Our judges will determine winners in each of our categories. The winning films will be announced at the awards ceremony on Saturday, Feb. 11 at 8:00pm at Malco Studio Cinema (Screen 1). Winners will receive The Spirit of the Hoka, a beautiful statuette created by renowned sculptor Bill Beckwith in the likeness of the Chickasaw Princess Hoka in 1835.
NARRATIVE FEATURE
KIM VOYNAR has been a film critic for Movie City News, “Hollywood’s Homepage,” for four years. Prior to that, she was Managing Editor and film critic for Cinematical/AOL. She is currently transitioning into filmmaking, and just completed production on her first short film, “Bunker” which she wrote and directed. She and her husband, Mike Hodge, share their home with six kids, two dogs and two cats, and are partners in Catawampus! Productions, LLC, an independent film production company.
JULIE KAYE TOWERY FANTON is an award-winning set decorator in Hollywood. Her film credits include The Mighty Ducks and Darkman. Her television credits include “Reba,” “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch,” “Eve,” “My Name is Earl” and “The Middle.” Fanton won an Emmy award for Outstanding Art Direction for the television movie Cinderella. She was also nominated for her work on “Sabrina, The Teenage Witch.” When not building award-winning sets, Fanton spearheads efforts to build schools and orphanages in Uganda.
DON LEWIS loves film. Having written for Film Threat for over 10 years, he is also a filmmaker in his own right. His short documentary films Stringers and Drag King have played numerous film festivals and garnered a few awards and his first documentary Worst in Show played Oxford Film Fest in 2011. Don holds a Master’s Degree in Cinema Studies from San Francisco State and resides in Northern California with his wife, daughter and dog named Igby.
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
TODD GILCHRIST is a film critic and entertainment journalist with more than ten years of experience working in Los Angeles. A member of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Todd has contributed to a wide variety of print and online outlets, including The Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog, Boxoffice Magazine, Movies.com, Variety, The Playlist, Cinematical, MTV Movies blog, and IGN.com, where he served as IGN DVD Editor in Chief. Todd currently lives in Los Angeles with his girlfriend and fellow journalist Jen Yamato, and their two cats Nemo and Otis.
PAULA MARTINEZ co-produces the Atlanta 48 Hour Film Project, DecaturDocs, and is an organizer of the Atlanta Pitch Summit. With a strong background in festival and event planning, including four years as Managing Director and Festival Producer for the Atlanta Film Festival, Paula participates regularly on film festival panels and competition juries. She has spoken about the business of film at Georgia Tech, UGA, and Georgia State University. Currently, Paula is developing an unscripted series with Lucky Dog Filmworks.
STEVEN BECKMAN focuses on domestic film acquisitions at Cinetic Rights Management, sister company of Cinetic Media. Steve identifies and acquires relevant film content for CRM, and strategizes the projects’ distribution and release into the marketplace. Steve’s previous industry experience includes The Weinstein Company, DreamWorks, 20th Century Fox, Marc Platt Productions and Hock Films. He has also produced a number of independent documentaries and concert films. Beckman graduated from New York University with a B.A. in history and minor concentrations in economics and cinema studies.
SHORTS: NARRATIVE and DOCUMENTARY
JEN YAMATO is the West Coast Editor at Movieline.com, where she writes about the film and entertainment industry. She was previously Senior Editor at Rotten Tomatoes, film critic for Movies.com, and a contributor to many of the web’s finest movie sites. She lives in Los Angeles and is semi-addicted to karaoke.
ERIC D. SNIDER has been a film critic since 1999, and a beard wearer since 2008. He holds a degree in journalism and used to work in “the newspaper industry,” back when that was a thing. He now writes for Film.com, Movies.com, and other online outlets, and co-hosts a weekly podcast, “Movie B.S. with Bayer & Snider.” He lives in Portland, Oregon.
SCOTT RORIE is a native Mississippian, who graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1996 with a BFA and has been residing in Los Angeles for the past 13 years. He is a filmmaker, DGA member, actor and artist, as well as the Founding Chairman of the Mississippi Culture and Heritage Society of California that sponsors the Mississippi Picnic in Los Angeles. He loves movies.
SHORTS: ANIMATED and EXPERIMENTAL
SKIZZ CYZYK is a writer, musician, and filmmaker. Since 1997, he has been involved, in multiple capacities, with Slamdance, Maryland Film Festival, MicroCineFest, Atlanta Film Festival, Sidewalk and Indie Memphis among other festivals. He also writes for music and film magazines, serves on the Maryland Lawyers for the Arts Board of Directors, plays punk rock electric ukulele for The Go Pills, and plays drums for The Jennifers, as well as Mink Stole & Her Wonderful Band.
MICHAEL JACKSON CHANEY is a professor of Film and Television and Sound Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia. Prior to teaching he worked as a television producer in New York City for clients such as Hearst Publications, the Seagram Company, and the New York Times. He has been a consultant and special events programmer for the Savannah Film Festival since its inception in 1998. His film and time based media work address the interplay of spirituality and social constructs. He uses multiple channel video, film and sound as well as performance. His time based media work has been exhibited internationally. His short films have been included in numerous international film festivals. Born in Greenwood and raised in Vicksburg, Mississippi, he holds a B.F.A. from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California and an M.F.A. from Tufts University/The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He has completed post-graduate studies in theology at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee.
DWAYNE BUTCHER is Memphis’ Own. He is an artist, curator, blogger, teacher, and chicken wing connoisseur. He received his MFA from the Memphis College of Art in 2008. While at MCA, he developed a deep interest in the integration of Digital Media expression with traditional art forms. His work wittily comments on his life as a citizen of the South, often around issues of masculinity. In 2010, his work was exhibited at the MMX Art Venue in Berlin, the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, with experimental video installations in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Wigan, United Kingdom. This year, his work can be seen in the exhibition “Contemporary Art and the Moving Image,” in Belfast, Northern Ireland and “Greener on the Other Side” in Chongqing, China.
MISSISSIPPI FILMS: NARRATIVE, DOCUMENTARY, and MUSIC VIDEO
JOHN BEIFUSS is the film critic and a reporter with The Commercial Appeal, the daily newspaper in Memphis. His work has appeared in the New York Times, TV Guide and elsewhere. He is the author of the children’s book, Armadillo Ray (Chronicle Books). His first published story was an appreciation of the co-starring films of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi that appeared in Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. He wonders if it’s been all downhill ever since.
ELIZABETH DOLLARHIDE has worked in film and video for twenty years, beginning with Huck Finn in Natchez, Miss. After working on several projects in Mississippi, Chicago and Baltimore, she moved to Los Angeles where she ran the production company of Lawrence Kasdan and was a producer on his last film Dreamcatcher. She also worked as a writer/producer of DVD documentaries for several movies, including Cinderella Man, Flags of Our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima, as well as the re-releases of Backdraft, The Accidental Tourist, Wyatt Earp, and Parenthood. She also wrote and produced an HBO “First Look” show on Cinderella Man and a promotional video for Silverado. She relocated from California to Oxford/Taylor, Mississippi and has several projects in development, including two original feature animation films. Most recently she optioned the novel Theater of the Stars, has adapted the screenplay, and is now in the process of developing the project.
CHRIS OFFUTT has written and produced for “True Blood,” “Weeds,” and “Tremé.” He’s also written two pilots, “Tough Trade” for Lions Gate, shot on location in Nashville, and “Star Wheel Badge,” for CBS, set in Texas. His screenplays include the produced short The Trapper. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi, and joined the the Department of English at the University of Mississippi in 2011.
