Join NewFest & NYWIFT for a panel discussion as part of the 32nd Annual New York LGBTQ Film Festival
Hear from the narrative, documentary, and episodic filmmakers featured at NewFest this year as they discuss their work from funding to completion to the film festival landscape.
Get your tickets now then join us for a conversation:
Julia Scotti: Funny That Way
Sideways Smile
Tahara
Panelists include Hang Nguyen (director, Sideways Smile), Olivia Peace (director, Tahara), and Susan Sandler (director, Julia Scotti: Funny This Way).
Moderated by NYWIFT Program Manager Barbara Vásconez.
Susan Sandler is a writer in film, television, and theatre. Her screenplay Crossing Delancey based on her play by the same title earned Golden Globe nominations for the film’s stars. Sandler’s plays have been produced internationally and on NPR. JULIA SCOTTI: Funny That Way marks her debut as a director. She teaches at NYU/Tisch Film & TV where she guides the Fusion Film Festival celebrating women behind the camera.
Olivia Peace (she / they) is a queer black interdisciplinary artist from Detroit, Michigan. After garnering critical and institutional praise for their 2017 short film Pangaea, Olivia landed a fellowship with the Sundance Institute in the year-long Ignite Fellowship Program. They spent 2019 working on their feature film debut, Tahara while still a full time MFA student at USC. Tahara premiered in January at the 2020 Slamdance Film Festival to rave reviews. Currently, Olivia is hard at work writing their next feature film, In Case of Apocalypse, and is building and organizing with the artist’s collective, Indefinite Village. Their work is heavily informed by hip hop mythology, B-movies, and a family history of bipolar disorder. They believe that style helps to facilitate agency in people, and so they set out to create work that’s replete with style.
Hang Nguyen (she/her) is a a director, writer, and producer. Most recently, she won the inaugural Made in NY: Women in Film grant for Sideways Smile. She is the founder of Femsex Boston, an organization that runs a community workshop on female sexuality and identity. She is a member of the improv troupe Not Quite NASA and most recently starred in their sketch musical, Kung Fu Nuns. When she’s not working in film, Hang is helping to create engaging learning experiences and teaching data science to adult learners.
Barbara Vásconez is the Program Manager of New York Women in Film & Television. Before joining NYWIFT, she held the position of General Manager at the Quad Cinema for three years. She has worked for a variety of film festivals, including the Tribeca Film Festival, Rooftop Films, Hamptons Film Festival, Montclair Film Festival, Mill Valley Film Festival, DOC NYC, and the Nantucket Film Festival. Her spare time is spent programming panels and creating unique community engagement opportunities for the New York Latino Film Festival and public screenings for Montclair Film Festival. Most recently, she launched and founded the Ville Film Festival in Somerville, New Jersey. Her educational goals include working to develop film programs in New Jersey that improve film education for low income students. She is committed to the importance of film festivals as a means of community engagement. Barbara has a degree in Film and Video Production from the School of Visual arts in NYC.
Produced by NewFest
This program will take place virtually as a webinar via Zoom. Please register in advance, and all registrants will receive a link to attend the webinar the day of the event.
We encourage you to download Zoom in advance.
Free event.
programs@nywift.org
Join the conversation on social media:
#nywift | @nywift
NYWIFT programs, screenings and events are supported, in part, by grants from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.
