Festival Jury

The 2009 Online New England Film Festival jury is comprised of an esteemed list of filmmakers (still being updated).

Karen Aqua has been making animated films since her graduation from Rhode Island School of Design in 1976. Her award-winning films have been screened worldwide, at festivals in Europe, Asia, North and South America, New Zealand, and the Middle East. She has received fellowships from the American Film Institute, the MacDowell Colony, Millay Colony for the Arts, Fundación Valparaíso (Spain), New England Film/Video Fellowship Program, the LEF Foundation, Berkshire Taconic Trust, and the Puffin Foundation. Aqua has taught animation at Boston College and Emerson College, and at workshops and residencies around the United States. She has served as a juror for major animation and film festivals in Japan, the US, and Canada, and has presented numerous one-person screenings of her work at museums and universities throughout the United States. In 2005, a special program of Aqua's animated films was presented at the Tehran International Animation Festival, Iran. Since 1990 she has directed and animated 22 segments for the acclaimed television program Sesame Street.

Kevin Anderton, of Midnight Chimes Productions, is an award winning short comedy creator from Boston whose work has been featured at film festivals, on the Internet, on broadcast television, and on video phones worldwide. He holds an MFA in communications from Boston University and has worked on projects such as David Breashears’ Kilimanjaro: To The Roof of Africa and The Good Son. Aside from creating over 80 short comedies since 2002, Kevin has three feature scripts, three reality shows, four sitcoms, and 100 short scripts, some of which have been considered by Saturday Night Live or licensed to local independent filmmakers. His shorts have been viewed on the Internet over 19 million times since 2007. A list of festivals, press coverage, and a complete listing of his viewable shorts are available on his website. www.midnightchimesproductions.com

Scott R. Caseley is a graduate of Franklin Pierce University. After his first feature Trust Fall, he worked in the industry as everything from a production assistant to 1st Assistant Director on a number of films in the greater New England area. He directed the feature film Larry’s Home Video, a documentary called Unconditional Love, and several episodes of a cable television program called Hollywood New England.

Lauren Ivy Choing began her filmmaking career in New England at Boston University, where she completed her graduate studies in film production. Her thesis film was the short comedy Holy Tortilla, which won 13 awards including Best Student Film at the New England Film & Video Festival and went on to receive a national broadcast on PBS and screen in over 40 festivals worldwide. Her short film Testament, which won the Massachusetts Media Fellowship, received multiple awards in the online Zoie Film Festival, and screened at numerous international festivals. Her screenplay Van Gogh/Gauguin, which she plans to direct, was recognized as a finalist in Showtime's Tony Cox Screenwriting Awards at the Nantucket Film Festival and in the LA Femme Film Festival Screenplay Competition, and was also honored in Creative Screenwriting Magazine’s AAA Screenwriting Competition. www.laurenivychiong.com

Michael Civille is on the faculty in the Film department at Boston College. He worked in the New York City independent film industry for several years before writing, producing, and directing his debut feature, The Deer & The Cheetah. His most recent short film, After June, appeared at the Tribeca Film Festival, Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films, and the St. Louis International Film Festival, among others.

Beth Curran is on the Board of Directors of the Chlotrudis Society for
Independent Film, a Boston-based nonprofit group which holds as its mission "to honor and support independent and foreign films and their audiences. By distinguishing creative, quality films, the Chlotrudis Society seeks to encourage moviegoers to seek out and support non-mainstream film, to educate audiences on viewing films actively, and to encourage discussion and exchange between those interested in independent film." She is also a writer, currently at work on her second screenplay.

Marc Dole is the founder of Hatchling Studios. He began his career in the late 1980s as a commercial and documentary director and editor. Marc switched his focus to Multimedia and Computer Animation in the early 1990s due to emerging technologies in computer graphics. Marc has spent the past 15 years working with local and national clients and advertising agencies to provide animation and special effects for film and television. Hatchling has produced numerous animated shorts including The Toll, which screened at festivals internationally, and is in pre-production on the feature film Flare. www.hatchlinganimation.com

Mark Edgington is a graduate of Yale and the NYU Graduate Film program. His first film, The Death of Mr. Frick & Other Hardships was selected for the Channel Four (UK) Young Filmmaker of the Year competition and won numerous awards. His film Anna in the Sky was called "haunting" by The New York Times and premiered at Sundance, in addition to 70 international film festivals. His feature script, Satellites, won the $25,000 Minnesota Independent Film Fund Award. He also co-wrote the feature film Sunburn, which premiered at the 1999 Toronto International Film Festival and introduced Cillian Murphy to film audiences. www.ninetintspictures.com

Lorre Fritchy founded MasterPeace Productions in 1997 to support her debut documentary Sandy 'Spin' Slade: Beyond Basketball, a Creative Award of Merit winner now available through National Film Network. She Executive Produced The Gay Marriage Thing documentary, currently distributed through The Cinema Guild. Her writing has been optioned by international producers and she has been a finalist and winner in national script competitions. Fritchy's latest project is her feature film writing-directing debut Millies. www.MilliesMovie.com

Ellie Lee is a director and producer of documentary, fiction, and animated films. Her 35mm short films, Repetition Compulsion and Dog Days, have screened in over 100 film festivals worldwide, including the Berlin Film Festival, and have been broadcast throughout North America and Europe on Canal +, Arte, P.O.V., and the Independent Film Channel. She has received three dozen fellowships and awards, including a Media Arts Fellowship from the Rockefeller/Ford Foundation, and has been nominated four times for National Emmy Awards.

Michele Meek is the founder and publisher of NewEnglandFilm.com, as well as a filmmaker. Her most recent film Red Sneakers premiered at the Woods Hole Film Festival in 2008 and received second place in the children's category at the Rhode Island International Film Festival. She has received numerous accolades for her filmmaking and publishing work including the 2005 Baldwin Award for Alumni Recognition in Film & Video by Boston College and the 2000 Image Award for Vision and Excellence by Women in Film & Video New England. www.michelemeek.com

Kate Raisz is an award-winning producer, director, and writer with 20 years of experience in broadcast television. She launched 42°N Films in 2001 and her credits include National Geographic Television, the Discovery Channel, PBS, The History Channel and Animal Planet. For additional information go to www.42degreesnorth.com

Lucia Small has been an independent filmmaker for over 15 years. In 2002, Small premiered My Father, The Genius, her feature documentary directorial debut, which garnered several top film festival awards, including Grand Jury Prizes for the Best Documentary and Best Editing at the Slamdance Film Festival. In 2005, Small teamed up with seminal documentary filmmaker Ed Pincus to form Pincus & Small Films. They are currently in post-production on their first collaboration The Axe in the Attic, a story of Katrina evacuees. Pincus & Small Films in association with Small Angst Films is developing several projects, including Genius II and War Stories I and II, which received a pre-production grant from the LEF Foundation.
www.smallangstfilms.com

Valerie Weiss is a critically-acclaimed, award-winning writer and director who recently completed the prestigious American Film Institute (AFI) Directing Workshop for Women where she directed the short film, Transgressions. Transgressions has been described as A Clockwork Orange meets Pleasantville and has won numerous awards including a BAFTA Student Film Award. Valerie is the founder of the independent film company, PhD Productions. PhD Productions is currently setting up its feature production, Losing Control, about a female scientist applying scientific thinking to her love-life to determine if her boyfriend is “the one.” In 1999, she founded Harvard University’s renowned Dudley Film Program and served as its Filmmaker-in-Residence and Film Festival Director through 2003. Valerie received her PhD in biophysics from Harvard University Medical School. She began her directing career while an undergraduate student at Princeton University. In 2007, Dr. Weiss has been honored as a member of the L’Oreal Panel For Women in Science with astronaut Sally Ride and as a member of the Newsweek Advisory Committee for Women in Leadership along with Laura Ziskin (Spiderman Trilogy) and Lauren Shuler Donner (X-men Trilogy).