Join us this week in uplifting some of our members and so many more creative voices pushing the boundaries of storytelling. For more resources, check out GLAAD's Tips for Allies of Transgender People.
Isabel Sandoval is a New York-based Filipina filmmaker and MacDowell Fellow in film. The Museum of Modern Art has cited her as a "rarity among the young generation of Filipino filmmakers" for her "muted, serene aesthetic." She is the first transgender director to compete at the Venice and BFI London film festivals with the New York-set trans immigrant drama Lingua Franca. Her noir-inflected debut feature Señorita had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival. This was followed by the Marcos-era nun drama Apparition, considered a contemporary Philippine film classic, which won awards at the Deauville and Hawaii film festivals after premiering in Busan.Her three features—all female-centric dramas of interiority and displacement—have screened at prestigious international film festivals, including Thessaloniki, Stockholm, Vancouver, AFI Fest, and Palm Springs. Her work has been supported by the Tribeca Film Institute, New York Film Academy, MoMA, Independent Filmmaker Project, and Frameline. In November 2019, she received the SFFILM Westridge Foundation screenwriting grant for a new project, Baptism.
Sydney Freeland is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker. Her debut feature, Drunktown's Finest, premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, and
went on to receive the Jury Prize at LA Outfest and earned a GLAAD Media Award nomination. She also directed the digital series Her Story, which received an Emmy nomination and won a Gotham Award. Her second feature, Deidra and Laney Rob A Train, is a Netflix Original film and premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Additionally, Sydney has directed episodes for Grey's Anatomy and the upcoming Heathers. Sydney is an alum of the Sundance NativeLab, Sundance Screenwriter's Lab, Sundance Director's Lab, and Sundance Women's Fellowship. She is also a Time Warner and Ford
Fellowship recipient.
Jessie Dunn Rovinelli is a film director, editor, colorist and critic based in New York. She is the director of two award-winning feature films and several shorts, which played at festivals including Berlinale, IndieLisboa, BAM Cinemafest. Rovinelli is also a recipient of grants from the Centre national des arts plastiques (Paris), New York Foundation for the Arts, and Film Independent. In 2019, she was selected as one of Filmmaker Magazine's 25 New Faces of Independent Film. As an editor and colorist, she has worked on a wide range of feature films, short films, music videos, advertisements, and branded content. Her clients include Condé Nast, SyFy, Facebook, Nickelodeon, Parkwood Entertainment, Ovation, VICE Media, Google, and more. Her work is produced by 100 Year Films and and their client work arm 100 Studio.
Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu is a Native Hawaiian teacher, cultural practitioner and filmmaker with a long history of perpetuating Kanaka Maoli language, philosophy and traditions and promoting cross-cultural work throughout the Pacific Islands. She also engages in many community affairs and civic activities, and is currently the Chair of the O'ahu Island Burial Council. Hina was both a protagonist and educational advisor for the award winning documentaries KUMU HINA and A PLACE IN THE MIDDLE, and received a White House Champion of Change and Elison S. Onizuka Human Rights Memorial Award from the National Education Association for the groundbreaking impact campaigns associated with those films. Switching to the other side of the lens, Hina directed and produced the award-winning PBS/ARTE documentary LEITIS IN WAITING about her transgender sisters in the Kingdom of Tonga. She is currently in pre-production on a hybrid documentary about the legend and scared stones of Kapaemahu.
Chet Pancake is an award-winning filmmaker, video, new media, and sound artist. They have exhibited at national and international venues such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA,) Royal Ontario Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art, Murray Art Museum Albury, Australia, Shanghai Conservatory – Shanghai PRC, and Academy of Fine Arts, Prague. Pancake's narrative and experimental documentary work has been screened at over 150 venues nationally, as well as broadcast (entirely or as excerpts) in the US and UK on the Sundance Channel, PBS, FreeSpeech Television, and the CommunityChannelUK. Their films are nationally & internationally distributed by Bullfrog Films and Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre and are held in permanent collections in over 75 university and museum archives nationally. Pancake is an Assistant Professor in the Film and Media Arts Program at Temple University.
Shelly Prevost 's years of experience as a software engineer for large entertainment and motion picture effects companies have sparked her on-going interest in film. Ms. Prevost began her own career in film in 2004 with "Isn't It Obvious?", Best Documentary Short 2004 Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. She followed that by Directing and Producing the feature length documentary "Trained in the Ways of Men", that premiered at the 2007 Cinequest Film Festival, currently in distribution by Cinequest. From there she moved to writing and directing several award-winning shorts via the filmmaking incubator, Scary Cow in San Francisco. Ms Prevost's work has always brought social issues to the forefront, beginning with transgender awareness, and now delving into issues of mental illness and the socio-economic divisiveness with the screenplay "The Bronx Yacht Club", currently in development at Reel Freedom Films.