AFI Announces Directing Workshop for Women (DWW) Red Carpet Showcase on May 11

AFI PRESENTS

DIRECTING WORKSHOP FOR WOMEN (DWW)
RED CARPET SHOWCASE AT DGA THEATER

MARTHA COOLIDGE WILL HOST EVENT ON MAY 11

Hollywood, CA, April 30, 2009 – AFI announces its annual Directing Workshop for Women (DWW) Red Carpet Showcase at the DGA Theater featuring up-and-coming directors Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Meredith Berg, Joy Gohring, Joanna Jurewicz, Mary Ann Kellogg, Alexa-Sascha Lewin, and Dominika Waclawiak.

Hosting the event will be Martha Coolidge, the first and only female president of the DGA and director of notable films including RAMBLING ROSE, INTRODUCING DOROTHY DANDRIDGE and VALLEY GIRL.

These seven women were picked from a pool of over 200 applicants for the prestigious DWW program. Selected women receive donations and grants not to exceed $25,000, equipment, materials and facilities of the AFI campus and five days to shoot their narrative short films. AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women (DWW) has been a major force in training women in narrative filmmaking since 1974. Over 200 women have been given the opportunity to participate in this innovative and unique training program for tomorrow’s directors. Some DWW alumnae include Lesli Linka Glatter (MAD MEN, THE WEST WING, GREY’S ANATOMY), Randa Haines (CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD, DANCE WITH ME), Kellie Martin (ER, MYSTERY WOMAN) and Maya Angelou (DOWN IN THE DELTA).

“This is a great opportunity to discover new filmmaking talent. You will not only enjoy the films but have a chance to meet the participants and discuss how this incredible workshop has impacted their future projects and their careers,” said Joe Petricca, AFI’s Executive Vice Dean.

The one-night-only event will include guests from high level agencies such as CAA, Endeavor, and WMA as well as representatives from every studio. Celebrity guests and many other artists from in front of or behind the camera will also be in attendance. Prior to and at the culmination of the showcase, cocktails as well as hors d’oeuvres and desserts (courtesy of Contemporary Catering) will be served in the DGA Lobby.

MORE ABOUT THE AFI’S DWW RED CARPET SHOWCASE
This is a private event with seating limited to industry professionals. For more information, and to RSVP, please visit – http://www.femmafia.com

The 2009 DWW Red Carpet Showcase participants:

Meredith Berg
VOID

About the film:
VOID, a supernatural thriller, follows FBI agent ‘Liz Metera’ as she investigates a series of grisly murders in a small, desert town. She suspects the murders are the work of a serial killer but discovers that whatever is responsible is not human, and is, instead, something far more monstrous. While uncovering clues, she befriends a boy – terrified of his father – who is hiding a powerful and chilling secret. Uncovering his secret will ultimately cost the FBI agent everything she holds dear, changing her life, and the town, forever.

About the filmmaker:
While earning her directing and acting BFA from NYU Tisch, Meredith Berg garnered an Off-Broadway directing credit for her adaptation of Shakespeare’s JULIUS CAESAR. Since then she moved to Los Angeles and delved further into writing, directing, producing and her other great love: editing comic books. Single issues and graphic novels of hers can be found on the shelves of comic book stores, productions on the Web and on television, and she
continues to direct theatrical productions in and around LA.

Joy Gohring
18

About the film:
18 is a dramatic short about a teenage girl who has to decide whether or not to remove her mother from life support when she is given power of attorney on her eighteenth birthday.

About the filmmaker:
An internationally touring comedienne, Gohring has written, directed and performed stand-up and live comedy theatre all over the US, Canada and the UK. In 2000, she was chosen to perform at HBO’S prestigious Comedy Arts Festival as the female comedy team ‘Gohring & Stein.’ She subsequently starred in two TV series for Carsey-Werner-Mandabach Productions & Oxygen based on her own unique brand of comedy, including their first sitcom, GOOD GIRLS DON’T…  Gohring also performs periodically in Wayne Brady’s show at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. Experiencing an overdose of comedy, Joy shifted her focus to dramatic storytelling in 2007 and attended UCLA Extension where she wrote and directed her first short, GOOD GIRL, about a teenager who struggles to care for her bed-ridden mother. Her film, 18 explores death and letting go. Already being dubbed an actor’s director, Gohring has a natural ability to draw honest and subtle performances from her cast.

Marianne Jean-Baptiste
INK

About the film:
INK is the tale of a talented tattoo artist and single mother dying of AIDS and determined to do so with grace.

About the filmmaker:
Marianne Jean-Baptiste received Academy Award,Golden Globe and British Academy Award nominations for her feature-film debut role in Mike Leigh’s  SECRETS AND LIES. Other film credits include THE CELL, opposite Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Lopez, 28 DAYS opposite Sandra Bullock and SPY GAMES  opposite Robert Redford. TV credits include THE MURDER OF STEPHEN LAWRENCE, written and directed by Paul Greengrass. As a composer, Jean-Baptiste wrote the score for Mike Leigh’s feature film CAREER GIRLS. As a writer she has sold a script to Working Title. She is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and is currently starring in the CBS hit drama, WITHOUT A TRACE, portraying FBI agent ‘Vivian Johnson’.

Joanna Jurewicz
ROOMS

About the film:
An immigrant maid at an airport hotel goes through the routine of erasing traces that guests have left behind.

About the filmmaker:
Joanna Jurewicz is from Poland and resides in New York. She is a graduate of NYU- Tisch School of the Arts graduate film program. Her thesis film, GOYTA was screened at the Cinefondation competition at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. The film went on to win a variety of awards and eventually was sold to and aired on ARTE TV. Jurewicz is currently writing her first feature film while working for a theatre company in NYC.

Mary Ann Kellogg
ABUELO

About the film:
ABUELO traces the special relationship between a grandfather and his granddaughter.

About the filmmaker:
Mary Ann Kellogg is making her directing debut with the short film ABUELO. Kellogg began her career as a professional dancer with Twyla Tharp Dance Company, performing with the company for eight years. She is an award-winning choreographer in film, television and video with substantial industry recognition, an Emmy nomination and a Choreography Media Honors Award for her work on Showtime’s REEFER MADNESS THE MOVIE MUSICAL and two American Choreography Award nominations for her work on SUPERSTAR and THE GURU. She received a fellowship from AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women for the film ABUELO.  is a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, holds a BFA from Cal Arts and is an alum of both the AFI Conservatory and AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women.

Alexa-Sascha Lewin
THE HONEYSTING

About the film:
THE HONEYSTING is a riveting ride down the dark alleys of Chinatown’s underworld, where the slightest misstep can trigger the deadliest of consequences.

About the filmmaker:
Alexa-Sascha Lewin spent eight years working as a natural history ¬filmmaker. Her work found her trekking mountain gorillas through rebel-infested Rwandan jungles and hanging
out of a helicopter to capture stampeding white rhinos in the South African bush. Lewin began her career in narrative features, interning for Robert Redford’s South Fork Pictures and Propaganda Films. After working in television and documentaries for PBS, ABC/Kane, Discovery Channel, A&E, and the BBC, Lewin wanted to transition back to narrative features. She collaborated on the development of several independent films with the Mount Film Company, and worked in Lithuania on Ed Zwick’s latest film, DEFIANCE, as the assistant to the producer. Lewin was awarded the Panavision New Filmmaker grant and ACE grant for her first narrative film, THE HONEYSTING. Lewin holds a BA from Wheaton College, and studied at the University of Television and Film Munich, and Brown University.

Dominika Waclawiak
GOSIA’S WITCH

About the film:
A young polish immigrant, ‘Gosia’, delves deep into her imagination to overthrow the punishment she receives at the hands of a cruel headmistress at her Catholic school.

About the filmmaker:
Dominika Waclawiak, originally from Lodz, Poland, graduated from Cornell University with a degree in architecture, and worked as a production designer and art director on many shorts as well as in the art department of such features as FLAWLESS under the art direction of two-time Oscar nominee Jan Roelfs (GATTACA) and Emmy award winning Production Designer Sarah Knowles (THE NOTEBOOK). Waclawiak transitioned into CG visual effects due to her previous work in stop motion animation. She has worked as an visual effects artist on such films as LAND OF THE LOST, THE INCREDIBLE HULK, the Oscar-winning films THE GOLDEN COMPASS and HAPPY FEET, SUPERMAN RETURNS and THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA, to name just a few. As a director, her stop-motion short PIEKNI played at many international festivals and is currently distributed by Ouat Media.

AFI Directing Workshop for Women (DWW) Selects 2009 Participants

AFI DIRECTING WORKSHOP FOR WOMEN (DWW)
SELECTS EIGHT PARTICIPANTS FOR 2009 WORKSHOP

Los Angeles, CA, March 19, 2009 – The AFI Directing Workshop for Women (DWW) announces that it has selected the eight participants for its 2009 workshop.  The participants are Angie Comer, Deborah Correa, Lisa Gold, Emmy Grinwis, Maggie Kiley, Kaz Phillips, Sylvia Sether and Kinga Suto.

“We are excited to accept such a promising group of filmmakers who bring an eclectic mix of backgrounds, experience and film subjects, to this year’s workshop,” said Joe Petricca, AFI’s Executive Vice Dean.  “We hope that the DWW will be the final key to these women making the leap to a professional directing career.”

Through three weeks of classroom training and then a five-day production on their own short film, these eight women (chosen from a pool of 115 applicants) will learn narrative filmmaking at AFI’s campus in Hollywood.  This unique, tuition-free program has trained over 200 women directors since its start in 1974.  Some notable alumnae include Lesli Linka Glatter, Randa Haines and Maya Angelou.

The 2009 Directing Workshop for Women (DWW) participants

Angie Comer
In 1996, Angie Comer wrote and directed her first short film, a comedy/drama
entitled FAIR WEATHER BETWEEN FRIENDS. In 2005, Angie’s film CONFESSIONS OF A RELUCTANT BRA BUYER won the comedy script category and best actress at Duke City Shootout Film Festival and went on to screen at the Broad Humor Film Fest, Rebel Planet Short Film Fest, Mania TV Internet, Reel Women International Film Fest after making its
premiere at the Palm Beach Film Fest. That same year she won 1st place at the Scriptapalooza TV Pilot competition with her supernatural comedy/drama MYSTIC VALLEY. Currently, she is diligently writing her ninth feature script, a frightful
comedy/thriller entitled, GREAT PRETENDERS.

Deborah Correa
Deborah Correa graduated with a BFA in Writing and Visual Media Arts from Emerson College in 2005, where she produced a 10-minute narrative film homage to cinema verité. She used her final year to produce a short documentary about what the UN called the worst humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere—Colombia. Deborah traveled to the heart of guerilla territory to document the return of 1500 displaced villagers to their homes. THIS LITTLE OLD TOWN premiered on PBS’s FRONTLINE/ WORLD and won an EVVY for Best Produced Television News. Since graduating, Deborah has worked on documentaries for AMERICAN EXPERIENCE and NOVA, as well as her own films. These include A COMMUNITY ON THE FRINGE a look at the Zapatista movement in central Mexico and PAINTING PEACE, an exploration of the historic and incendiary public murals of Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Lisa Gold
Writer/filmmaker Lisa Gold has written award-winning screenplays; she has also written and/or directed and produced five award-winning short films. Lisa’s passion for improv comedy can be seen in her short films, most of which were made for various 48 Hour film competitions. She directed the short AN INCONVENIENT AFFAIR; wrote, directed and produced REALITIES OF LOVE and THE BOARDWALK SPY; and wrote and produced THE POWER and I HATE ALINA. Although written, shot and edited in only two days, these films have played in various mainstream film festivals in the US and internationally. As an improvisational actress, Lisa has performed in various venues around Los Angeles; she is a graduate of the Second City Conservatory. Lisa’s feature screenplay THE POKER WARS was a finalist in the 2007 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting Competition, reaching the top 10 out of over 5,000 submissions. THE POKER WARS, a drama, also won the CineStory Screenwriting Awards. Lisa has written four feature length screenplays, and is developing her latest family action/adventure script THE SECRET OF SHANGRI-LA into a children’s novel.

Emmy Grinwis
Integrating her passion for theater with a love of traveling, Emmy joined the Peace Corps in 1999 and lived for two years in Guinea, West Africa, where she created and produced a musical called Un Grain D’espoire. It was funded by the US Embassy in Conakry and toured for two months throughout Guinea. In 2004 she received an MFA in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism from the Yale School of Drama. The year before she graduated, she was selected by the board of trustees of the Ensemble Company of the Performing Arts to be the Artistic Director of the Summer Cabaret at Yale for the 29th Season and the 30th Anniversary Season. At the Cabaret she directed Shakespeare’s The Tempest, a new play by Marcus Gardley called And Jesus Moonwalks On The Mississippi, and The Ten Thousand Things, by Melissa James Gibson. A staunch believer in new work, Emmy also produced an evening of world-premiere plays by prominent American playwrights including Wendy Wasserstein, Sunil Kuruvulla, David Henry Hwang, Edwin Sanchez, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Tim Acito, and Marcus Gardley. Since October 2007, Emmy has been working for a production company in Hollywood and in September she co-directed her first 35 mm commercial, a pro-Proposition 5 spot that aired for a few weeks before the election. She also has directed three short films, a music video (for the band Hospitality), and continues to write as much as possible.

Maggie Kiley
As an actress, Maggie Kiley has appeared in film, television and on stage. She has worked most extensively at Atlantic Theater Company in New York where she is the youngest member. Maggie received her BFA in Theater from New York University and was invited to join the critically acclaimed ensemble upon graduation. Founded by David Mamet and William H. Macy, Atlantic provided an exciting and nurturing place to begin her career as a professional artist. While there, Maggie helped to create New Works, a program that gave emerging writers an opportunity to have their work produced in an intimate theatrical setting. Maggie has acted in several world premiere productions, most notably Tina Howe’s translation of Ionesco’s The Lesson and Lucy Thurber’s play Scarcity opposite Jesse Eisenberg. She has taught film acting at NYU and currently serves on the faculty of the ATC Los Angeles Conservatory. She studied film in London at BFI and has assisted on productions that played at The Donmar Warehouse, South Coast Repertory and several off-Broadway and way off Broadway theaters. Maggie continues to work as an actress and has been fortunate to work with such great film directors as James Gray, Daisy von Scherler Mayer and documentarian Nathaniel Kahn. She will appear alongside Ryan Gosling, Kirsten Dunst and Frank Langella in Andrew Jarecki’s upcoming feature ALL GOOD THINGS. In the fall of 2008, she directed her first project: the short film DOWN THE SHORE, based on the play by Tom Donaghy.

Kaz Phillips
Kaz Phillips has been straddling two very different professional worlds—writer/producer of non-scripted TV at a boutique Soho production house, and resident video designer for a critically acclaimed avant-garde theater company. Stumbling into TV production after meeting her then future boss at a bar on the Lower East Side, she started out in 2005 at his company Superfine Films as an associate producer for the hit CourtTV show PSYCHIC DETECTIVES, before moving up the ranks to co-producer of the same show and eventually taking on the role of director of development for the company. In July 2007, however, Kaz seriously needed a break from the TV world so she accepted an offer to travel to Copenhagen and design video installation for a Danish/American theater production, sparking a relationship there with the NYC dance-theater company, Witness Relocation. Upon her return to NYC, Kaz decided to get serious about her filmmaking career and wrote, produced, directed and edited the original HD short FUGUE, an ambitious film shot by Reed Morano (FROZEN RIVER), which is currently out for consideration at fests. Now Kaz splits her time between designing video for Witness Relocation, being the head series and development writer for Superfine Films, chilling with her boyfriend and their three cats and plotting her next creative coup.

Sylvia Sether
In 2005 Sylvia wrote and directed her first short film SWAY, an experience that solidified her love of filmmaking. Since that time, she has worked in all aspects of production; everything from assisting on high profile music videos and television, to editing various projects. In addition, she directed the play The Indian Wants the Bronx that had a multi week run at the Complex Theater in Hollywood. Within the past year, she’s focused on honing her craft through directing edgy, highly stylized music videos for Indie rock bands such as Quarry Hill, Angie Mattson, Sabrosa Purr, and Matty Brown.

Kinga Suto
Kinga Suto began performing as a child at the nationally-acclaimed McArter Theater in New Jersey. Attending NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in Drama, Kinga studied at the Atlantic Theater under David Mamet and Felicity Huffman. Following that, Kinga was Director of Development for Penny Marshall’s company, Parkway Productions. Some of the projects Kinga developed while there are BEWITCHED, CINDERELLA MAN, and HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS STORY. In 2002 Kinga left feature film development to pursue writing and was given a first look deal by director Martin Campbell (CASINO ROYALE) where she co-created an episodic entitled GUARDIAN ANGELS. From there, Kinga co-wrote a feature spec, THE DONOR, which garnered attention from production companies such as Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions. Kinga also co-created a quirky teen movie, MR. PERFECT 6.0. During this time she was also auditioning for on-screen roles. In 2003 Kinga landed a recurring role on 10-8: OFFICERS ON DUTY. She has appeared in several national commercials (Zantac, Best Buy, Home Depot) including her most famous, the first girl geek in the hugely successful, Geek Squad Best Buy Ads. Kinga is also a regular presence on the Los Angeles comedy scene. She has performed at: The Groundlings, Upright Citizen’s Brigade (UCB), iO West and The Improv. In 2006, she co-wrote and performed a two person sketch show, I’m Just Not That Into Me. The infamous sketches, addressing a myriad of taboo social issues, earned Kinga an invitation to perform the show in NYC at The UCB Sketch Fest. Kinga is currently performing a new solo show, The D-Monster, at iO West, based on her experiences as a Hollywood development executive, which is also the inspiration for her AFI DWW short film. A book and feature-length screenplay version are also currently in the works.