The Test

Director / Writer / Producer / Actress Victoria Negri is a quadruple threat force of nature. We caught up with her surrounding the debut of her first time directorial feature release, 'Gold Star' with Oscar nominee Robert Vaughn, to discuss marathon running, transforming one's pain into art, and her unique upbringing as the child of a father 60 years her senior. Join us for this open, vulnerable, and deep-well discussion on dying, living, and & all the messy in between.

Writer / Director Olivia Newman's longstanding passion for writing and acting paved the way for her successful launch into filmmaking. Raised in Hoboken, NJ by openminded, politically active, musically minded parents that met in the PeaceCorp, her childhood was shaped by performing in the school plays of the school her mother founded and spearheaded & by a year abroad in France her junior year in H.S. A crisis of identity in college led to a discovery of French Cinema & an eventual launch into directing when she enrolled at Columbia for grad school. A Sundance Screenwriting & Directing Lab alum, her films have received support from the Sundance Institute, HBO and The Caucus Foundation, and have been broadcast on PBS. She is in postproduction on her first feature, First Match, soon to be released on Netflix. Join us for this inspiring talk that touches on everything from outsiders, to racy too-young screenings of The Accidental Tourist, to Ed Harris giving film notes on a pregnancy ball.

Cinematographer & Gaffer Yessica Curiel Montoya has been bucking the norm all her life. Born in a small town in Mexico to working professionals that always encouraged her independent spirit, she set off for a film career in college and never looked back. She continued her studies in New York City and stayed on an artist's Visa that quickly led to regular gigs in the city. Often the only woman in her department & sometimes the only one on set, she was very candid with us about her experiences with everyday sexism & what it's like to be an immigrant in America today. Don't miss this very open & heartfelt conversation that covers everything from the role of artists as activists to carrying all the heavy equipment on set.

Director Elizabeth Nichols splits her time between quicksilver NYC and the slow savannah of Arusha, Tanzania in Africa. She collaborates on films with her Maasai students that are part narrative / part documentary & she also makes movies in New York City. Raised in Princeton, NJ in an artist / architect household where projects were king, she quickly developed a questioning & independent spirit. A child photographer, she tried her hand at theater post undergrad before finally settling into her current nomadic life of pedagogy & filmmaking. www.elizabeth-nichols.com www.ieftz.org

New England born Virtual Reality Director Annie Lukowski might have been a banker or a professor of Theology if she hadn't made the impractical-in-her-parent's-eyes-leap to Hollywood & start hitting it out of the park from the very beginning. Her first gig was as an intern on the five time Oscar nominated Todd Field film In The Bedroom. From there she landed an Art Department position on a George Miller developed production of Wonder Woman that never came to be. No matter, because she soon branched seamlessly out on her own into the cutting edge world of Virtual Reality, developing her own passion projects alongside content for studios & big commercial clients through her company Vanishing Point Media. Join us for this enlightening & exciting chat about how VR gets made & where its headed.