Panelists

Framing Activism: Exploring Documentary Film and Social Change: 3:00 – 4:00pm

  1. Jay Rosenstein is Professor at the Department of Journalism at the College of Media and Peabody and Emmy Award winning independent documentary writer, producer, director, and editor whose documentaries have been seen on the national PBS series “P.O.V.”, the national PBS series “Independent Lens”, the Independent Film Channel, and the Maori Channel of New Zealand, as well as at film festivals worldwide including the Sundance Film Festival. His work has been broadcast on the “ABC World News Tonite with Peter Jennings”, HBO, ESPN, the “McNeil-Lehrer News Hour”, and “Nick News on the Nickelodeon Channel”.
  2. Rachel Lauren Storm is the Assistant Director of the Women’s Resources Center at the University of Illinois and a board member of the Independent Media Center in Urbana. Seven years ago, she founded the Feminist Film Festival, an annual student film festival of locally grown shorts that screens each year at the Art Theater in downtown Champaign. She was also part of the core organizing team of the Interdependent Film Festival hosted by the Independent Media and the School for Designing a Society, a film festival of locally made films from filmmakers in the CU community. Both of these annual festivals have become homes for a showcase of filmmaking that explore social justice issues.
  3. Rini Mehta is an Assistant Professor at the Comparative and World Literatures Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and filmmaker. Professor Mehta was recently honored by the Women’s Resources Center for her film Post498A: Shades of Domestic Violence (2011). She has edited two volumes on Indian Cinema: Bollywood and Globalization: Indian Popular Cinema, Nation and Diaspora and The Indian Partition in Literature and Films: History, Politics and Aesthetics.

Mastering Your Craft: Making Your Student Film Professional: 5:00 – 6:00pm

  1. Kathy Byrne served as project coordinator at the Chicago Film Office for nearly twenty years before and is now the Director of Television/Theatrical Contracts at AFTRA/SAG Chicago, where she has served for six years. Byrne holds a BS in Communications from Illinois State University.
  2. Troy Pryor is an actor, award-winning producer, director and writer from Chicago. Amongst his accomplishments in film, Try is the founder and CEO of Pryor Holdings LLC and is a co-founder of the Chicago Workforce Development program that helps to emerge young filmmakers succeed in the industry. Additionally, Pryor is the youngest elected board member of SAG-AFTRA Chicago and the co-chair of its New Media Committee.
  3. Natasha Parker is a locations manager in her hometown of Chicago and has assisted in the production planning of Man of Steel, Chi-Raq, Sense8, Sirens, and Empire. In addition to her working as a location manager, Natasha has worked as a set decoration coordinator, set dressing estimator, producer, director, actress, and writer.
  4. Alex Hughes has served as location manager for various productions such as Consumed, The Origins of Wit and Humor, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, and The Donut Dance. Hughes has also served as producer, production manager, and grip for various productions.
  5. Danny Fogarty is a Chicagoland editor who has worked on projects such as The Origins of Wit and Humor and as a producer on a short film titled Marlene.