Clark Shah-Nelson (aka Clark Saturn - www.clarksaturn.com) (Festival Organizer) is a resident of New Kingston and a Screen Actor's Guild member who has acted in national and international commercials, TV shows and films. With several short films under his belt as a filmmaker, Saturn's co-directed/produced/acted guerilla film "A Potato Chip Tale" was featured in five film festivals around the USA including the Woodstock Film Festival, 2004. In 2008 he was a nominating committee member for the Screen Actor's Guild awards as well as for the 2008 and 2009 New Kingston Film Festivals. Seema Shah-Nelson (Festival Organizer) holds degrees in Design and in Philosophy and is an avid film watcher and enthusiast. She has worked in grassroots politics, non-fiction publishing, and design. Her design background ensures that the overall aesthetic of the NKFF is attractive and cohesive. For the past two years, she has brought her unique visual sensitivity, strong analytic skills, and cultural awareness to the task of screening submissions and organizing the festival. She intends to continue in this role for 2011. Anna Moschovakis (Festival Organizer and Juror) is a poet, translator, editor and filmmaker based in Delaware County, NY. She is the author of two books of poetry, I Have Not Been Able to Get Through to Everyone (Turtle Point Press 2006), and You and Three Others Are Approaching a Lake (Coffee House Press, 2011), and translator of four novels from the French, including The Jokers by Albert Cossery and The Engagement by Georges Simenon (both from New York Review Books Classics). She is a longtime editor at Ugly Duckling Presse, an award-winning publishing collective that specializes in avant-garde poetry, translation, and artist's books. A Los Angeles native, she spent 15 years working in film-related fields, as an art director, assistant director, and for eight years, facilitator of the student internship program at the American Pavilion at the Cannes International Film Festival. She has participated on numerous juries, including most recently for Apexart gallery in New York City. Currently, she teaches in the creative writing program at Pratt Institute and is working on a documentary film project of her own. Jonathan Starch (Juror), a native of Wichita, recieved a BFA from NYU's Film School in 1981 and joined the ranks of New York City film professionals via a small special effects house that specialized in props for commercials. Jonathan has worked as Producer, Production Manager, and Assistant Director in commercials, television, and feature films. Jonathan lives with his partner David France (journalist and author) in New York City and New Kingston, New York. Mick Bello (Juror) is a video engineer at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) in Troy, NY. Founded by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, EMPAC offers artists, scholars, researchers, engineers, designers, and audiences opportunities for creative exploration that are available nowhere else under a single roof. As an EMPAC technician Mick assists artists and researchers in realizing their visions or goals during their performances or residencies at EMPAC. *This project is made possible, in part, with public funds from the New York State Council for the Arts Decentralization Program administered in Delaware County by The Roxbury Arts Group, Inc., and the A. Lindsey and Olive B. O'Connor Foundation.* |