After getting an Anthropology degree from The University of Wisconsin Madison, Allison Amon, travelled extensively through Europe and North Africa, before settling down in New York City with her husband Paul to pursue a career in film production. She quickly found a job at Spots Films and fell in love with commercial storytelling process. After a spell of Freelance Producing and eager to spend more time outside in the mountains Allison moved West to Los Angeles where she became Head of Production at Palomar Pictures. Soon after she became partner, executive producer and co-owner of Chelsea Pictures and spent the next eighteen years shaping and developing the company into a world class Production Company winning awards at Sundance for The Queen of Versailles, an Emmy for the Branded content piece “Like a Girl" and many Cannes Lions amongst others.  Currently she is the EVP of development and sales at Bullitt, a company owned by The Russo Brothers and Justin Lin. She has served on the Mammoth Lakes Film Festival Jury for 4 years and loves to get outside and ski, run, ride her bike and hike in the beautiful Mountains of the Sierra. 

Documentary Features

Lindsey Bahr is currently a film reporter and critic for The Associated Press. Formally a writer at Entertainment Weekly, she has reported on all facets of the film business including the Academy Awards and other major award shows, film festivals, breaking news, trend stories, talent profiles, and box office analysis. Prior to Entertainment Weekly, Bahr was a contributing writer for The Atlantic, where she produced feature articles on movies, television and music. She is based in Los Angeles.

Documentary Features

Peter Baxter is a filmmaker and President and co-founder of the Slamdance Film Festival. Baxter has been responsible for developing Slamdance into an artist led community that supports and discovers new filmmakers. Alumni whose first work showed at Slamdance have gone on to earn over $13 billion at the Box Office. His latest documentary Spirit Game follows the Iroquois Nationals battle to win a world lacrosse championship and is described by Sports Illustrated as "a powerful story of identity, sovereignty and spirituality". Baxter grew up in Gloucestershire, England and lives in Los Angeles with his family.

Documentary Features

Shalini Dore has been an editor with Variety for a long time now. A former newspaperwoman, she transitioned to magazines with Variety, specializing in international entertainment. She has been to the Cannes Film Festival as well as Palm Springs, the Indian Film Festival Los Angeles and Napa Valley. Film festivals are places where we can discover little gems before they get adopted by the big distributors. Besides being the features news editor at Variety Dore is also the internship coordinator, a position that helps encourage the next generation of entertainment journalists.

Foreign Narrative Feature

Alonso Duralde is the Film Reviews Editor for TheWrap and Senior Programmer at Outfest. He also co-hosts the Linoleum Knife and Who Shot Ya? podcasts and regularly appears on What the Flick?! (TYT Network). Duralde is a consultant for the USA Film Festival/Dallas, where he spent five years as artistic director. He is the author of two books: “Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas” (Limelight Editions) and “101 Must-See Movies for Gay Men” (Advocate Books).

Foreign Narrative Features

Timothy Rhys is a writer and director who edits and publishes MovieMaker, which enjoys the largest circulation of any independent film magazine. He is the president of MovieMaker Media, LLC., Inc., and develops independent motion pictures through his production companies, Vagabond Pictures and Cold Open Pictures. Tim recently produced the feature thriller, Indiscretion, starring Academy Award-winner Mira Sorvino, and is currently producing the drama Sitiado with legendary film icon Peter Fonda. Tim is artistic director of the MovieMaker Institute, which has brought educational film programs around the world since 1997, and heads up MovieMaker Production Services, which assists independent producers. He serves on the board of the historic Hollywood Theater in Portland, Oregon, and divides his time between Los Angeles, Oregon, and New England.

Narrative Features

Scenery Samundra is an LA-based Music Supervisor and music programmer. She spent her youth in the punk scene of the SF Bay Area and later worked as a DJ at KDVS, while studying at UC Davis, showcasing underground artists and her cultural roots in Punjabi Bhangra music. She has worked as a programmer for the Sundance Institute’s Film Music Department, and as an assistant to veteran Music Supervisor, Tracy McKnight. In 2016, she worked for the inaugural David Lynch Foundation’s Festival of Disruption, with musical guests Robert Plant, Debbie Harry, St. Vincent, and Twin Peaks composer, Angelo Badalamenti. She currently works with UK Record label Tru Thoughts, produces for NTS Radio LA, and is a staff music writer for Culture Collide. Aside from working with highly acclaimed artists (Common, Lalah Hathaway, Robert Glasper, Thundercat, Flying Lotus, Daveed Diggs)  she’s also worked on music videos for artists such as Superfruit, Adrian Younge, and Grammy-winning artist Terrace Martin. Scenery remains true to her underground sensibilities - discovering and championing artists that push the envelope creatively.

Shorts

Ana Souza was born in Brazil and was raised in Amsterdam. She holds a BA in Film Studies from the University of Warwick and an MA from the University of Southern California. She is an Associate Programmer of short films for AFI FEST and the LA Film Festival, where she also served as an Associate Programmer of features last year. Her work in festivals has ranged from programming to industry relations, hospitality, and event production, in festivals including Sundance, Outfest, AFI FEST, the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles, Ambulante Documentary Festival, NALIP's Latino Media Fest and the No Budget Film Festival. Souza partnered with arts collective Non Plus Ultra to launch Nonplussed Fest, an underground music and shorts festival going into its third year. She was selected as a programming fellow for Film Independent’s Project Involve initiative in 2016. She has also produced a number of short films that have traveled to festivals around the world, including Esteban Arango’s “Blast Beat” which premiered in competition at Clermont-Ferrand and Terence Nance’s “They Charge For the Sun”. She is currently working at Sundance in the programming department. 

Shorts

Vincent Spano has played a wide range of roles in Studio and Indie films. Born in NYC, at eighteen, Spano was cast in The Black Stallion Returns. Spano then appeared as “The Sheik” in John Sayles' Baby It's You. To date, Spano has acted in more than fifty theatrical and television films. Other theatrical films include Amos Poe's Alphabet City; Creator, with Peter O'Toole; Alive, directed by Frank Marshall; and a comedic turn in John Landis' Oscar. Spano also starred in City of Hope, his second collaboration with Sayles. In television films, Spano won praise for his performance in the Steven Schachter-directed TNT movie, The Engagement Ring. He headlined Sci-Fi channel's Deathlands: Homeward Bound; starred in the Hallmark Channel mini-series, Pandemic, with Faye Dunaway and Eric Roberts; and in Lone Rider, a period western with Lou Diamond Phillips. Recently he starred in Hallmark's romantic comedy This Magic Moment. Films awaiting release are the modern-day fairy tale WonderWell with Carrie Fisher, and Christopher Coppola's Torch. Robert Moresco's Bent, with Andy Garcia & Sofia Vergara, recently opened in theaters. Spano directed In The Groove, an episode of HBO’s Tales from the Crypt; and the short film Bet Runner. He also directed, edited and produced the short, Tony & Bobby and co-directed, High Expectations. Both films were selected for the LA International Short Film Festival.

Foreign Features

Nicole Sperling is a Hollywood Correspondent for Vanity Fair. She has covered the business of Hollywood for close to two decades, most recently at Entertainment Weekly and The Los Angeles Times. Her coverage spans the awards circuit, film festivals, and breaking news and runs the gamut from celebrity profiles to trend stories and behind-the-scene features. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and three children but is often in Mammoth trying to make the most out of her season pass.

Narrative Features

Rachel Winter is the Academy Award®-nominated producer of the acclaimed film “Dallas Buyers Club.” Based on a true story, the powerful film earned six Academy Award® nominations including best picture, winning three of them including lead actor for Matthew McConaughey and supporting actor for Jared Leto.  The film also received accolades from the Producers Guild of America, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s Golden Globe Awards and the Broadcast Film Critics Association’s Critics Choice Awards.  Up next for Winter is producing William H. Macy’s directorial debut, the feature film “Krystal.” The dramedy follows a young man who has never had a drink in his life who, upon meeting the woman of his dreams - an ex-hooker-stripper-junkie-alcoholic, pretends to be in AA in an attempt to try and woo her.  Most recently, Winter produced the indie drama “Stealing Cars,” inspired by the true events associated with a tragic car accident that sends a rebellious teen spiraling downward into the grim injustice of the juvenile penal system. The film premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival and earned the festival’s Zeitgeist Award. Winter also has several project in development including the untitled LeBron James biopic for Universal, which she will produce with LeBron James and Maverick Carter, and a feature based on the life of daredevil motorcycle icon Evel Knievel at Paramount. Her previous film credits include the films “Brooklyn Rules,” “Wayward Son,” “Bury Me in Kern County” and “The Lather Effect.” On the television side, Winter has an overall first-look deal with A&E Networks to develop and produce scripted drama projects.

Narrative Features