Justin Chadwick

Chair of the Jury

Justin Chadwick is an award-winning British theater, television and film director. He is best known for critically acclaimed films including the Academy Award ®, BAFTA and Golden Globe-nominated Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013), the AFI and IFTA nominated The Other Boleyn Girl (2008); Tulip Fever (2017) and The First Grader (2010). His films have won numerous awards including the Audience Award at Durban International Film Festival, the Audience Prize for Best Film at Doha Tribeca Film Festival, both Best Director’s Choice and Audience Choice Awards at the Sedona Film Festival, and Best Feature Film at the Palm Beach Film Festival 2010. His award-winning short films include Boy (2011), Shakespeare Shorts (1996) and Family Style (1993). His recent credits include the Disney+ series Shardlake (2024), the upcoming film Sierra Madre starring Kiefer Sutherland, and Amazon’s Fear, currently in production.

Minhal Baig

Filmmaker

Minhal Baig is a filmmaker. Her latest feature, We Grown Now, about two boys growing up in a Cabrini-Green high rise, premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, awarded the TIFF Changemaker Award and Audience Award at Chicago International Film Festival and received Best Picture, Best Cinematography and Best Editing nominations for the 2024 Independent Spirit Awards. Sony Pictures Classics releases the film theatrically in spring 2024. Her previous feature, Hala, about a Pakistani-American Muslim teenager uncovering a secret about her family, premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and was released by Apple. She had a two-year overall writing-producing deal in television with Amazon, is a 2022 Sundance Momentum Fellow and a graduate of the 2022 WGA Showrunner Training Program. She also served as co-executive producer on Criminal, story editor on BoJack Horseman and staff writer on Peabody-award winning half-hour comedy Ramy. Her work has been supported by fellowships/residencies at Yaddo and The Black List. 

Elizabeth Gabler

President of 3000 Pictures

Elizabeth Gabler is the President of 3000 Pictures, a multi-media division at Sony Pictures Entertainment, which she formed in 2019. This company represents a partnership between Sony Pictures, HarperCollins Publishers, and what was formerly Fox 2000. 3000 Pictures focuses primarily on literary adaptations, both fiction and non-fiction for theatrical and streaming feature films, as well as television. The first film under the 3000 banner was the adaptation of the publishing phenomenon, Where the Crawdads Sing, which grossed more than $140 million globally. An adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover for Sony and Netflix premiered on the streamer and remained in the Global Top 10 for three weeks in a row, reaching over 60 million hours viewed. Upcoming for the label are Klara and the Sun, directed by Academy Award ® winner Taika Waititi, starring Jenna Ortega and Academy Award ® nominee Amy Adams, and based on Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel of the same name and People We Meet on Vacation, 3000 Pictures and Netflix’s feature adaptation of the New York Times bestselling novel by Emily Henry – the first of her novels to go into production – directed by Brett Haley, starring Tom Blyth and Emily Bader. Gabler began her career at International Creative Management before joining Columbia Pictures as a Creative Executive. In 1999, Gabler became President of Fox 2000 Pictures, a division of Twentieth Century Fox which shepherded such films as The Devil Wears Prada, The Hate U Give, Hidden Figures, and Life of Pi. Prior to this, Gabler also held the positions of Vice President of Production at United Artists and Senior Vice President at Twentieth Century Fox.

Jason Reitman

Academy Award ® - nominated filmmaker

Jason Reitman is an Academy Award ® -nominated filmmaker who most recently directed Saturday Night, a film he co-wrote with Gil Kenan. Reitman made his feature film debut with the 2006 Sundance hit Thank You For Smoking for which he won best screenplay at the Independent Spirit Awards. He notably earned Academy Award ® nominations for directing Juno and Up in the Air, the latter of which earned Reitman a WGA Award and BAFTA Award for Best Screenplay. Reitman has collaborated with screenwriter Diablo Cody on four critically acclaimed films, including Young Adult, Tully, and Jennifer’s Body. As a producer, Reitman oversaw four seasons of the Golden Globe nominated Hulu comedy series Casual. He also produced the Academy Award-winning film Whiplash and Jean-Marc Vallee's Demolition. In 2010, Reitman co-created the Live Read series with Elvis Mitchell, which ran for five seasons at LACMA where he also sat as an artist-in-residence. In 2020, during the height of the COVID pandemic, Reitman created and directed the Home Movie Princess Bride, raising over a million dollars for World Central Kitchen. In 2021, Reitman directed and co-wrote Ghostbusters: Afterlife with Gil Kenan, and in 2023, produced and co-wrote its sequel, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. In early 2024, Reitman assembled 35 prominent film directors in order to save the Westwood Village Theater.

Justin Chadwick

Chair of the Jury

Justin Chadwick is an award-winning British theatre, television and film director. He is best known for critically acclaimed films including the Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe-nominated Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013), the AFI and IFTA nominated The Other Boleyn Girl (2008); Tulip Fever (2017) and The First Grader (2010). His films have won numerous awards including the Audience Award at Durban International Film Festival, the Audience Prize for Best Film at Doha Tribeca Film Festival, both Best Director’s Choice and Audience Choice Awards at the Sedona Film Festival, and Best Feature Film at the Palm Beach Film Festival 2010. His award-winning short films include Boy (2011), Shakespeare Shorts (1996) and Family Style (1993). His recent credits include the upcoming Disney+ series Shardlake (2024) and Amazon’s Fear, currently in production.

Michael Barker

Co-President and Co-Founder of Sony Pictures Classics

Michael Barker is Co-President and Co-Founder of Sony Pictures Classics. Together with Tom Bernard, he has distributed some of the finest independent movies. Previously, he was an executive at the first modern-day specialized distribution company, United Artists (1980-1983), before co-founding Orion Classics (1983-1991) and Sony Pictures Classics. Over the span of his career, Barker has released prestigious films that have received 41 Academy Awards from 187 nominations, including Best Picture nominations for The Father, Call Me By Your Name, Whiplash, Amour, Midnight in Paris, An Education, Capote, Howards End, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Bernard and Barker have received numerous recognitions for their work, including being honored by the Directors Guild of America for their significant contributions in support of the industry, receiving the French Legion of Honor in acknowledgment of their continued contributions to French culture, the Spirit of Independence Award from Film Independent at the Los Angeles Film Festival and The Women in Film Beacon Award from Women in Film Los Angeles, in recognition of their unmatched support of female filmmakers throughout their careers. Barker currently serves as Co-Chairman on the Museum of the Moving Image Board of Directors, on the Entertainment Media and Technology Dean’s Advisory Board at the NYU Stern School of Business, and has in the past taught at the Columbia University School of the Arts and the University of Chicago. He was also inducted in the Texas Film Hall of Fame.

Tom Bernard

Co-President and Co-Founder of Sony Pictures Classics

Tom Bernard is Co-President and Co-Founder of Sony Pictures Classics. Together with Michael Barker, he has distributed some of the finest independent movies. Previously, he was the director of the first modern-day specialized distribution company, United Artists (1980-1983), before co-founding Orion Classics (1983-1991) and Sony Pictures Classics. Over the span of his career, Bernard has released prestigious films that have received 41 Academy Awards from 187 nominations, including Best Picture nominations for The Father, Call Me By Your Name, Whiplash, Amour, Midnight in Paris, An Education, Capote, Howards End, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Bernard and Barker have received numerous recognitions for their work, including being honored by the Directors Guild of America for their significant contributions in support of the industry, receiving the French Legion of Honor in acknowledgment of their continued contributions to French culture, the Spirit of Independence Award from Film Independent at the Los Angeles Film Festival and The Women in Film Beacon Award from Women in Film Los Angeles, in recognition of their unmatched support of female filmmakers throughout their careers. Bernard, a two-time Monmouth Arts honoree for his dedication to the arts, is the New Jersey State Film Commissioner, Co-Chair for the Asbury Park Music and Film Festival, and a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, the Count Basie Theatre Foundation Board of Directors, the Atlantic Highland Arts Council Advisory Board, and the Monmouth County Arts Council.

Rob Hardy

Cinematographer

Rob Hardy ASC, BSC is a British cinematographer, who has received acclaim for his groundbreaking work on Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018), and his ongoing collaboration with Alex Garland on Ex-Machina (2014), Annihilation (2018), Devs (2020), Men (2022) and the upcoming visceral epic Civil War (2024). He also won the BAFTA for cinematography on the powerful drama Boy A (2007) which was swiftly followed by the influential Red Riding 1974 (2009). Other credits include James Marsh's atmospheric Shadow-Dancer (2012) and the period piece Invisible Woman (2013) for Ralph Fiennes.

Unjoo Moon

Director

Unjoo Moon is a South-Korean born Australian director. She is known for her feature film I Am Woman (2020), which premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival and for which she received a Best Director nomination at the Australian Directors Guild and 9 Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards nominations, including Best Picture, and was awarded the inaugural Athena Breakthrough Award, sponsored by Netflix. After working as an on-air reporter for ABC TV, her passion for storytelling led her to the Australian Film Television & Radio School where she met her creative partner, Academy Award-winning cinematographer Dion Beebe. Together they founded the production company Deep Blue Pacific and moved to Los Angeles where Moon attended the American Film Institute, graduating with a Master of Fine Arts and the Franklin J Schaffner Directing Award. She has directed and produced many award-winning short films, music videos, commercials and documentaries, including The Zen of Bennett (2012), and is currently working on an adaptation of David Yoon's New York Times-bestselling debut novel Frankly in Love. She currently sits on the American Film Institute’s Alumni Council and is the chair of the inaugural Australian Film Television & Radio School Alumni Advisory Group.

Robert Primes

Director/cinematographer

Robert Primes ASC began as a documentary filmmaker and then became a commercial director/cinematographer. He became a TV and feature director of photography, shooting the first season of Thirtysomething (1989). He has received two Emmys for his work on My Antonia (1995) and the series Felicity (1998), as well as the American Society of Cinematographers award for MDs (2002), the first digitally shot show to win a major cinematography award. Primes has lobbied congress for artist’s rights and for a higher TV image quality standard and also represented cinematographers on the National Film Preservation Board. He taught cinematography at the American Film Institute for eight years and has served on the boards of the American Society of Cinematographers and the International Cinematographers’ Guild.

Kate Reid

Cinematographer

Kate Reid BSC is an award-winning cinematographer. After working as a camera assistant, she studied cinematography at the prestigious National Film and Television School, where she was the recipient of the Freddie Francis Scholarship. Kate’s recent credits include the upcoming second season of Apple TV+’s Silo, Steven Knight’s adaptation of Great Expectations (2023), HBO’s The Baby (2022) and The Nevers (2021), for which she received an American Society of Cinematographers nomination for Best Cinematography on a non-commercial Television series. Other credits include HBO’s Game of Thrones (2019), Amazon Prime’s Hanna (2019), BBC One’s Press (2018), Netflix’s Marcella (2016), The Closer We Get (2015), the Emmy Award-winning series Years of Living Dangerously (2014), and Ava DuVernay's Venus Vs. (2013). Kate’s films have screened in competition at international festivals including Sundance, Berlin and SXSW. She has won numerous Best Cinematography Awards for her short films, including the Underwire Award for Nazi Boots (2015). Kate was listed in Screen Daily & The British Film Commission’s Next Generation of UK Film Award Contenders 2020, and was named as one of 10 Directors of Photography in Definition Magazine’s 2018 list of Ascending Stars of Cinematography. She was invited to become a member of the British Society of Cinematographers the same year.