DIRECTORS

Juan Avella is a bilingual Venezuelan writer-director based in LA who focuses on gritty and social genre stories set in multicultural worlds. As a fellow of the 2020-2021 NBC Emerging Director program, Juan directed episode 815 of “THE BLACKLIST” for NBC and Sony Pictures. He holds a Screenwriting MFA from the AFI Conservatory, where he won the William J. Fadiman Award for excellence in screenwriting for his crime feature “BOLICHICOS.” Such script was the recipient of the 2019 TFI Sloan Film Fund grant from the Tribeca Film Institute and was included in The Black List’s 2019 inaugural LatinX List.

Juan’s short films, “HIJO POR HIJO” (2017) and “HER BODY” (2018), played in over 80 festivals, garnered 10 awards combined, and were picked up and exclusively distributed by HBO Max — where “HER BODY” currently streams. Most recently, Juan co-wrote and directed the social thriller short film “FREEBIRTH” for 20th Digital and HULU. Next, Juan is set to direct “BOLICHICOS” with Axel Kuschevatzky and Diego Nájera producing, as well as the feature film adaptation of his short “HIJO POR HIJO” for Epic Pictures.

Maureen Bharoocha is a Los Angeles based writer/director. Maureen’s feature debut was the SXSW arm wrestling comedy “Golden Arm” which sold to HBO and premiered in 2021. She recently directed her 2nd feature film “The Prank,” a dark comedy starring Rita Moreno, Keith David, and Ramona Young. Currently, Maureen is writing a new horror comedy feature “Tina's 40th Birthday Party” with Mary Holland and Betsy Sodaro. Maureen is set to direct and Sharon Horgan’s Merman is attached to produce. Previously Maureen was a segment director on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” for three seasons and started her career with her short film “Abajee” (shot on the streets of Karachi) which premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Maureen was then commissioned by Sprinkles Cupcakes to create a film series in which she wrote and directed 10 shorts based on their cupcake flavors.

Maureen is half Irish Catholic and half Indian/Pakistani Burmese Muslim. Because of her mixed background, Maureen enjoys telling stories about complicated characters, bending genres and is a master at tone. She has directed episodes of Peacock’s “Saved by the Bell,” “Drama Club,” and all episodes of the series “Edith!,” a narrative podcast by QCode starring Rosamund Pike. Maureen was named one of Indie Wire’s rising female directors in 2020, she was on HBO’s 2018 Director’s list, and nominated for the SXSW 2020 Adam Yauch Hörnblowér Visionary directing Award.

Lara Everly is a director who celebrates female-driven content and dark comedy. She's adept at bringing humor to unexpected topics and disrupting the status quo. As a filmmaker, her narrative films and documentaries have played the film festival circuit, winning awards and procuring distribution through Amazon, ShortsHD and New Wave Entertainment. She is currently directing a short film and feature proof of concept starring Rachel Bloom and branded content for NBC for their "Annie Live!" show.

Everly has written and directed for a range of platforms including Disney, Netflix Family, Refinery29, Scary Mommy, Oprah, Funny or Die, Awestruck, Swing Left, Acronym, Babycenter and more. It's been a busy year directing a comedy pilot presentation starring Geena Davis entitled "I Can By Friday," a Netflix Family doc series called "Like A Mother" about working moms making in-roads in male dominated careers, a commercial reframing the cultural narrative around abortion and a 12-episode comedic doc series called "Wags to Riches."

Her directing has been commissioned for broadcast commercials and high-profile brands including Walmart, Little Tikes, Fellow Americans, Bloomlife, Schwarzkopf, Geico, Diono, Wake Up and Vote, several fashion lines and Netflix, where she directed an anthemic love letter to all moms in the entertainment industry that garnered over 16 million views online. When she is not wrangling a cast and crew, she’s wrangling her children and rescue pets.

Jean E. Lee is a Korean American writer/director from Allentown, Pennsylvania. A lover of global cinema and universal stories, Lee has directed in 9 languages spanning 7 countries and 5 continents. Jean’s feature directorial debut, PECADO ORIGINAL (ORIGINAL SIN) was recently distributed on HBO and HBO Max and is the first ever Paraguayan and American co-production. Jean recently completed her sci-fi action short film STRONG with support from AFI DWW, Google, the Sundance Institute, the Knight Foundation, and Panavision. She is currently developing her second feature, a horror magical realism film, BUT POLLY WANTS TO EAT YOU. Lee is also in post on a VR docuseries THE HEART OF PUERTO RICO, which won the 2020 AT&T Film Award and received support from Luis & Lin Manuel Miranda’s Foundation, Flamboyan.

Jean will be making her episodic directorial debut in 2022 on the NBC show NEW AMSTERDAM through NBC Female Forward. Jean is an alumnus of the 2014 Film Independent Directors Lab, 2015 AFI Directing Workshop for Women, the 2016 Blacklist/WIF TV Writers Lab, the 2017 Fox Filmmakers Lab, 2018 NALIP TV Writers Lab, and the Ryan Murphy HALF program. In 2019, she was named one of the “Top 25 Screenwriters to Watch” by Moviemaker Magazine and Austin Film Festival. Her first short magical realism film, CAHAYA which was shot in Jakarta, Indonesia, premiered at Berlinale International Film Festival. Jean graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa. She then earned her MFA in film production at NYU Tisch Asia as a Jacob Javitz Fellow. In her spare time, she can be found enjoying blueberry donuts and freshly steamed dumplings.

Kantú Lentz is a Peruvian filmmaker who creates films that take place in alternate realities with magical realism elements. She recently directed the award-winning short film “Jack and Jo Don’t Want to Die,” starring Justin Kirk and Olivia Edward which premiered at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival. Lentz is an AFI DWW, Sony Television Diverse Directors Program, Viacom Emerging Directors Program & Tribeca/Chanel ‘Through Her Lens’ alum.

Over the past 3 years, Lentz directed over 50 political ads for ‘One Vote at a Time’ which creates in-kind campaign videos for democratic candidates who believe in gun safety legislation. In commercials, Kantú has worked with such brands and clients as New Balance, Verizon, TUMI, Ulta Beauty, LG, Aveda, AARP, AD Council, Refinery 29, VICE Media & YouTube Originals. The comedic video Rollercoaster Break-up, Kantú wrote and directed starring Moses Storm went viral with currently 8 million views and counting. In 2021 she was commissioned to write and direct a comedic short film for Paul Feig’s Powderkeg Fuse Anthology series. Kantú is slated to make her TV Directorial debut on the Dick Wolf series “Chicago Fire,” as part of this year's NBC: Female Forward Program. Lentz is currently developing the feature-length version of “Jack and Jo Don’t Want to Die.”

American filmmaker Afia Nathaniel has roots in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Her debut feature film “Dukhtar” (Daughter) premiered at Toronto (2014) becoming Pakistan’s Official Submission for Foreign Language Film at the 87th Academy Awards®. The film played to critical acclaim in over 20 countries to rave reviews and became the Critics’ Pick (Village Voice) and the People Magazine’s Pick of the Week. The film has won several awards including Adrienne Shelly award for Directors, Audience Award at Creteil, Best World Feature at Sonoma, Best Director + Best Feature Film at SAIFF. “Dukhtar” was nominated for a Gotham award and the Women Film Critics Circle award for the “Best Foreign Film by or About Women”. The screenplay for “Dukhtar” has been invited to the Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences as part of their Permanent Core Collection.

Afia graduated from Columbia University with an MFA in Film Directing (Dean’s Fellow). She is an alumnus of IFP, TFI, Film Independent and Berlin Talent Project Market. Afia teaches directing and screenwriting at Temple University. She has also taught at Columbia University’s Graduate Film Division, Princeton University (Peter B. Lewis Fellow) and NYU’s Tisch. Afia is in development with several TV projects. Her pilot screenplay adaptation for the novel Watched won a development grant from Warner150 and IFP. Her immigrant drama “Naaz” was featured “On our Radar 2021” by Creative Capital. She is also working on a crime thriller set in Asia.

Kay Oyegun is a producer and writer on NBC’s hit drama series THIS IS US and has been with the show since its launch in 2016. Previous TV writing credits include “QUEEN SUGAR” on Oprah Winfrey’s OWN network. On the film side, she’s adapting the novel “Children of Blood and Bone” for Lucasfilm, Fox, and Disney and the novel “On The Come Up,” the follow up to “The Hate U Give” for Paramount. Kay also recently sold a feature to HBO MAX titled “The Ancestor” and last year sold one to Paramount titled “Assisted Living.” For her work on “THIS IS US,” Oyegun is a NAACP Image Award winner, as well as a Humanitas Prize and Writers Guild of America Award nominee.

Pratibha Parmar is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, director, and producer with a proven track record of bringing compelling stories into the mainstream media, stories that resonate beyond the margins. Pratibha has worked across multiple genres - documentaries, short dramas, music videos, a narrative feature and directed an episode of Ava DuVernay’s flagship series “Queen Sugar.” Her work has appeared in a variety of broadcast and theatrical platforms. A globally recognized filmmaker and human rights activist Pratibha’s films, “Warrior Marks” and “Khush” helped gain much needed rights for women and girls as well as contributing to the visibility of marginalized LGBT communities. Her accomplishments have been recognized with multiple awards.

In 2017 Pratibha was awarded the ICON award presented by Bagari London Indian Film Festival in Association with the British Film Institute for Outstanding Contribution to Indian and World Cinema. In 2016 she was included in the BBC’s list of 100 inspirational and influential women. Pratibha is currently is in post-production on her hybrid feature doc, “My Name Is Andrea” about the feminist writer Andrea Dworkin. The film features Amandla Stenberg, Ashley Judd, Andrea Riseborough, Soko and Christine Lahti. Pratibha is enthusiastically focused on directing more scripted episodic television and was selected for the NBC Female Forward Program. She will be directing an episode of “Law & Order: SVU” in Spring 2022. Parmar is a member of the Directors Guild of America and a voting member of Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.