Jury 2018

Vanessa Erazo has always been a big film fan. Growing up bilingual, she eventually discovered the rich variety of Latino films but noticed they were hard to find. The search for these movies led her to work for Latino film festivals in San Francisco, New York, and Mexico City. After receiving an M.A. in Latin American Studies from New York University, she served as the Documentary Programmer at the New York International Latino Film Festival and is now the Editor of the Film section at Remezcla. She is also the Co-Director and Co-Founder of Cinelandia, an online guide to Latino films playing across the U.S.

Born in Buenos Aires and based in Los Angeles, Gabriel Lerman has been writing about Ibero-American films for the Hispanic US market for over 25 years. A longtime correspondent of the daily La Vanguardia in Barcelona, he votes the Golden Globes, currently writes for Mexico, Argentina and Honduras, and has an editing job in Spanish with The New York Times. 

As the Director of Programming at Outfest, Lucy Mukerjee oversees the curation of three of the country's most prominent LGBTQ film festivals, Outfest Los Angeles, Outfest Fusion and NewFest, and also helms various year-round educational programs dedicated to increasing the visibility of the queer community within the entertainment industry. Lucy's extensive industry background includes having produced two dozen theatrical feature films, predominately for Lionsgate and Warner Bros. She is a two-time Film Independent fellow, and a member of BAFTA and the Producers Guild of America. She can regularly be found moderating discussions about queer cinema and speaking at panels and events for various media outlets, institutions and universities. Lucy's most recent feature film Jack Of The Red Hearts won the Grand Jury Prize at Geena Davis' inaugural Bentonville Film Festival, and was released in theaters nationwide in 2016.

Nathan Lee is a critic and curator based in Providence, RI. A former film critic for the New York Times and Village Voice, he is a longtime writer for Film Comment magazine and is currently writing a PhD dissertation at Brown University on the relation of digital cinema to theories of critique.

Marco Lombardi (Turin, 1962). Movie critic (for the daily newspaper IL MESSAGGERO, RADIO FLASH and RAI UNO-CINEMATOGRAFO), professor (at Suor Orsola Benincasa University of Neaples and La Sapienza University of Rome), novelist ("I nuovi amici", "Terremotività"). In the past he has written for other daily newspapers ("L'Unità" and "Il Sole24ore") and has been the author and conductor of radio and TV programs for RAI (Radio2, Radio3, Rai Futura). He is also food critic writing for GAMBERO ROSSO and publishing two essays ("Cinegustologia" and "Gustose visioni"). He has worked on the selection of first movies for the Venice Film Festival and is Cinegustologia Film Festival director.

Amber Wilkinson is a Scottish-based journalist with more than 20 years print, online and broadcast experience. She co-founded the Eye For Film website and has helped it grow into a leading UK film publication that is respected around the world. As a member of FIPRESCI, she has served on several festival juries and has organised and run FIPRESCI mentoring programmes for young journalists. She has also contributed on a freelance basis for outlets including the Daily Record, The Age, The National and Filmmaker Magazine.

Shaz Bennett is a writer, director, storyteller. On her way to being a full time filmmaker (ALASKA IS A DRAG) and writer of television (THE GLADES, UnREAL, BOSCH) -­ Shaz worked in a fish cannery; bartended at a mafia bar; was a film programmer at Sundance, LA Film Festival and AFI FEST; peddled liquor undercover; developed films for actor Giancarlo Esposito; and was Cher's stand-in for a day. Her films and performance pieces have been seen in festivals, theatres, museums and abandoned warehouses all over the United States, Mexico, Canada, South Africa and Europe. One of 8 women selected to the prestigious AFI Directing Workshop for Women, nominated as one of Fox's Top 20, Sundance Screenwriting Labs with director Crystal Moselle (THE WOLFPACK), and Fox's inaugural Franchise Directing program (DIE HARD). Shaz's debut feature film ALASKA IS A DRAG starring Martin L. Washington Jr, Maya Washington, Matt Dallas, Christopher O'Shea, Jason Scott Lee, Margaret Cho, John Fleck, Kevin Daniels, Nia Peeples, Adam Tomei - is on the festival circuit now including the Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Mali Elfman made her first micro-budget feature film DO NOT DISTURB which began her career.  Since then she's produced BEFORE I WAKE, TUPPERWARE PARTY, FUN SIZE HORROR: VOLUME ONE and VOLUME TWO and worked on THE ASHRAM and BITCH. She is one of the Co-Founders and Head of Production at Fun Size Horror.

She also produced Mark Danielewski's "The Fifty Year Sword" at the REDCAT for 3 years and considers herself a lover of all things genre.

Eric Kohn is the New York-based Deputy Editor & Chief Critic at Indiewire, where he has worked since 2007. In addition to overseeing operations for IndieWire's New York film team, he reviews numerous films throughout the year and reports on the industry. Kohn travels to film festivals around the globe, interviews filmmakers, and manages Indiewire's network for professional film critics, the Criticwire Network. He also oversees the Critics Academy initiative, a series of educational workshops for aspiring entertainment journalists, and teaches film criticism at NYU. Prior to joining Indiewire, Eric contributed to The New York Times and other outlets.

Farihah Zaman is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker, critic, and programmer who is currently the Production Manager for Field of Vision. She began working in the industry as the Acquisitions Manager for indie film distribution company Magnolia Pictures in 2006. Her first feature film is the award-winning documentary Remote Area Medical, followed by the short Kombit (2014 Sundance Film Festival) and second feature This Time Next Year (2014 Tribeca Film Festival). She currently writes for Reverse Shot, Huffington Post, Film Comment, and The A.V. Club, among others.

Jennifer Cochis is the new Director of the Los Angeles Film Festival. In addition to her curatorial work, Jennifer has produced critically acclaimed films, both fiction (James Ponsoldt's Smashed and Drake Doremus's Douchebag) and non-fiction (Marius Markevicius's The Other Dream Team and Elise Salomon's Los Wild Ones). She is a Sundance Institute Creative Producers Lab Fellow and was awarded the Sheila C. Johnson Fellowship. She is also a director and content creator, most recently for Vanity  Fair, GQ, Wired, Self, The Scene and Teen Vogue. Prior to running the LA Film Festival, Jennifer was the Digital Studio Head for Joss Whedon's SAVE THE DAY, a super PAC that created short works aimed towards getting people out to vote.

J. Andrew Greenblatt is a film producer and Festival director.  He has served as Executive Director of the Philadelphia Film Society (PFS), producers of the Philadelphia Film Festival, since 2008. Prior to PFS, Greenblatt began his career in the entertainment industry with Film 101 Productions before venturing out on his own.  He has produced four feature documentaries and seven narrative feature films.

Marcie Hume is a Senior Executive Producer at A&E, developing new series and overseeing current programs. She is also a documentary filmmaker, and her feature documentary Magicians played at PSIFF last year. She is currently developing new groundbreaking documentary TV series at A&E, and for the last year and a half has also been making an independent documentary about Corey Feldman.