Leadership

A graduate of DePaul University’s School of Cinematic Arts, Ryan cut his teeth in the festival world working with the Chicago International Film Festival from 2014-22 as an archivist, technical manager, programmer, and ultimately as the CineYouth Festival Director. He’s excited to continue NFFTY’s mission of encouraging young filmmakers to share their art with the world. When he’s not programming films for festivals or his podcast, you can catch Ryan trekking through the mountains of the PNW or sitting with his cat reading a book.

Amy Williams is an editor, producer, and film programmer based in Seattle, WA. She’s been a leading member of the NFFTY Programming Team since 2018, and she’s excited to help curate and produce another unforgettable festival in 2026. A lover of creating and consuming media, Amy is most fulfilled by helping others bring their artistic visions to fruition.

NOAH WAGNER is an award-winning director, writer, and filmmaker, and a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. His work has appeared on HBO, NBC, BBC, VIMEO STAFF PICKS and THE NEW YORKER, and has screened at film festivals worldwide. He’s also worked in varying capacities for – among others - THE DAILY SHOW, BBC, NICKELODEON, and HBO, where he spent close to a decade creating ancillary video, VR, and digital content for docs, sports, and series such as WESTWORLD, SILICON VALLEY, BALLERS, and GAME OF THRONES. He also loves to teach. Most recently he completed his latest directorial effort – existential AI thriller, WATCH ROOM.

www.noahwagner.com

Morgana McKenzie is an award winning cinematographer and director based in Toronto. Most recently, Morgana received two nominations from the Canadian Society of Cinematographers for her work on “Wild” (Dramatic Short Cinematography), and “Lost Time” (Robert Brooks Award for Documentary Cinematography). Her short films have garnered over 40 awards from international festivals, including Best Director and the Canada 150 award for Best Film from TIFF Jump Cuts Next Wave. As a cinematographer and colorist, Morgana is currently working on a number of narrative and documentary projects in Toronto, Tokyo, Kentucky, and Seattle.

Born in Seoul but growing up in New Jersey, Dennis spent much of his middle school science classes drawing and designing fantastical creatures and characters; to this day he is still trying to compensate for his neglected classes by creating absurd works in science fiction. While studying Fine Arts and Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, he has directed a number of animated short films which have been featured on notable online platforms including Short of the Week, Vimeo Staff Picks, DUST Sci-Fi, Omeleto, and received recognition in festivals internationally.

Barb Hoffman is an emerging filmmaker/animator based in Seattle Washington. She has had a strong passion for film ever since her small directorial debut of Weird Al Yankovic parody music videos that she created with friends in elementary school. More recently, Barb has had the pleasure in playing at NFFTY for the past 3 years with her animation What We See In the Clouds, winning an audience award at NFFTY 2020. Her films have also played at festivals such as the Seattle International Film Festival and Destiny City Film Festival. Barb looks forward to creating more work in the future, incorporating both her love of animation and experimental filmmaking.

Alexander Zorn is an award-winning filmmaker based in Chicago, IL with over seven years of independent filmmaking experience working as a producer, director, and editor. Born and raised in rural Indiana, he studied film production at Indiana University and gained a Master of Fine Arts in cinema production from DePaul University. Alexander is currently traveling with his latest film Bird of Paradise which tells the story of a young queer geriatric nurse who falls in love with one of his elderly patients. The film has screened at festivals around the world including Kashish Mumbai Queer Film Festival, the largest LGBTQ+ film festival in South Asia; Maryland Film Festival; and the Academy-Award Qualifying INDY SHORTS Film Festival.

Lindsay was born at a very young age, and grew up in Los Angeles where she still lives and accumulates parking tickets. She has directed and produced content for Grammy nominated artists and her narrative work has been screened at festivals internationally. She has been the Lead Designer at the Venice based production company Jojx, and is currently the Co-founder/Creative Director of the tech startup Reelfolio. Before all that, she got her start in film with NFFTY (2014, 2018, 2019, 2020)! When she isn't working on something creative, she is most likely camping, surfing, eating lunch at 11am, or hanging out with her rescue dog Nalu. She is a pro member of Free the Work, and repped by Anemone Artists .

Tiffany Lin is a Taiwanese-American filmmaker born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. A 2020 graduate of USC’s film and television production program, Tiffany has worked extensively across live action, animation, and virtual reality. Her work has been recognized at festivals including NFFTY (2019, 2020), Dances With Films, and more; in addition, a short film she wrote was a semifinalist for the 2020 Student Academy Awards. Through her films, Tiffany aims to present emotionally honest and unconventional perspectives on the experience of growing up.

Currently based in Los Angeles, Adam collaborates with artists as director, cinematographer, animator, and editor – often all four – to create works that bridge various media forms, some of which have earned international festival recognition over the years. Originally self-taught in high school by churning out whacky videos at home, he later gained professional experience at virtual reality production company Wevr where he wrote, directed, shot, and edited 360° video content for their platform. Adam studied cognitive neuroscience and perception at Brown University which left him curious about the ways we sense and engage with our shared environment. Art and film, in both its expressed themes and process, is a grand way to experiment with that.

An LA-based director, Leo Pfeifer is obsessed with pushing the boundaries of character-driven nonfiction storytelling. With a focus on finding the great stories of real life, his films have played festivals around the world and received hundreds of thousands of views online in publications like Directors Notes, GLAAD, Billboard, and Grammys.com. Recently, his film HAVEN IN THE BOOTH was shortlisted for a Young Director Award.

Vitória Vasconcellos is a Brazilian actor-director who goes around the world telling stories about female endurance and the peculiar, most intimate bits of the human experience which we often fail to treasure. Her short thriller Pathei Mathos was included in the 2021 Festival de Cannes Short Film Corner, won the Best Experimental Film Award at the largest student festival in the world (Ivy Film Festival), in addition to winning multiple awards. A 2021 TIFF Filmmaker Lab fellow, Vitória’s work explores the intersectionality of the female experience (with Latinas often in focus) and the sensorial poetry that connects us to the world.

She graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, where she was one of the 50 students awarded the Global Scholar distinction, and is a current student of the Stella Adler Art of Acting Studio in Los Angeles. Vitória’s short script The Killer California Club was invited to the Pitching Lab of the renowned Drama International Short Film Festival (DISFF) in Greece. Recently, Vitória was awarded the National Latino Independent Producers (NALIP) Emerging Content Scholarship two times in a role. She was also the winner of the 2021 Wood Island Media Emerging Voices Film Grant.

Vitória is currently working on her TIFF Filmmaker Lab-developed short film, Bleed, Don't Die, which was also a recipient of the TIFF Share Her Journey Canada Goose Grant and the Freestyle Cameras Emerging Filmmaker Grant.

Laura Holliday is filmmaker, screenwriter and actor from West Virginia, based in LA. She has written and directed original content for Comedy Central and Funny or Die, and has trained in comedy performance and writing at The Second City conservatory Hollywood and UCB LA. She was selected as a 2017 Sundance Ignite Fellow for her film "Persephone Goes Home,” which she wrote, directed and starred in. She directed the award winning dramatic short "Disfluency" and was a consulting producer on the adapted feature film version, which won the 2022 Austin Film Festival. She has a BFA in film production with an emphasis on directing from Art Center College of Design where she graduated with honors, and she is currently training in intimacy coordination with the IDC. She is a reader and script coverage writer for Stage 32, and is passionate about creating a more equitable and inclusive entertainment industry, particularly for disabled and chronically ill creatives. Laura was a NFFTY filmmaker every year from 2012 to 2019, and served as the Vice President of the NFFTY Alumni Advisory Board for seven years - she loves Nffty! She is currently writing several feature film projects and developing a narrative podcast. She enjoys making music and drinking coffee.

Dan Lesser is an Aussie-born, now L.A.-based director. Dan enjoys telling stories with themes of identity, self-love, and anything that can get a cheeky giggle out of an audience. Dan has created films that have been screened across the world from Sydney, to London, to the Chinese theater on Hollywood Boulevard, to billboards in Times Square, NYC. His films have gained acceptance to festivals such as the Oscar Qualifying Rhode Island International Film Festival winning him the VORTEX DIRECTORIAL DISCOVERY GRAND PRIZE. Whether narrative or commercial work, Dan is striving to create authentic, visually dynamic, and kinetic work.