Portlynn Tagavi is a Persian/Creole filmmaker based in Los Angeles. An AFI directing alum, Tagavi's distinctive voice first echoed in her award-winning short, They Won't Last. This film established her penchant for balancing dramatic themes with comedy, earning her a Student Emmy and recognition i over 50 festivals worldwide. Tagavi is currently finishing her festival run with her latest short, Out of Tune. In addition to working on her latest short We're Gonna Die Alone, she has been working as a story artist at Netflix, where she just finished developing and leading their 2023 Story Trainee Program.

Harim Sanchez is a writer/director hailing from the dusty little hamlet of Adelanto, CA (where you take your bathroom breaks on your way to Vegas) and is presently based in Los Angeles. He was a Writer's PA on Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches on AMC and is currently a Showrunner's Assistant. In 2021, he conned his close friends and prior roommates to help him make a feature-length mockumentary. called Bonerman (you read that right) which he directed you can find that gold on YouTube. You can typically find him roaming the streets of LA, searching for the perfect breakfast burrito.

Lauren Lukow is a producer based in LA. Her latest film, Mara Has Three Jobs in San Juan, Puerto Rico, premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival as part of Indeed's and Hillman Grad's Rising Voices initiative. For five years, Lukow worked for the Sundance Feature Film Program, recently as their Manager of Producing & Artist Support. In this role she oversaw the Producers Track, while providing support to 40+ artists/projects in fiction features annually. Before Sundance, Lukow worked in development at Pixar Animation Studios where she assisted their in-house filmmakers in the earliest phases of their creative process.

Xinyu "Ciao" Zhao is an aspiring creative executive currently on the film team at Rideback. Hailing from Shanghai, she moved to LA in 2018 to study Communication and Jewish Studies at USC. Her producing career began at the Chinese video brand DxChannel, where her works have garnered over one million views online. Collaborating with predominantly female and AAPI filmmakers, her narrative shorts earned acclaim at festivals, including Palm Springs International Shortest and LA Shorts. Having spent her teens reading detective novels and sci-fi novellas, she is dedicated to telling female- centric genre stories with an emotional impact that transcends cultural borders.

Jeremy Brockman is an EMMY award-winning filmmaker and cinematographer from Detroit. He has lensed a number of productions in narrative, documentary, experimental art and branded content. Brockman was awarded a NATAS Michigan Regional EMMY Award for Lyricist Society, a documentary short about an alternative music program at a high school for young men in Detroit. His narrative work has been screened at several festivals including American Black Film Festival and Martha's Vineyard African American Film Festival. With his work, Brockman seeks to create images that truthfully represent and inspire his community.

Olivia Eliseo is a Los Angeles-based film and television editor who quickly became obsessed with the craft after figuring out how to edit together her family's VHS tapes. She most recently cut Season 3 of All Rise for OWN and two award-winning short films. Wolves won Best Horror/Fantasy Short at the DTLA Film Festival, and Lucha Noir won the Grand Prize at the McDonald's Spotlight Dorado Competition. She is a member of both the Motion Picture Editors Guild and the Television Academy, and is represented in film and television by Dattner Dispoto & Associates.

Danny is currently designing the Stop-Motion animated film “Astray” as well as Art Directing the flagship Seasons of Quantum Leap(NBC/Universal), Kindred(FX), Our Kind Of People(FOX) as well as season 3 of YOU(Netflix). He has also Designed Season 2 of Black Jesus(Adult Swim), and Seasons 2 and 3 of Disney XD’s #1 hit Walk The Prank.

As a designer he has embraced the challenges of shooting an entire season on location with limited budgets and time (Final Witness - ABC/ Disney, School Spirits - SyFy) and the Emmy Award winning A Crime to Remember (Investigation Discovery). His flashy, exuberant designs have been seen on giant stadium screens (Katy Perry’s Candifornia Tour, The Eagles’ History of the Eagles Tour and Pink’s European Tour). He has artfully executed the vision of the first SAG deaf Director and now Oscar Winner, Troy Kotsur’s feature film No Ordinary Hero, and his stage sets have won numerous accolades (multiple Ovation and LA Drama Critics Circle nominations).