Jules Rosskam is an internationally award-winning filmmaker, educator and 2021 Creative Capital Awardee. His most recent feature documentary, Paternal Rites (2018), premiered at MoMA’s Doc Fortnight and went on to win several festival awards. His work has been screened at the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Art Boston, the British Film Institute, Arsenal Berlin, Anthology Film Archives, Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, the Queens Museum of Art, the Museum of Moving Images, and hundreds of film festivals worldwide. He has participated in residencies at Yaddo, ISSUE Project Room, Marble House, PLAYA and ACRE.

André Pérez is a transgender Latinx educator, filmmaker, and community organizer. He founded the Transgender Oral History Project in 2007 and then recorded 600+ interviews with StoryCorps, including 50 segments on NPR and WBEZ. He directed America in Transition (AIT), a Sundance-backed docuseries exploring family, community, and social justice with BIPOC trans folks. He produced A Run for More (2022), a feature-length documentary about Frankie Gonzalez in her fight to become the first openly transgender elected official in Texas, which premiered at Frameline and will be airing on PBS's Reel South in 2023.

Amy E. Powell is a screenwriter, director, and producer based in Chicago, IL. She initially studied acting at Northern Illinois University and the Moscow Art Theater School but, finding that roles for women were lacking, they started working behind the camera with a mission to create more opportunity for folks who have been historically excluded in the arts. Amy has produced numerous independent films that have screened in festivals across the country and abroad, but they especially enjoy collaborating with theater artists. Currently, Amy is a producer at Full Spectrum Features and is co-writing the screenplay adaptation of the play “Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol”.

Jennifer Reeder was recently named by Bong Joon Ho as a filmmaker to watch in the 2020s. Her films have shown around the world, including Sundance, Berlin, SXSW, and The Whitney Biennial. Her most recent feature, KNIVES AND SKIN, premiered at the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival and was released theatrically by IFC Films. Reeder is currently in post-production on her latest feature, RESTLESS, with Michael Shannon, for Shudder. Her shorts can be seen on The Criterion Channel.

Aymar Christian is an associate professor of communication studies at Northwestern University, co-founder of OTV | Open Television, an online platform for intersectional film/TV stories, and author of Open TV: Innovation Beyond Hollywood and the Rise of Web Television (NYU Press 2018). Building on the success of OTV, he co-founded OTV Studio with Stephanie Jeter and Lilly Wachowski. His work has been recognized by the MacArthur Foundation & Field Foundation (Leaders for a New Chicago, 2019), Variety (Top 50 Entertainment Instructor 2020 & 2021), Filmmaker (25 New Faces of Indie Film, 2018) and Seed&Spark (Filmmaker to Watch 2018), among others.

Eugene Sun Park is a filmmaker and producer working in narrative and experimental forms. His films have screened at over 400 festivals, micro-cinemas, museums, and alternative screening venues around the world, including SXSW, BAMcinemafest, Outfest, Frameline, Chicago International, Cleveland International, Chicago Underground, Athens International Film + Video Festival, and Antimatter. Described by Newcity as “essential to the film world of Chicago,” Eugene was recently inducted into the magazine’s inaugural Film 50 Hall of Fame.

Amos Mac is an out trans screenwriter and artist who co-wrote No Ordinary Man, the award winning process-documentary about the life and death of the unlikely trans icon and jazz man, Billy Tipton. Amos has written and produced for television on shows including Gossip Girl for HBO Max, Y: The Last Man for FX, and The Left/Right Game for Amazon. Amos first made a splash as a cultural creator when he founded Original Plumbing in 2009, the first print magazine in America dedicated to trans male culture, which he published and served as editor for the zine's full ten year run.

Nate Gualtieri is a transmasculine writer from the Boston area now based in Los Angeles. A graduate of the USC screenwriting program, he most recently worked as a staff writer on the Berlanti/CW series Gotham Knights and was selected as a Writing Fellow for the 2023 Film Independent Project Involve Fellowship. His previous short film, Piercing, premiered at the Outfest LA Film Festival in 2022 and received an inaugural Trailblazer Grant from the Transgender Film Center. With work that showcases both the tender and toxic sides of masculinity, Nate is passionate about finding big stakes in grounded stories.

Marie Hinson is a queer and trans artist from rural Appalachia practicing poetry, performance, and documentary in NYC. Marie has worked as a documentary cinematographer since she graduated with an MFA in film from Temple University. Her feature credits include: Krimes (DocNYC 2021, MTV Films), Frank Bey: All My Dues Are Paid (Chicken and Egg Nest Knight Fellowship 2019, IFP Documentary Lab 2019, TFI Network 2020), Queer Genius (NewFest 2019). Clients have also included PBS, LogoTV, Facebook, and Comcast.

Melissa Dyne is an artist, musician, synthesist, and sound designer. She works across genres and media, creating compositions, performances, sound design, and installation works exploring the emotional and performative properties of sound and light. She has been working in film and post production for many years. Since 2007 she has been one half of the experimental-electronic-pop band The Blow, releasing numerous recordings and touring their performance-art works nationally and internationally. She lives and works in New York City and Berlin.