Please peruse the biographies of the talented filmmakers who contributed to this year’s TrixXxieFest Short Film and Video Festival. The event was a raging success and this would not have been possible without the amazing gifts of these artists:
Guadalupe Yepes (Argentina) – Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She currently works as an actress, also self-managing some of the projects she gets involved with. As an actress, she has done her training in Argentina, as well as the USA, where she lived for 18 years (New York and Los Angeles). She has been working in theatre, movies and television since 1991.
Some of her credits include “The Woman that every men wants”, (NY Film Festival winner for best director); “EL Marginal”; “Poliladron”, (T.V. shows) among others.
Taylor Stocks (Newfoundland) is and advocate and practitioner of compassionate change, democratic engagement, and queer activism.
Taylor works to create spaces for conversation and help weave together individuals and communities in pursuit of a kinder, wiser society. Taylor’s first film “Palatably Queer” played on Opening Night of TrixXxieFest.
Jacqueline Hynes (Newfoundland) is a writer and filmmaker from Bell Island, NL. Her film, The Passenger, was the recipient of the RBC Michelle Jackson Emerging Filmmaker Award and her film Cardboard Junction, won the Nickel Independent Film Festival Emerging Filmmaker Award. Hynes, with filmmaking partner Andrea Dunne, was recently selected for the NIFCO/Telefilm Picture Start program to produce the film, Malignant. In 2015, Hynes was awarded a Newfoundland Arts and Letters Award for her poem, Some Functions of the Wind.
Lida Sadeghi (Iran) is an Iranian filmmaker who specializes in short films. She is the Director of three short films and has worked on more than 30 short films as Assistant Director. Most recently her work was screened at the Wiper Festival.
Lisa MacLean (Vancouver) has an MFA in Studio Art and a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies (Art History, English, and Sociology) from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. She has exhibited her art work and created installations locally, nationally, and internationally for many years and has been an artist in residence at institutions in Belgium, France, Turkey, and Italy. In addition to teaching in several post-secondary institutions in Canada and producing her own work, Lisa has curated a range of exhibitions and taken part in many collaborative projects. Spanning a variety of disciplines including digital media, photography, video, and mixed media installation, her practice confronts concerns related to cultural and natural history, gender, landscape and the body, architectural space, the environment, and memory.
Abbie Birtles (Scotland) is a UK based Animator, film maker and artist. She holds a 1st BA hons Animation, MA with distinction in Animation.
Arijana Lekić-Fridrih (Croatia) was born 1983 in Zagreb, Croatia. She graduated in Film and Video from the Arts Academy in Split, Croatia and is currently studying documentary film directing at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb. Arijana also works as a freelance film and video artist.
Yukiko Nishino (Japan) was born in 1989 in Osaka Japan. Yukiko is an artist who is mainly focuses on female figures and issues of personality in her film and video works.
Nishino earned a BFA in the Filmmaking School at Osaka University of Arts (OUA) and an MFA in Film and Video at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
At OUA, she absorbed the conventional Japanese film style, of the form associated with her narrative based art films and videos. She creates surreal objects in order to emphasize the uncanny gaps between conventional films and actual lives. Her own visual and conceptual language emerges from her awareness of the subconscious mind with regards to female identity. Nishino’s works has screened in such places as Tokyo Japan, Pune India, Amazonas Brazil and Boston MA. She currently lives and works in Boston.
Selma Nayebi (Iran) was born in 1980, in Tehran. She is a filmmaker and has a Master of Arts, Department of Art Studies, Azad University of Yazd.
Maria Manasterny (Germany) studied philosophy, literary studies and Fine Arts. She first started her studies with drawing and photography under John Armleder, then changed to film and graduated 2014 with two experimental films at University of Arts Bremen, under Rosa Barba and Jean-François Guiton. She now lives in Berlin, where she is writing, drawing, filming and photographing.
Jenn Brown (Newfoundland) is an actor/director from Upper Amherst Cove, NL. She has a BFA Theatre (Acting) from Memorial University’s Grenfell Campus. She worked as Artistic Associate with the Grand Bank Theatre Festival, is on the board of A1C Gallery, and is a proud co-founder of Engine Productions.
Jenn has acted and written for theatre companies across the province, has taught theatre with the NLAC Arts Smarts program, is an organizer for the upcoming Lawyna Vawnya arts and culture festival, and has recently begun dabbling in film. Jenn will be performing next in The Isemene Project at Rabbittown Theatre this May.
Marina Bruno (USA) is mostly known for her short film work, including Short Circuit (2013), Civil War (2012), Chocolate Milkshake (2014) & Waste of a Fall (2014), Marina started her career at a young age. When she was 3, she made her first movie “Dinosaur” using her toys and a camcorder. In the fall of 2005, Marina played a supporting role in her father, Carlo Bruno’s 2-hour feature film In April (2014). The young filmmaker made her first official short film in the summer of 2011, some of which was filmed in Los Angeles, California. She founded her production company “Wondering Pictures” and in the next years wrote, directed, produced and edited several new works. She recently finished writing, directing and producing her first feature film “Cotton String”, which is now released.
Sonia Gerbeaud, (France) born in Annecy in 1984, and Mathias Panafieu, born in Paris in 1986, met at Poitiers Fine Arts School. There they explored animation film along with illustration, photography, sculpture and serigraphy. Once they got their diplomas, they went backpacking around the world, filling their heads and sketchbooks with pictures. On the road, they began writing their very first short movie and, back in France, directed Faded Finery, a four hands and a few thousand drawings animated film.
Jeanette Buck‘s (USA) film directing credits include the feature film, Out of Season, and the short films Lie Together, Kiss on the Bosphorus, and Texting: A Love Story. Jeanette is also a known theater figure in Washington, DC working as a director and stage manager. http://jeanettebuck.com/
Cara Lee Coleman (Newfoundland) is a well known and prolific singer, songwriter, performer and video maker. Visit her bandcamp page for links and streams to her amazing library of musical releases https://caraleecoleman.bandcamp.com/
Sahra Hassan (Ireland) is a young, first time student director from Tralee, Ireland.
Snejana Herbst (Ireland) is a first time student filmmaker from Tralee, Ireland
Janina Putzker (Germany) was born in 1991 in Vienna/Austria. From 2005 to 2010 she studied Graphic and Communication Design at “The Graphics School” in Vienna. From 2011/2012 she attended the “Animation School Hamburg“ to learn about 2D-‐Animation. Currently she is studying Animation at the “Filmakademie Baden-‐Württemberg“. Abbie also work as an Illustrator and graphic designer.
Ana Santos – (Portugal) Based in Lisbon, Portugal, Ana Santos graduated in Film Studies in 2015. Currently, Ana is an intern at a service production company, working along with international producers.
Larissa Corriveau (Montreal) is an actress, director and writer. In cinema, she played for Denis Villeneuve, Anne Émond and Guy Édoin. She also has performed in theater for more than fifteen directors and choreographers of Montreal’s scene. She directed her first film, Runaway, in 2015 wish has been selected at LES RENDEZ-‐VOUS DU CINÉMA QUÉBÉCOIS, in Montreal. She also directed the videoclip “Le port du masque est de rigueur” for the underground rock band ESSAIE PAS. Her clip has been selected in competition at SEEYOUSOUND FESTIVAL in Turin, Italy, and in the TrixXxieFest (St John’s Newfoundland), in 2016. As a writer, she published poems and novels in many magazines and has been finalist for the award Arthur Rimbaud de la maison de la Poésie de Paris (2007-‐08) and the Prix de la poésie award by Radio-‐Canada (2011). Her poems were also read during the festivals Voix d’Amériques, Jamais Lu and Phenomena. In 2011, after meeting with various craftsmen an craftswomen from theater, film and literature, she starts La Demeure, a production company aimed at creating theater and film. For this unclassifiable artist, film is where the multiple facets of her artistic expression converge.
Zahra Jafari (Iran) was born in 1971 in Nagada in Azerbaijan province. She started her carer making short films in the iranian youth cinema society in 1993 by working as script supervisor for the professional cinema industry. She has made several short films including The story of a Teacher which brought her the silver Unica medal in Poland.
Francesca Silveri (England) was born and bred in Rome, Italy. After graduating with a BA in English Literature in the simmer of 2,000, she moved to London to further her education and to pursue a career in scriptwriting. She completed an MA in Shakespearean Studies at King’s College in 2002, . In 2009 she decided to get serious about making movies and founded Uncharted Films to make the films she had written. She’s now directed 5 short films, including Doris”, and is completing the re-writes on a new feature script.
Jelena Zlatkovic Velickovic (Serbia) is a costume designer who worked in theaters and film as a costume designer. In 2008 she started to do documentary films as a director and producer. She is also working on composing music to use it in her films. Most recently she was a judge for “The Valley Film Festival”, USA and her short film “How to buy an apartment in Serbia” was screened at the Short film Corner, Festival de Cannes.
Shira Moolten is in her junior year at a public high school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where she was born and raised. She has attended Digital Media Academy at Drexel University among several film camps and is Co-Editor-in-Chief of her high school literary magazine, Hooloovoo, helping found the journal. Among her other accomplishments, she has been recognized by Philadelphia Young Playwrights, Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and Poetry Out Loud. She attended the competitive Sewanee Young Writers Conference last year and has had poems published by Apiary Magazine (Philadelphia), and Rattle.
Sepideh Atashin (Iran) is a filmmaker from Iran.
She started her career in art and cinema in 2009 by playing in film Network directed by Iraj Ghaderi. After passing the courses in acting and directing she made her first short film – Ingenuity – in 2015.
Sarah OUAZZANI (France) Multidisciplinary artist, I was at first influenced by the sociological and political approach of cinema, but I’ve quickly diverted from that to go for a work that leaves room for void, unspoken words, silence, musicality, unconscious, visual art. Time, movement, myth, ritual, dream, elements are in a central position in my approach. I am more and more interested in linking different arts in order to explore an oniric world. My first documentary “De l’une à elles”, as well as my video “Berceuse” (“Lullaby”), are about the transition from girl to woman. I am now working on an animated movie with Catherine Chardonnay. In parralell of this work, I am experimenting with music, electroacoustic and improvisation, sometimes linking it with cinema as we did in 2013 in a performance with David Yon and Remi Luc Saulnier. I am also working with a collective on a new sound and video installation about landscape. In addition of my personal work, I conduct workshop with different participants : schools, psychiatric or social institutions, young or old people… That is a way to share my work and to experiment with ideas collectively.
Heather D. Freeman (USA) is Associate Professor of Art at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte where she has taught digital media, including animation, since 2006. She is Co-Director of the College of Art and Architecture’s Digital Arts Center (d-Arts).
Liz Solo (Newfoundland) is an inter-disciplinary artist with a long history as performance artist, writer, media artist/machinimator, activist and musician. Liz works independently and as part of various collectives and partnerships to produce works that merge the live performance stage with virtual (online, game) environments. Her performances often span multiple venues and online platforms. See: www.lizsolo.com
Jasia Kaulbach (USA/UK) is a 23 year old filmmaker from Philadelphia, PA.
She has lived in the UK for the past year, where Tyger Tyger was filmed.
