NARRATIVE FEATURE JURY

Devin Gordon joined GQ as a senior editor in 2010 and is now the magazine’s articles editor, covering a variety of subjects including popular culture, sports, and politics. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two children.

Dana Harris is the editor-in-chief of Indiewire. She has spent the last eighteen years covering indie film and has covered most of the world’s major film festivals.

Eric Lavallee is the founder, editor-in-chief, and film critic/journalist at IONCINEMA.com. A regular at Sundance, Cannes, and TIFF, Eric is currently based out of Montreal.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE JURY

As managing editor of Movieline and previously Indiewire, Brian Brooks covers the U.S. and international film scene. He also contributes for Deadline.com and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.


Elvis Mitchell is the Film Independent curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and has hosted “The Treatment,” since KCRW first aired the program in 1996.



Maria Popova (@brainpicker) is the founder of Brain Pickings (brainpickings.org), an inventory of cross-disciplinary interestingness. She has written for Wired UK, The Atlantic, and The New York Times and is an MIT fellow.

SHORTS PROGRAM JURY

Cullen Conly serves as manager of the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program, where he is responsible for outreach, selection, and artist support for the Screenwriters, Directors, and New Frontier Story Labs.

Natalie Difford runs the Fellowships at Cinereach, a not-for-profit production company and film foundation. She is also SXSW alum as producer for GIMME THE LOOT ‘12.


Jonathan Lisecki is the writer and director of the feature film Gayby (SXSW 2012, Independent Spirit Award nominee) and the short films Woman in Burka and Gayby.

DOCUMENTARY SHORTS JURY

Brian Ackerman is the founding Programming Director of the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York, one of the nation's leading film centers for independent, foreign and documentary cinema, and innovative film education for children. Opening in 2001, the Jacob Burns has played more than 5000 films--with hundreds of guest speakers--to over 2 million visitors. Brian Ackerman has been in the film industry for over 25 years, and has worked in commercial, arthouse and not-for-profit exhibition in New York.

Nancy Schiesari’s credits include PBS Tattooed Under Fire, and Independent Lens, “Hansel Mieth-Vagabond Photographer.” and an Emmy nomination for best cinematography on The Human Face, producer, John Cleese.

Two-time Sundance winning director Ondi Timoner's films include DIG!, We Live in Public, Join Us, and Cool It. She is currently producing web-series A TOTAL DISRUPTION, and BYOD which she hosts.

ANIMATED SHORTS JURY

Don Hertzfeldt is an Academy-Award nominated American independent filmmaker whose work has screened around the world, collectively receiving over 200 awards. He recently completed his first animated feature film, It’s Such a Beautiful Day.

Austin Kleon is a writer who draws. He’s the bestselling author of Steal Like An Artist and Newspaper Blackout. Visit him online at www. austinkleon.com.



Dana Wheeler-Nicholson has been acting for 30 years in film and television. She appears in When Angels Sing and Winter In the Blood, and is also an accomplished singer who performs regularly in Austin.

MIDNIGHT SHORTS JURY

Aram Tertzakian is a founding partner at XYZ Films, an LA-based production and sales company focused on elevated genre films with broad appeal.

Zack Carlson

Kim Sherman is a celebrated producer whose films include festival favorites A Teacher (dir. Hannah Fidell), Sun Don’t Shine (dir. Amy Seimetz), and the highly anticipated home invasion thriller, You’re Next (dir. Adam Wingard).

MUSIC VIDEOS JURY

King Coffey has played drums with the Butthole Surfers for the past 30 years and ran the Austin based Trance Syndicate record label.



Benjamin Wintle is a 31-year old music blogger based in Austin, TX. He has been writing about music in and around the city for five years.



Nat Sanders is a film editor whose credits include Medicine for Melancholy, Humpday, Your Sister’s Sister, Our Idiot Brother and Short Term 12.

TEXAS HIGH SCHOOL SHORTS JURY

Emily Hagins is the writer/ director of four feature films--an accomplishment she achieved by the age of twenty. Her most recent film, GROW UP, TONY PHILLIPS is premiering this year at SXSW.


Bart Weiss is an award-winning filmmaker who is mostly widely recognized as the founder/director of the Dallas Videofest. Weiss also teaches film courses at UT Arlington and produces the show Frame of Mind for KERA TV.

Cole Dabney is the founder and former president of the Austin Film Critics Association. An Austin native and University of Texas graduate, he now directs and produces full-time.

LOUIS BLACK / LONE STAR JURY

Chris Vognar is the movie critic at the Dallas Morning News. He was the 2009 Nieman Arts and Culture Fellow at Harvard University.



Ann Hornaday is the chief film critic at The Washington Post. Before coming to the Post, she was the film critic at the Baltimore Sun and the Austin American-Statesman.




A lifelong Texan, Victor Diaz is a film reporter and critic for Austin’s 24-hour local news station, YNN. Each week his “Lone Star Scene” segment covers Texas connections to the film industry.

TITLE SEQUENCE DESIGN JURY

Paul Babb is president and CEO of MAXON, developers of CINEMA 4D; widely recognized as a leading 3D application for motion graphics, special effects and visualization.



Ian Albinson is the founder and editor-in-chief of Art of the Title, and a principal of the motion design studio Albinson Design.




Kurt Volk is the lead graphic designer for Robert Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios. His work includes main titles, graphics, books and poster art for such films as Grindhouse, Predators, Sin City 1 and 2, Machete, and Machete Kills.

POSTER DESIGN JURY

Zachary Soreff is the EVP of Sawyer Studios, which provides full service creative, media and marketing services exclusively to the entertainment industry. Current clients include IFC, Magnolia Pictures, Samuel Goldwyn Films, Cinedigm, Tribeca Film, PBS and HBO.

Danny Parker is an independent art director and graphic designer for various Los Angeles theatrical advertising agencies. He is also founder and creative director of Mod Cartel design collective.



Kurt Volk is the lead graphic designer for Robert Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios. His work includes main titles, graphics, books and poster art for such films as Grindhouse, Predators, Sin City 1 and 2, Machete, and Machete Kills.


Tim League and his wife Karrie founded the Alamo Drafthouse in 1997. League also co-founded Fantastic Fest, the largest genre film festival in the United States and launched Drafthouse Films, a distribution label committed to releasing provocative, visionary and artfully unusual films from around the world.