2018 Jury

CHRISTINE ELISE MCCARTHY has been acting professionally for 30 years and is recognized for her roles as Emily on Beverly Hills, 90210, as Harper on ER, and as Kyle, the gal who killed Chucky in Child’s Play 2. Her directorial debut, “Bathing & the Single Girl,” was accepted into over 100 film festivals and won 20 awards. She was on the selection committee of Michigan’s Waterfront Film Festival until 2014; she was co-director of the Victoria Texas Independent Film Festival, and has programmed for the Self-Medicated Film Festival and The Lady Filmmakers Film Festival. (Narrative Shorts)

AMEY RENE is an Artios Award-nominated casting director whose career has covered TV, feature films, and commercials. Many of her films have premiered at the Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca, Cannes and Toronto International Film Festivals. Her last series was Everything Sucks! for Netflix; next up is Best Worst Weekend, a limited series for Netflix premiering in October. Frequent collaborators include Lynn Shelton, Megan Griffiths, The Duplass Brothers, and Robert Schwartzman. Insta: @ameyrenecasting // FB: Amey René Casting // IMDB: /ameyrene

YA’KE SMITH is a widely acclaimed filmmaker and Associate Professor of Film at the University of Texas at Austin. His films have screened and won awards at over 100 national and international film festivals, and been broadcast on HBO, Showtime, PBS and BET. The Director’s Guild of America, the Student Academy Awards and the City of Buffalo, NY, which proclaimed February 23, 2013 as Ya’Ke Smith Day, have honored him. Ya’Ke has been featured on NPR, CNN, HLN, Ebony Online, Indiewire, Filmmaker Magazine and Shadow & Act. (Narrative Shorts)

CAMERON MCALLISTER is a unabashed, born-and-bred Georgia boy. In 2011, he founded Reel Georgia (which is now a part of Georgia Entertainment News) and the Georgia Film Critics Association. He serves as the Associate Director for the Atlanta Film Society (which operates the 42-year-old Atlanta Film Festival) and the Executive Director for the Rome International Film Festival. In his spare time, he enjoys ignoring text messages, eating hot dogs and thinking about Tina Fey. (Documentary Shorts)

ORLY RAVID is the Founder and Co-Executive Director of The Film Collaborative and an entertainment attorney at MSK (Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP). Orly has a 17-year career in independent film as an acquisitions and business affairs executive; she has served as a Programming Associate for documentaries at Sundance Film Festival and a programming consultant at Palm Springs International and the Middle East Film Festival. (Documentary Shorts)

ROBIN ROBINSON is the Programming Coordinator for the Nashville Film Festival where she manages the Screenwriting Competition and serves as a Senior Programmer. While solely responsible for the Episodic programming, she also has experience programming narrative, documentary and new director films. She is an M.F.A. candidate at the Watkins Film School with a focus in screenwriting. (Documentary Shorts)

BECCA GREENE is a TV and screenplay writer based in LA. She has created and developed multiple comedic TV pilots, including Dad Lives in the Basement, and Zachary Levi’s Worst Night Ever. She moved to LA from New York in 2010 to be a staff writer on Good Vibes. Becca is currently working on punch-ups and additional dialog for Disney’s The Nutcracker (December 2018). Her feature film script, The Beard, is currently in development with producer Adam Goodman. (Narrative Features & Alabama)

AARON HILLIS was praised by Brooklyn Magazine as one of “The 100 Most Influential People in Brooklyn Culture.” His life is a never-ending film festival, with experience in programming, exhibition, distribution, filmmaking, finance, and journalism. His writing has appeared in The Village Voice, VICE, Variety, Vanity Fair, and other outlets that don’t begin with V. Until last month, he owned one of the last video stores in NYC. His co-directorial feature debut, Fish Kill Flea, screened at Sidewalk in 2007. (Narrative Features)

FARAH WHITE has won over directors and fellow actors with her talent, passion and a tenacity to do whatever it takes to help get the job done. A professional actress since 1999, she can currently be seen in Flutter, Ladies of the House, in which she starred/produced, and in the upcoming release of The Great & The Small. She has written and directed several shorts and television pilots and produced over 10 features in the past 5 years.

BRANDON HARRIS is a graduate of and Visiting Assistant Professor at the School of Film and Media Studies at SUNY Purchase. His writings have appeared in The New Yorker, Vice, The Guardian, and Variety, among others. He is the Festival Programmer for Indie Memphis, an Associate Programmer of the Aspen ShortsFest and formerly the Director of Programming for the Cincinnati Film Festival. Harris’s memoir Making Rent in Bed-Stuy is available now. (Documentary Features)

RACHEL RAIMIST recently directed an episode of the award-winning show Queen Sugar. She is the award-winning director of Nobody Knows My Name, the first film about women in hip-hop. She holds a B.A. and a M.F.A. in Directing from UCLA and a M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, where the Rachel Raimist Feminist Media Center is named in her honor. She is a tenured professor of media production at the University of Alabama and a proud member of the Crunk Feminist Collective. Social: @DocRaimist + rachelmakesmovies.com (Documentary Features)

Cameron Swanagon has been an Oscilloscope Laboratories loyalist since his days slinging DVDs at a video rental shop, and as an employee for the last five years, most recently coordinating with festivals. He sustains mainly on top-ramen and drinks his coffee black. (Documentary Features)

MELANIE ADDINGTON has worked with the Oxford Film Festival since 2006 in various capacities and became Executive Director in August 2015. She also directs, writes, and produces films and serves on the Mississippi Film Alliance as President. She co-founded OxFilm, the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council’s program to lend equipment to Oxford filmmakers. (Family Fest & Alabama)

BECCA GREENE is a TV and screenplay writer based in LA. She has created and developed multiple comedic TV pilots, including Dad Lives in the Basement, and Zachary Levi’s Worst Night Ever. She moved to LA from New York in 2010 to be a staff writer on Good Vibes. Becca is currently working on punch-ups and additional dialog for Disney’s The Nutcracker (December 2018). Her feature film script, The Beard, is currently in development with producer Adam Goodman. (Narrative Features & Alabama)

BRIGHID WHEELER has been a willing slave to the film festival world for most of her adult life. Having run the gamut from volunteer to Festival Coordinator, she currently serves as the Shorts Programmer for the Indie Memphis Film Festival, a role that embraces her love of the short form and the power it has to transform lives. Brighid has served on countless juries at festivals across the country, but considers serving on the Sidewalk/SHOUT jury, the festival(s) where she first started, one of the biggest honors in her career. (SHOUT & Alabama)

MELANIE ADDINGTON has worked with the Oxford Film Festival since 2006 in various capacities and became Executive Director in August 2015. She also directs, writes, and produces films and serves on the Mississippi Film Alliance as President. She co-founded OxFilm, the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council’s program to lend equipment to Oxford filmmakers. (Family Fest & Alabama)

MATTHEW LAYNE is an award-winning poet from Birmingham, Alabama. He is a teacher, a student, a baker, a professional storyteller, a librarian, a voracious consumer of printed material, a lover of film, and most importantly a father. He is currently serving his second year as a member of the American Library Association’s Best Fiction for Young Adults Committee. You can find him most days at The Emmet O’Neal Library. (Family Fest)

JUKI TIMONER is 13 years young and enjoys the many opportunities that he is given by his mother, Ondi Timoner. Juki has made short films in Bhutan, Panama, Israel, and even in Northern California with the inventor of the flying car. Although Juki cannot make it to the festival, he is excited to serve on the jury for the third time. P.S. If you agree with his choice for best film then try out his Youtube channel: Jukebox Gaming! (Family Fest)

VERTON R. BANKS is best known as Vernon on the Emmy-nominated HBO comedy Getting On. Other notable tv appearances include ER, Married, Mystery Girls, and Ground Floor. He was nominated for an LA Weekly Best Supporting Actor award for his performance in The Normal Heart at the Fountain Theater. Verton is currently producing Yakira Chamber’s MysEducation and a feature film, Max-Arthur Mantle’s The Other Bwoy. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, a graduate of UCLA and Yale School of Drama.

ANDREA KRAUSS’s background in television, film and video with a concentration on independent film spans over two decades. Producing credits include: Dalila Ali Rajah’s “Secret & Toys” with Quentin Lee, “Grown This Way” directed by Nathan Adloff, and Cinema Conversations with Stephen P. Jarchow, a docu-series for Here TV. Her ability to build bridges has fostered the exchange of ideas and communication through the medium of film. Social: @kraussinthehouse

BRIGHID WHEELER has been a willing slave to the film festival world for most of her adult life. Having run the gamut from volunteer to Festival Coordinator, she currently serves as the Shorts Programmer for the Indie Memphis Film Festival, a role that embraces her love of the short form and the power it has to transform lives. Brighid has served on countless juries at festivals across the country, but considers serving on the Sidewalk/SHOUT jury, the festival(s) where she first started, one of the biggest honors in her career. (SHOUT & Alabama)