Inspired by her formative training with the Pacific Film Archive, Laura Thielen has been creating festival experiences for over 30 years. She served as Program Director for the San Francisco Film Society, producer of the San Francisco International Film Festival, before moving to Colorado to become Executive Director of Aspen Film, presenter of Aspen Filmfest and Aspen Shortsfest. Laura has taught, lectured, and written about film. She has served on juries for the NEA, Colorado Creative Industries, Rockefeller and MacArthur Foundations, and festivals, such as Sundance and San Francisco. After 20 years with Aspen Film, she left last fall to develop new projects that connect audiences with filmmakers and their work. As program consultant, her clients include the Boulder International Film Festival and Hawai'i European Cinema. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, Laura also holds a Masters in Communication Arts  (Film History, Theory and Criticism) from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Needless to say, she has logged in countless hours of screen time in pursuit of her passion.

SHARON BADAL is vice president of filmmaker relations and shorts programming for Tribeca. She has been with the festival since its inception in 2001 and has produced special projects for Tribeca since 1999. She has produced numerous live-events, worked in distribution and marketing for 3 studios and, since 1994, has been on the faculty at New York University Tisch School of the Arts. She is the author of "Swimming Upstream - A Lifesaving Guide to Short Film Distribution," published by Focal Press.

Dilcia Barrera is the Associate Curator of Film Programs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and a Short Film Programmer for Sundance Film Festival. Since 2007, she has worked for numerous film festivals including The Los Angeles Film Festival and Outfest and has previously served as Senior Programmer at AFI FEST, Programmer for The Philadelphia Film Festival, and a screener for the Sundance Institute's Documentary Film Program. A Los Angeles native, Dilcia has a Spanish/Portuguese Literature degree from UCLA.

Clint Bowie is the director of programming for the New Orleans Film Society, where he has worked since 2010. In this role, he oversees the curation of all of the organization's year-round programming, including the New Orleans French Film Festival and the Oscar-qualifying New Orleans Film Festival, now in its 27th year. He has served on film juries at Denver Film Festival, Florida Film Festival, Dallas International Film Festival, Cleveland International Film Festival, and International Film Festival Boston.

Dan Brawley is the Executive Director of Cucalorus, an international celebration of filmmaking in Wilmington, North Carolina founded in 1994 by Twinkle Doon. Cucalorus screens more than 250 films with a range of multi-disciplinary programs focusing on dance, social justice, cocktails, performance, and more. MovieMaker Magazine has recognized Cucalorus for three years in a row as one of the "25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World." From their headquarters at Jengo's Playhouse, Cucalorus operates a growing residency program supporting emerging artists. Dan is the past-Chair of the Board of Alternate ROOTS, an organization supporting artists working for social justice. Dan graduated cum laude from Duke University, where he was an Academic All-American on the varsity golf team.

Landon Zakheim is a short film programmer for the Sundance Film Festival, head shorts programmer for LA Film Festival and senior programmer for the Philadelphia Film Festival. Among other festival positions, he served as a lead programmer for AFI FEST and created a site-specific horror fest in Colorado that ran for three years. His two short films, DELMER BUILDS A MACHINE (2010) and ANOTHER BULLET DODGED (2011) screened at over 60 festivals around the world.