Jury
Jorge Alfaro
Jorge Alfaro is a Los Angeles-based Film and TV producer and executive. After years working in private and investment banking for Merrill Lynch, Jorge moved to the film industry to work in acquisitions and distribution at the Mexican company Cinépolis. He graduated from Columbia University’s MFA in Creative Producing program with a prior education in applied mathematics, economics and finance. After his Masters, he worked at companies such as Wild Bunch, Magnolia Pictures, Salma Hayek’s Ventanarosa, Eugenio Derbez’s 3Pas Studios and El Estudio, a pan-regional production company operating out of Los Angeles, Mexico City, Buenos Aires and Madrid, serving as Director of Creative Affairs overseeing their entire feature film pipeline. Over the past few years he held the position of Director of Development & Production at Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, based in Santa Monica, CA, where he developed and oversaw numerous films for the studio while continuing working with A-list creators, filmmakers and talent. After years in the studio system he decided to go on his own to create a company that will reshape the future of Hollywood. Born in Mexico City, he has a passion for powerful, character-driven narratives and classical storytelling.
Bilge Ebiri
Bilge Ebiri is a film critic for New York Magazine and Vulture. His work has also appeared in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, the Village Voice, Bloomberg Businessweek, and the Criterion Collection.
Ellie Foumbi
Ellie Foumbi is an award-winning Cameroonian-American filmmaker whose debut film, Our Father, the Devil, went on to win 23 prizes at international film festivals and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award in the Best Feature category. She's a BAFTA Breakthrough USA Fellow and was named one of 25 New Faces of Independent Film by Filmmaker Magazine. Ellie’s stories often explore pressing social-political issues within the African diaspora, aiming to shine a light on marginalized populations whose voices are seldom heard or included.
Soo-Jeong Kang
Soo-Jeong Kang is the Executive Director of Programming and Development at The New Yorker. She founded and programs The New Yorker Documentary series, which has been celebrated for its culturally diverse storytelling. Under Kang’s leadership, The New Yorker won its first Emmy Award and has received numerous other honors for its visual storytelling, including multiple Edward R. Murrow Awards, National Magazine Awards, and SPD Awards. To date, fifteen New Yorker films have been nominated for an Oscar, with a record five nominations in every shorts category in 2023. Previously she was an Executive Producer at The New York Times.
Soheil Rezayazdi
Soheil Rezayazdi is the manager of nonfiction programs at The Gotham Film & Media Institute. Soheil oversees the Gotham’s core documentary programs: the Documentary Feature Lab, the Spotlight on Documentaries section of the Gotham Week Project Market, and the Documentary Development Initiative in partnership with HBO Documentary Films. Soheil has worked with emerging filmmakers since 2015, when he began a seven-year tenure at the Columbia University MFA Film Program. At Columbia he managed the Columbia University Film Festival (CUFF), the Dr. Saul and Dorothy Kit Film Noir Festival, the Carla Kuhn Memorial Speaker Series, and other events and programs designed to cultivate the work of early-career filmmakers. Soheil is also a freelance writer on film and pop culture with clips in Filmmaker Magazine, Vice, Paper, Paste, McSweeney’s, and elsewhere. A native of Iran, he holds an MA in journalism and a BA in film studies from the University of Iowa.