Panel discussion with working writers plus a live read of this year's competition winners, PB&J by Tihemme Gagnon and HOME by Katie Micay.
Live Read Performers:
Dan Lipsher
Nathan Emley
Casey Semple
Steve Wilson
Christina Steach
Panelists:
BEARS FONTE
Bears Fonté is a filmmaker, festival programmer, and journalist. Her feature thriller iCRIME, which she wrote and directed, was released on DVD, VOD by Breaking Glass in 2011. Her short film, Roadside Assistance, was selected for 70 festivals including Fantasia International Film Festival and Dances With Films. Bears read screenplays and wrote coverage for agencies and producers in Hollywood for three years before working as the Screenplay Contest Assistant at Austin Film Festival. After a few months she was promoted to Director of Programming for the film festival and then founded Other Worlds Austin SciFi Film Festival after she left. Bears has been programming for SF Indiefest since 2015.
WARREN P. SONODA
Emmy-nominated, BAFTA-winning filmmaker Warren P. Sonoda is known for directing his features Coopers’ Camera, Swearnet: The Movie, Ham & Cheese, the iconic TV shows Trailer Park Boys, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Odd Squad and over 160 music videos, 70 episodes of TV and 11 feature films. He also received the Queen's Jubilee Medal for his contributions to Canadian cinema, knocked Martin Scorsese out of the Guinness Book of World Records and was the first person of colour and youngest DGC member elected as the Directors Guild of Canada’s National Directors Division Chair. He’s written four screenplays that have been produced: 5ive Girls starring Ron Perlman and Heartstopper, both for Sony Pictures, Unrivaled for Lionsgate and his new Japanese-Canadian crime/cello/caper feature film Things I Do For Money will be released in 2020.
JONATHAN KIEFER
Longtime Bay Area dweller Jonathan Kiefer was the inaugural editorial director of the film-streaming service Fandor, and has written about culture for publications including SF Weekly, KQED, The New York Times, and the Village Voice. His short films have played at festivals throughout the US. Around the Sun is his first produced feature-length script, but god knows it's not the first he's written. An alumnus of the Reykjavik International Film Festival Talent Lab, Jon currently is developing his next movie projects by way of a 2020 FilmHouse residency from SFFILM.
B. HARRISON SMITH
B. Harrison Smith started his professional film career as the writer and producer of the acclaimed thriller, "The Fields." He has gone on to write and produce the cult Corey Feldman supernatural horror, "6 Degrees of Hell" with his directing debut being the acclaimed and successful 80s throwback slasher, "Camp Dread" with Eric Roberts and Danielle Harris. Since he wrote and directed "Zombie Killers: Elephant's Graveyard" starring Billy Zane, Dee Wallace and Mischa Barton and the acclaimed horror, "Death House" currently enjoying a long run on Netflilx. He directed and wrote the action-comedy "Garlic and Gunpowder" starring Michael Madsen, Vivica A. Fox and James Duvall and most recently, the body-horror "The Special" which he directed and co-produced. Smith's TV work includes the straight-to-series reality show "Hang Men" for Discovery Channel and the Samsung VR experience "360 Degrees of Hell" a spinoff to his "6 Degrees of Hell" starring Amanda Wyss (A Nightmare one Elm Street). Smith is currently developing an animated streaming 80s comedy series and just signed on to write and direct "Hexen" a supernatural horror from BramGoth Productions set to shoot Fall, 2020.