WOMEN IN FILM SECOND TUESDAY
WELCOME with us our PNW filmmakers to chat about filmmaking and their features at SIFF2021: longtime WIF Seattle member, SJ Chiro, director of East of the Mountains, starring our own Tom Skerritt, with SJ’s Director of Photography on both her features, Sebastein Scandiuzzi; AND Wes Hurley, director of Potato Dreams of America; producers Sarah Crowe and Mischa Jacupcak, Women in Film Members; AND Nike Imoru, casting director for East of the Mountains and All Those Small Things. Other attendees TBD. Come join the conversation.
Join the conversation with host/moderator, Susan Lasalle, Directors Guild of America Unit Production Manager and features producer (bio below)
PANEL BIOs: SJ Chiro is a screenwriter and motion picture director, known for Lane 1974, (2017) her award-winning adaptation of “The Hypocrisy of Disco: A Memoir” by Clane Hayward. Filmed on location in Sonoma County, California, Lane 1974 was produced by Chiro, and Jennessa West. SJ Chiro directs Tom Skerritt in East of the Mountains, based on the novel by David Guterson (Snow Falling on Cedars), about a terminally ill, retired heart surgeon who journeys back to Eastern Washington to end his life. S.J. Chiro’s other credits include, Third Days Child (2008) and Howard From Ohio (2011).
Sebastien Scandiuzzi is a Seattle-based Cinematographer known for his work on Dark Drive (1997), Rocketmen (2017), Lane 1974 (2017) The Jinkx and DeLa Holiday Special (2020), and East of the Mountains (2020), screening at Seattle International Film Festival 2021.
Director Wes Hurley was born and raised in Vladivostok, Soviet Union. He studied drama, interdisciplinary arts and film at the University of Washington. Hurley has written, directed and produced dozens of award-winning queer shorts, three feature films and a two seasons of "Capitol Hill", a series he created for Huffington Post which went on to be picked up for television in Europe and Canada. Hurley is a recipient of Creative Capital Award, Seattle Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture Award, City Arts Magazine's Artist of the Year and Advocate Magazine's Person to Watch. His autobiographical documentary short "Little Potato" won Jury Prize at SXSW along with 27 other awards around the world. "Potato Dreams of America", a darkly-comedic and hyper-stylized coming of age feature closely based on Hurley's childhood premiered in Narrative Competition at SXSW 2021 and is now screening at SIFF.
Sarah Crowe has been producing documentaries, narratives, and commercials for nearly 15 years. She is presently a Senior Producer at Amazon working primarily on brand advertising. When not at Amazon, Sarah spends her time creating documentaries and supporting independent film in Washington, such as Lane 1974 (directed by SJ Chiro), Worst Laid Plans (directed by Mark Jones and Nesib Shamah), and is the Executive Producer on Potato Dreams of America. She produced Welcome to Doe Bay (directed by Nesib Shamah and Dan Thornton), an Emmy-nominated documentary that premiered at SIFF in 2102. Sarah's directorial debut is an international award-winning feature documentary Dyna Does Dressage that premiered at the Prescott Film Festival in 2107.
Mischa Jakupcak champions original and authentic stories in film, television, and virtual reality. Originally from Missoula, Montana, she earned a BA from the University of Arizona in Creative Writing and a MA in Filmmaking from the London Film School. She has worked on over thirty-five feature films and nine VR pieces. Her work has premiered at Sundance, SXSW, the Cartoon Network/Adult Swim, TIFF, SIFF, and AFI. Some of the projects she’s produced include The Off Hours, Little Potato, MOPZ and The Immortal Augustus Gladstone. She is a producer on East of the Mountains and Potato Dreams of America which premiered this year at SXSW as one of eight films in competition in the feature narrative section. Mischa wrote and directed the short film ‘]The Hero Pose which screened at over a hundred festivals and won dozens of awards. She has also written and directed several other short films including Kill Cash Cow Kill and Slow Moving Houses.
Nike Imoru, PhD, CSA. Nike (pronounced NEE-kay) is a British-Nigerian producer, casting director, actor, and writer. After a successful run in the titular role of Coriolanus (an all-female adaptation of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus), Nike partnered with entrepreneur-investor, Rebecca Petriello and co-founded Rebel Kat Film Fund, a film-finance company whose mission is to finance quality film and television that empowers the voices and stories of women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ, and people with disabilities.
In 2017 Nike was honored multiple times for her work on stage. The Seattle Times lauded all three of her performances in the Seattle Times Footlight Awards as “Actor Bringing It”. Nike has also appeared in cameo roles opposite Samuel Jackson in Home of the Brave, Tom Skeritt in At Middleton, Cary Elwes in Camilla Dickinson, and Ray Liotta, Ving Rhames, Christian Slater in The River Murders; and has cast films with/for John Carpenter, Wayne Wang, Vera Farmiga, Peter Dinklage, Antonio Banderas, Amber Heard, Cuba Gooding Jr, Tom Skerritt among others.
Nike is an established theatre academic, specializing in African American history, 19th and 20th century theatre history, critical and gender theories. She held posts at the Universities of Leeds and Hull in the UK; as well as Western Washington University and the University of Idaho. She has published essays on theatre and colonialism, feminism and race. Her PhD thesis, from the University of Warwick, UK is housed in the British Library.
When asked which she preferred: teaching, acting, casting, producing or writing, Nike replied: “I’m a life-long learner so I find most things endlessly fascinating … but I do tend to think and feel everything like an actor; which is a bit like being left handed in a right-handed world.”
Nike cast East of the Mountains and All Those Small Things, both screening at SIFF 2021.
MODERATOR BIO: Susan Lasalle is a DGA UPM and Sr. Producer at agency Kully Struble. Her work as a commercial producer has won Telly's, Addy's, and Davey awards. Highlights include the Academy Award winning documentary Deadly Deception, It's Your Choice: The Facts about Smoking (Discovery Channel), Full Disclosure (iTunes), and director Virginia Bogert's short film Tootie Pie, which airs every MLK Day (KCTS/PBS). Susan produced Mark Titus' feature documentary The Breach, about the plight of wild salmon and won Best Foreign Documentary at Galway Film Festival and a Top 10 at Palm Springs International Film Festival. Susan has produced and managed 3 feature narrative films: Switchmas (FoxTV), The 3 Tails: A Mermaid Adventure (Netflix) and The Gender Card (Showtime). She was Unit Production Manager on Bao Quoc Tran's feature The Paper Tigers now with theatrical release. Susan is a graduate of Evergreen State College, a board member of WIF Seattle and was a longtime board chair at Corporate Accountability International, working to protect human rights, public health, and the environment from corporate greed and abuse.