The Lady Filmmakers Team!
Lady Filmmakers is a film, music, and art festival dedicated to celebrating women filmmakers, artists, and musicians and the men who collaborate with them. Our festival is an entire weekend of films, music, art, workshops, panels and of course parties! We promote and support opportunities for artistic and career growth through our many different workshops, panels and networking events. We encourage collaboration between men and women currently in the industry and to instill this idea within future filmmakers.
Patricia DiSalvo Viayra |
Executive Director &
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Mike Viayra |
Co-Founder & Head ProgrammerMike graduated from the United States Naval Academy and after completing his active duty service attended UCLA School of Law. He practiced at a major international law firm for several years and now is the legal manager of a billion dollar corporation.
Mike enjoys collaborating with his favorite Lady Filmmaker, Patricia, to produce film festivals and short and feature length films. |
Sherry Sims
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Artistic Director, Programmer, Moderator
Sherry Sims, a veteran casting director and independent producer, has been involved in the entertainment industry since 1986, and is currently serving on the Board of Directors for the Casting Society of America. As a Casting Director, she specialized in casting children and hard-to-find characters. Because of her reputation for discovering unique talent, she was hired by Oliver Stone as part of his casting team on the Oscar-winning feature film ‘Born on the Fourth of July’.
In 1989, after completing the casting on the Universal film ‘Problem Child,’ Sherry relocated to Los Angeles at the urging of the late actor, John Ritter. There she worked in the casting department of Stephen J. Cannell Productions on shows such as ‘21 Jump Street,’ ’Broken Badges,’ ‘Hunter’ and ‘Booker,’ as well as numerous MOWs. A year later, Sherry was casting feature films for independent production companies such as Aurora Productions and Motion Picture Corporation of America which led her to becoming a Production Coordinator and eventually a Production Supervisor. She was then recruited by Greenwich Films and Allied Cinema Corp to run their West Coast office. Under their banner, Sherry headed the development and production of several feature films, including the Emmy nominated “The Bulkin Trail,’ and producing one of the first reality series, MTVs ‘Real Models.’ In 2005, Sherry returned to casting with Goldwasser/Meltzer Casting. The team won 2 Artios awards in 2007 and 2008 for Best Casting for Disney Channel’s ‘Hannah Montana.’ She has since cast numerous projects with Goldwasser/Meltzer Casting such as Nickelodeon’s ‘The Troop,’ SyFy’s ‘Estate of Panic,’ The N’s ‘Queen Bees,’ Disney Channel’s ‘Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!’ ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,’ Joel Surnow & Fox’s “The ½ Hour News Hour,’ and the Emmy Award nominated ‘Deal Or No Deal.’ Sherry is currently serving as the President of The Sims Film Company which is focusing on historically based Feature Films and has partnered with Ron Gilbert Associates on several projects. |
Jenny Lax |
Programmer and AdvisorAt New York University’s Film School, Jenny Lax had the opportunity to make her own short films, and become familiar with all aspects of film craft. Post graduating, she co-wrote and co-produced, and shot films for both documentaries and PBS arts programs.
Since the late 1970s Jenny Lax has primarily worked in the design field for film and television. After 15 years in film production in New York City, she moved to Los Angeles in the early 1990's and continued in the design field for the film studios. From 1995 to 2005, Jenny helped establish kidZtv, a non-profit, television workshop for ‘special needs’ kids. The program continues as a supplemental teaching aid in several elementary schools in the Los Angeles, CA area. |
Chris G Vass |
ProgrammerChristos is originally from Greece new to the States. He is a famous A-List Actor in Greece for his various starring roles in various TV Shows, Films, and Commercials. For four years Christos was a part of the National Theatre of Greece. He completed two feature films in the US and is currently studying with famous acting coach Ivana Chubbuck. He is currently filming several episodes of the new Cinemax show Banshee as the character Widows Peak.
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Christine Elise McCarthy
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Programmer/AdvisorOriginally from Boston, Christine Elise McCarthy has been acting professionally for 25 years. She has been seen on many television shows - most notably as Emily Valentine on Beverly Hills 90210, Harper Tracy on ER, HBO’s Tell Me You Love Me, Law & Order: SVU, China Beach and In the Heat of the Night. Her film credits include many indie projects (Route 30 and Mojave Phone Booth) as well as Child’s Play 2, Boiling Point & Vanishing Point (both with Viggo Mortenson) and Abel Ferrara’s Bodysnatchers. Also a writer -- she has three episodes of Beverly Hills 90210 to her credit, had a pilot optioned by Aaron Spelling & contributed characters & storylines through several seasons of the original 90210. She has been senior programmer of Michigan’s Waterfront Film Festival since its inception in 1999. She has also been involved in multiple capacities with the Portland Oregon Women’s FF, Sidewalk FF, Indie Memphis FF, Foberg FF, RxSM FF, Victoria Texas Independent FF, Kansas City Jubilee FF and the Boonies FF. 2011/12 saw her directorial debut, Bathing & the Single Girl, get accepted into 80 film festivals and win seventeen awards. She is currently shopping her mockumemoir novel, also entitled Bathing & the Single Girl.
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Matt Lessall, CSA
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ProgrammerMatthew Lessall’s credits include Sundance standouts, “Rocket Science,” “Mean Creek,” as well as the NetFlix Find Your Voice 2010 competition winner “Almost Kings.” In 2011, he joined the new media revolution in casting the mega-successful webseries, “Mortal Kombat,” for Warner Premier. Most recently he completed casting “BAIT 3D” for Arclight Films, and the independent films: “Chastity Bites,” “The Healer,” “Saving Lincoln,” “The Romance of Loneliness,” “The House of Last Things” & cast Holly Hunter as the lead in the upcoming Dutch feature film, “Jackie.” Matthew has cast films with established, name actors (his projects have starred Liam Neeson, Donald Sutherland, Julie Delpy, Brian Cox, Anna Kendrick, Gerard Depardieu, Jim Caviezel, Justin Long, Christina Ricci, Ana Paquin, Joel Courtney, James Le Gros, Isabelle Fuhrman, Peter Bogdanovich, et al). In addition to features and television casting, Matthew has also cast for the theatre at the prestigious Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles and was a director of feature film casting at 20th Century Fox and the in-house casting consultant for the Fox Searchlab writer/director program. Matthew is a member of BAFTA and in 2009 became a board member of the Casting Society of America. www.lessallcasting.com |
Hammad Zaidi |
Juror/PanelistHammad is the founder and CEO of Lonely Seal Releasing.
CEO and Principal of Lonely Seal Releasing Lonely Seal Pictures and Baby Seal Releasing Hammad Zaidi is the CEO of Lonely Seal Releasing, an international film and television distribution company. Lonely Seal Pictures is the production company and Baby Seal Releasing is the children’s division. At Lonely Seal Releasing, Zaidi has served as the international distributor for several award-winning films worldwide, including Whaledreamers, produced, narrated and composed by Julian Lennon and Dalai Lama Renaissance, narrated by Harrison Ford. With a travel schedule north of 100,000 miles per year to the world’s most significant film festivals and film sales markets, and a list 7,000 international buyers deep, Lonely Seal Releasing blankets the Earth to showcase its product to qualified buyers. At Lonely Seal Pictures, Zaidi is currently developing and producing several film and television projects, including The Fate Escape, a feature film he wrote, produced and directed. The comedy was shot throughout the Canadian Yukon, Guatemala, Los Angeles and Carmel. Academy Award winning actress Olympia Dukakis appears in the film. Hammad has also executive produced award-winning feature films and documentaries, including The La Mastas (1998), The Stone Cutter (2001), Shades of Gray (2003), American Stag (2006), and The Men Who Fell (2007). In addition, Zaidi has produced two concert documentaries: Peter Di Stefano: Loyalty (2007) and Stephen Pearcy: Defending The Faith (2008). At Baby Seal Releasing, Hammad Zaidi executive produced Monkey Presents, Kid Smart Classics (2009-2012), a TV/DVD children’s series that recreates world literature classics, as told by hand puppets, for children. Hammad Zaidi writes Going Bionic, a weekly columnfor Film Threat.com. Going Bionic publishes its 75th consecutive weekly article on October 18, 2011. Furthermore, a few of Zaidi’s articles are being published as chapters in the second edition of the book, An Independent’s Guide to Film Distribution (2012). Zaidi’s screenplays have also garnered notoriety. Get A Life was a winner Telluride Indiefest, (2002), and a national finalist at Practical Paradox (2004). The Brotherhood of Invisible Men was a national semi-finalist in both action adventure and comedy at the Screenplay Festival (2004). Hammad has written several National Public Service Announcements, including Champions of Hope, (2002) a September 11th related piece endorsed by the White House, Ogre Achiever, (2004-present), a Shrek-based national billboard campaign to encourage children to achieve and Generosity, (2007), which won Hammad a Telly Award for writing. Hammad Zaidi also created Script Accessible, a screenwriting contest that promotes writers with disabilities as well as non-disabled writers who write about characters with disabilities. As a director, Zaidi helmed Champions of Hope; which was released theatrically on over 5,000 screens as well as on major TV and cable networks. As a result, 650,000-1,000,000 children across the United States were called to action in their communities. Zaidi also directed Pet Divorce Court, his TV series, The Fate Escape, and Baptized at Lucky Lube, a short film that played in twenty-six film festivals in six countries (USA, Australia, England, France, Canada and Mexico). Hammad has been a judge, panelist and or sponsor at fifty film festivals worldwide. He has also served as an adjunct professor at the UCLA Summer Producers Program from 1995-1997, the Chapman University Graduate School of Film in 1998, the Watkins Film School in 2001, and the Avila University School of Visual and Communication Arts from 2006-2008. Zaidi has also lectured at several universities nationwide, including but not limited to UCLA, Vanderbilt, The University of Kansas, and San Diego State. Hammad Zaidi received his Masters of Fine Arts from the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television in 1994. |
Steve Gilbert |
ProgrammerSteve has been in the industry for over thirty years in the production side of things. He appreciates what it takes to get an awesome Dolly Shot!
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