TV Pilot at the Mexico International Film Festival. She is in post-production on her short How to Survive a Breakup.

 Juliana Sakae is a Brazilian journalist and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. She is currently working in developing a documentary about the aftermath in the lives of Haitian children from Torbeck. Bleu et Rouge, her first film, went to several film festivals in Brazil. Her latest documentary, Antigirl, won the Best Short Doc at LA Film and Script Festival 2015.  

Laurens Grant is a 3-time Emmy and Peabody award-winning filmmaker. The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution premiered at Sundance, her documentary Jesse Owens won an Emmy for Outstanding Research and received 2 Emmy nominations. Grant also produced the documentary Freedom Riders which premiered at Sundance, won 3 Primetime Emmys, a Peabody, was featured on Oprah, and has influenced Selma and Lee Daniels' The Butler. Grant also co-produced two, 4-hour series for PBS, including the Emmy-winning Slavery and the Making of America: Seeds of Destruction, and Latin Music USA: The Chicano Wave.

Marisé Samitier is an optioned screenwriter born in Spain and living in Los Angeles. Marisé has an MFA in Screenwriting from UCLA. She is alumnae of the American Film Institute's Directing Workshop for Women, a Moondance winner and placed in the top 10% in the Nicholl Fellowship. She wrote and directed her first short film The Ring in 1995, and went on to write/direct Bazaar, The Virgin, The Return of Reason, Apartment 427, Amores Ciegos (Love, Intertwined) and Death of a Housewife. Marisé is also developing a romantic thriller for Tornasol Films that she plans to direct.

Michelle Boley is a director, writer, and producer based in Los Angeles, CA. You can find her work on The Young Turks, Funny or Die, Youtube, Smart Girls, and PBS. Her sketch videos Please Don't Vote, S.A.D. and (Stuffed) Animals have garnered more than 8 million views online and her ad campaigns for Naturebox, Make a Wish, Squarespace, and Cricket Wireless can be found interrupting your television programs and web streams.

Nancy Hendrickson is a writer-director-actress with a BFA in Drama from Carnegie-Mellon U. and an MFA in Screenwriting from Cal State Northridge. As a writer, Nancy's has written promos for The Disney Channel, articles for Creative Screenwriting and MovieMaker magazines, PSA's, radio spots and screenplays. She is a past winner of Austin Film Festival's Screenwriting Competition, finalist in the Sundance Screenwriter's Lab and AFI's Directing Workshop for Women, and semi-finalist in the Nicholl Fellowship. Currently, she teaches screenwriting and TV writing at Cal State University, Northridge.

Philiane Phang is a writer and director based in New York. She wrote and produced her directorial debut Serena Strong, which was selected to screen at the 2014 BET/HBO Urban World Film Festival. Recently, Philiane was one of ten filmmakers selected for American Film Institute's 2015 Directing Workshop for Women. She is in development with producer Angela C. Lee on her feature film, The Space Between, which was selected to participate in the 2014 Sundance Screenwriters Intensive and Film Independent Screenwriters Lab. She was awarded the inaugural Ammon Foundation Fellowship for a Female Filmmaker at the 2015 Spirit Awards. Philiane graduated from Rutgers University with a Juris Doctorate.

Sally Nellson Barrett is executive producer for the Nebraska Loves Public Schools campaign. She has interviewed more than 400 people and directed more than 30 films to raise awareness about the high quality public education available in Nebraska. The films have been featured in the Huffington Post, Washington Post, honored by the Webby Awards and celebrated by the Economic Policy Institute. Prior to this campaign, Sally ran a successful practice providing creative direction and story development for many of the largest banks and investment managers in the country.

Susan Dynner (Director/Producer/Writer) recently produced Free Ride starring Anna Paquin, for which she was awarded a Film Independent Producing Fellowship. She also just produced the documentary After Porn Ends, which was ranked as the #1 documentary on iTunes, Netflix and Amazon downloads. Dynner directed and produced Punk's Not Dead, which received critical acclaim on the festival circuit, followed by a theatrical run and world-wide release. She was also a producer on Brick (winner of the Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival) which was released by Focus Features in 2006. As a Development Executive, Dynner worked for Charlie Sheen and Nick Cassavetes' Ventura Films as VP of Creative Affairs, before leaving to join Steve Herzberg as a Producer and VP of Development/Production for Prairiefire Films. Currently, Susan is gearing up to direct and produce the short film Code Blue: A Love Story followed by the indie feature comedy Blank Nation and the feature drama Fall of Eve.