Carlos Aguilar

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Originally from Mexico City, Carlos Aguilar was chosen as one of 6 young film critics to partake in the first Roger Ebert Fellowship organized by RogerEbert.com, the Sundance Institute and Indiewire in 2014. Aguilar’s work has appeared in prestigious publications such as Los Angeles Times, Variety, The New York Times, The Wrap, Indiewire, Vulture, RogerEbert.com, MovieMaker Magazine, Remezcla, Filmmaker Magazine, Slate, Bustle, Americas Quarterly, among others. He is a member of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA).

Caitlin Mae Burke

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Caitlin Mae Burke is the supervising producer for IF/Then Shorts, a fund and mentorship program for short documentary films at Field of Vision. An inaugural inductee into DOC NYC’s 40 Under 40 and alumna of Berlinale Talents, Caitlin’s Emmy-winning work as a producer and director has been broadcast and screened in movie theaters internationally.

Chyna Robinson

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Director, producer, and writer, Chyna Robinson has amassed several national and international awards since making a switch from theater to film in 2017. In addition to her narrative projects, Chyna has produced and directed several commercial projects, and has recently began writing for episodic television.

Verton Banks

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Verton R. Banks is best known as the diligent medical intern Vernon on the HBO comedy Getting On. Now appearing in Quentin Lee's sci-fi quarantine comedy, Comisery, on Amazon Prime. Notable TV appearances include the new Hulu show Dollface starring Kat Dennings produced by Margot Robbie, FX’s Snowfall, and the final season of the Eastsiders on Netflix.

Grace Barber-Plentie

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Grace Barber-Plentie is a UK-based film programmer and writer, with a focus on films directed by black women and depictions of fatness onscreen.

Sarah-Tai Black

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Sarah-Tai Black is a film programmer, arts curator, writer, and critic from Toronto, ON. She currently works alongside the programming teams at True/False Film Festival and Tribeca Film Festival; previously held the role of Programmer at Images Festival; as well as worked as a part of TIFF’s festival programming team. Her writing and criticism has been published on platforms such as The Globe and Mail, CinemaScope, MUBI Notebook, cléo journal, and TIFF's The Review.

Jim Brunzell

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Jim Brunzell III was born in the 70's, played sports in the 80's, went to school in the 90's, and started working on film festivals in the 2000's. He is the Artistic Director for the All Genders, Lifestyles and Identities Film Festival (aGLIFF) in Austin, TX and the festival director for the music/film/art festival Sound Unseen in Minneapolis, MN, which has been named "One of the 25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World" by Moviemaker Magazine in 2016 & 2019. He has served on numerous film festival juries and is a big sports nerd.

Milan Chakraborty

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Milan Chakraborty is a 15-year veteran of the film industry after a career as an auditor/Certified Public Accountant and currently resides in Chattanooga, TN. After 5 years at Warner Bros in production finance and accounting, Milan left the studios to focus on independent films, and has since produced 15+ features including MY FRIEND DAHMER. He was also an Executive Producer for the Sam Levinson directed film, ASSASSINATION NATION, which premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Most recently, he was an Exec Producer for THE DARK & THE WICKED, written and directed by Bryan Bertino (THE STRANGERS) which was to world premiere at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival and will open on Nov 6.

Sav Rodgers

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Sav Rodgers is a narrative and documentary filmmaker. His work tends to center on the queer experience through a comedic or personal lens. He is the director of CHASING CHASING AMY, a feature documentary about the cultural impact of Chasing Amy (1997) on the greater LGBTQ+ community and the profound, lasting impact on himself. Sav also delivered a TED Talk about Chasing Amy’s impact on his life, titled “The rom-com that saved my life.” In 2019, he received the Filmmaker of the Year Award at the Austin Revolution Film Festival.

Carlos Valladares

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Carlos Valladares is a writer, critic, and video essayist from South Central Los Angeles, California. He studied film at Stanford and began his PhD in History of Art and Film & Media Studies at Yale in fall 2019. He is a columnist for Gagosian Quarterly and writes for the San Francisco Chronicle, n+1, Film Comment, and Notebook MUBI.

Soraya McDonald

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Soraya Nadia McDonald is the award-winning cultural critic for The Undefeated, ESPN’s premiere platform covering race, sports, and culture. She writes about film, television, and the arts. She is the 2020 winner of the George Jean Nathan prize for dramatic criticism, a 2020 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism, and the runner-up for the 2019 Vernon Jarrett Medal for outstanding reporting on black life.

Soraya is a contributing editor for Film Comment and has contributed criticism to Fresh Air with Terry Gross.

Jasmine Sanders

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Jasmine Sanders is a writer from the South Side of Chicago.

Stephen Kearse

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Stephen Kearse is a reporter and critic.

Willow Maclay

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Willow Catelyn Maclay is a film critic and co-author of the upcoming book "Corpses, Fools and Monsters: An Examination of Transgender Cinema".

Jourdain Searles

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Jourdain Searles is a screenwriter, comedian and film critic from Augusta, Georgia. She has been living in New York City since 2014, eventually getting her MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts in 2016.

Blair McClendon

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Blair McClendon is a filmmaker, editor, and writer. His film work has played at festivals around the world, and he was most recently an editor on The Assistant. Like many others he lives in New York City.

Yasmina Price

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Yasmina Price is a writer, researcher and PhD student at Yale University whose work is focused on anti-colonial African cinema and the experimental visual practices women across the Black diaspora. Recent writing has appeared in the New York Review of Books, The New Inquiry, and Social Text Online.

Raven Jackson

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A native of Tennessee, Raven Jackson is an award-winning filmmaker, poet, and photographer. Her work often explores landscapes of indefinable experiences and emotions, as well as the body’s relationship to nature. She is currently in development for her debut narrative feature, all dirt roads taste of salt, which lyrically explores the life of a Black woman in Tennessee and has received support from Cinereach, SFFILM, IFP, Tribeca Film Institute, New Orleans Film Society, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, and Westridge Foundation. The film was also selected for the Ikusmira Berriak Residency in San Sebastián, Spain, and was handpicked by Barry Jenkins for Indie Memphis’ 2019 Black Filmmaker Residency in Screenwriting.

Rogan Graham

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Rōgan is currently a freelance film journalist and programmer. With the slowly shifting mentality towards women and people of colour in the film industry, Rōgan finds that pursuing the avenues of criticism and programming vital to changing the ways films from underrepresented groups are showcased to wide audiences.

Sydney Zahradka

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Sydney Zahradka is a programmer who has programmed, screened, and worked for many film festivals around the country, including the Milwaukee Film Festival, Mill Valley Film Festival, and most recently the Sundance Film Festival.

Robert Daniels

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Robert Daniels (he/him) is a freelance film critic who holds an MA in English. He is the founder of 812filmreviews, and is a contributor to RogerEbert.com, Polygon, ThePlaylist, IGN, and Consequence of Sound. He is a member of AAFCA, and values representation and diversity, and can always be found at a coffee shop.