Priscilla Gonzalez Sainz, Producing

An experienced director, producer and editor. Ms. Gonzalez has worked as an independent film producer – primarily in documentaries – and also worked in television distribution. She has also been a film curator and strategist for independent film financing and distribution.

 

 

 

 

 

Beverly Sanders, Acting

An accomplished actor, writer and director, Beverly Sanders has been performing in theatre, films and television for the past 40 years.

Beverly’s appearances in episodic television include co-starring roles in the acclaimed series The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda, CPO Sharkey, and Lotsa Luck, to name just a few.  More recently, she can be seen in a recurring role on the HBO series Entourage.

Her co-starring roles in feature films include And Justice for All, Magic, and Beaches.
Her made-for-television movies just completed, Scooby Doo at the Monster Lake,  All I Want For Christmas for Hallmark, and less recently, her Emmy-nominated performance in Queen of the Stardust Ballroom.

Chosen to participate in the American Film Institute Directing Workshop for Women, Beverly wrote and directed the film Callback, which aired on A&E and won a film festival award at the San Francisco Film Festival.

The process of adopting a child led Beverly to write a one-person show, Yes Sir, That’s My Baby. It has been performed in New York and in various theaters throughout the country and was the recipient of the Artistic Director Achievement award.

Following this, Beverly created a class for UCLA Extension focusing on developing one-person shows, which she has been teaching for 10 years and has resulted in her co-writing and directing five successful shows that have emerged from this class.  She also teaches a UCLA Extension class on Acting for the Camera and a class in Acting for Writers at USC.

Beverly’s love for the theater propelled Beverly to co-found the Room for Theatre, where she served as artistic director.  The Los Angeles Company was devoted to the works of American Master playwrights.  Among other productions, Beverly was thrilled to re-introduce her audiences to S.N. Behrman’s Old Acquaintance and Preston Sturges’ Strictly Dishonorable.

In 2007, Beverly began presenting seminars titled “So You Want to Tell Your Story?” which introduce participants to memoir writing.

 

Farzad Sangari, Directing

Filmmaker who has worked in both film and television. His feature-length documentary, Mudbloods, was selected to several film festivals. Most recently, he has produced content for Vice and Viceland.

 

 

 

 

 

Elena Sanz, Acting

Award-winning international actress who starred in the feature, Among Us, and held supporting roles in Bent and The Hunter’s Prayer. Ms. Sanz won Best Actress at the Short and Sweet Theater Festival in 2018, and she was the winner of the Monologue Slam UK 2018 in Los Angeles.

 

 

 

 

 

Aved Savoulian, Producing

Audit Manager and Production Accountant, NBC Universal Feature Pictures, who has has held previous positions at CBS Television and Fox Sports Networks.

 

Fernando Scarpa, Directing

Fernando Scarpa is an award-winning director who has achieved extensive international recognition in Europe and in the United States. A graduate of the motion picture directing program at New School University of New York City, since 2011 he teaches the ‘Directing Movies/TV Workshop’ and the ‘Advanced Directing Workshop’ at UCLA Extension Entertainment Studies in Los Angeles.

His debut short film, ‘Brothers’, immediately won Best Short, Best Screenplay and Best Directorial Debut Awards at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival in Los Angeles and New York. In 2013 he produced together with Marco Beltrami the short movie ‘Band’, directed by Coleman Beltrami.

In 2014 he wrote and directed ‘Doradus’, a short mystery drama on a modern ghost story. Fernando described it as a possible pilot episode for a TV series. Among other achievements, ‘Doradus’ was nominated as Best Short at the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival, won Honorable Mention at the Hollywood & Vine Film Festival and won the Audience Choice Award at the Hollyshorts Film Festival, held at the TLC Chinese Theater in Hollywood.

In 2015 Fernando released ‘Compound 147’ written and directed by Coleman Beltrami, and two episodes of the 30-min comedy/drama series for TV ‘Jay ROCCO’, written and directed by himself. Both ‘Doradus’ and ‘Jay ROCCO’ are currently in further development for TV and theatrical.

Currently, along with the development of the feature movie ‘Galileo 1610’, based on a play he wrote and directed about the Italian scientist Galileo Galilei, Fernando is working on the feature film ‘The Book of Ronnie’ (AKA ‘Panther’), a mystery drama where a modern bio-hacking conspiracy is powered by a revived ancient Egypt myth.

 

Gabrielle Schary, Acting

Commercial casting director and president of Gabrielle Schary Casting for over three decades. Ms. Schary is hired to cast commercials for top brands, including Kay Jewelers, McDonald’s, Nissan, BMW, Verizon, Amazon, Coke, Nike, Chevy, and Honda, as well as Super Bowl spots for Diet Coke, Budweiser, Dannon, and Pistachio Growers.

 

 

Robert Scheid, Producing, Post Production

Robert is an Apple-certified Final Cut Studio Master Trainer.   He teaches classes on Final Cut Pro, Motion, Soundtrack Pro, Color and DVD Studio Pro.  He is a television producer; film and television editor and colorist. Mr. Scheid received the UCLA Extension Department of the Arts Outstanding Instructor of the Year Award in 2014.

 

 

Moana Sherrill, Producing

Award-winning director, producer, and line producer who has worked on several features, web series, and short films.

 

Navid Sinaki, Directing

An experimental filmmaker and artist whose works have screened at museums and art houses around the world, including Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Lincoln Center, British Film Institute, REDCAT, and Cineteca Nacional in Mexico.

 

 

 

Monika Skerbelis, Film and TV Development

Author, producer and programming director for The American Pavilion Emerging Filmmaker Showcase at the Cannes Film Festival. Co-author of I Liked it, Didn’t Love It: Screenplay Development from the Inside Out and The Complete Filmmaker’s Guide to Film Festivals: Your All Access Pass to Launching Your Film on the Festival Circuit.  Her former positions include vice president of creative affairs and executive story editor, Universal Pictures Story Department; story editor, 20th Century Fox; and story department assistant, Paramount Pictures.

 

Colleen Smith, Acting

Actor, improviser, and sketch writer/director for Groundlings and the Comedy Central Stage. Ms. Smith has been the series regular and guest star on numerous television comedies, including @midnight, Selfie, How I Met Your Mother, King of the Hill, and Pinky Malinky.

 

 

Kinga Smith, Virtual Reality

Founder of Reverse Engineering Studios, a new wave management, production, and technology company. She has produced numerous VR and 360 video projects that have been showcased internationally, including Cockatoo Spritz, an immersive VR experience that premiered at Cannes.

 

 

 

 

Monique Sorgen, Film and TV Development

Raised in San Francisco and Paris, France, Monique Sorgen is an award-winning writer-director for her recent short comedies Sorry, Not Sorry and Rock a Bye Baby. She previously directed branded reality series, several other successful shorts, and music videos that were acquired by the Disney Channel and the Jonas Brothers. As a writer, she has developed with Imagine Entertainment, DiNovi Pictures, USA/Universal, Morgan Freeman’s Revelations, and David Oyelowo’s Yoruba Saxon, among others. Most recently, she became a Sony Directing Fellow and completed a sitcom pilot starring sock puppets.

 

Faith Strongheart, Directing

Award-winning writer and director with extensive feature credits as a production coordinator and assistant director. Prior to building her career as a writer/director of shorts and feature docs, Ms. Strongheart production coordinated for Twilight, The Watch, 2 Guns and Cowboys & Aliens, among others.

 

 

 

 

Jeffrey Stubblefield, Acting

Television, film and theater actor with supporting roles in the features Ted 2, Nesting, and Pedestrian. He also held recurring roles in Good Trouble, Desperate Housewives, Robert Townsend’s Diary of a Single Mom, Women’s Murder Club, Without a Trace, and The Practice, among others. He studied with famed Meisner teacher, William Esper in New York.

 

 

 

 

Matthaeus Szumanski, Post Production

Award-winning editor, writer, director and producer who has edited over fifty film and television projects. His narrative short, Jornada del Muerto, is in the permanent collection at the American Museum of the Moving Image.

 

 

Bridget Terry, Producing

Award-winning producer and writer whose credits include Showtime film They, PBS documentary The Kennedys: America’s Emerald Kings, and projects for Netflix and NBC-Universal. She is the owner of Chaise Lounge Productions, Inc. and has written films for Hallmark Channel, CBS Film, Lifetime, and PBS. Ms. Terry formerly served as showrunner for several series on Showtime, including Shelley Duvall’s Tall Tales & Legends and Faerie Tale Theatre. Her awards include the George Foster Peabody Award and the Christopher Award, as well as three Emmy nominations. Her work has been selected for The Venice Film Festival, Los Angeles Film Festival, and the Chicago International Film Festival.

 

 

Jaia Thomas, Business and Management of Entertainment

Entertainment and sports attorney. In addition to her practice, Ms. Thomas is a contributor for Uptown Magazine and Entrepreneur Magazine, where she regularly authors articles pertaining to the intersection of sports, entertainment, entrepreneurship and the law.

 

 

 

 

 

Anne Thompson, Entertainment Studies

Film columnist who has covered the Hollywood beat for more than twenty-five years.  She launched Indiewire’s daily film blog “Thompson On Hollywood” for Variety in 2007.  She has written for the LA Weekly (and the Los Angeles Times Syndicate), followed by Filmmaker magazine and The Hollywood Reporter. Before that, she was West Coast Editor for Premiere, Empire, and Film Comment, and senior writer at Entertainment Weekly. She has also reported on film for the magazines Vanity Fair, More, Wired, Sight and Sound, Filmmaker, and New York. Ms. Thompson also moderates and participates on industry panels, and does media interviews, especially at Oscar time, for such networks as MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and CNN. She has recently published her first book, The $11 Billion Year.

 

Cle Thompson, Acting

Actor, director, jazz vocalist and educator with extensive experience in film and theater whose credits include the Off Broadway plays Stompin at the Savoy and Dunbar. Her film credits include Funny Valentines and The Cemetery Club.

 

Mary Trunk, Producing

Award winning documentary producer and director. Her films include The Watershed, Plain Art, Lost In Living, The Past is in the Present, and Muscle Memory. She has been producing documentaries, dance videos and experimental hybrid films for more than 20 years.

 

 

 

Jennie Tugend, Producing

Ms. Tugend has over three decades of expertise in the Hollywood motion picture business, including film and TV development, production financing, marketing and distribution. Ms. Tugend has produced and co-produced some of the industry’s most memorable franchises: Free Willy, Lethal Weapon, and HBO’s Tales from the Crypt. Other produced credits include Return to Me, Local Boys and One Missed Call.  She was co-President of  Kadokawa Pictures USA (KPUSA),which exploited Japanese intellectual properties for adaptation and remakes in the English language for American audiences.  Currently, Tugend is developing several film projects in a variety of genres ranging from sci-fi thrillers to family entertainment.