Cindy Baer has helmed 2 features and 4 shorts that have appeared collectively in over 100 film festivals and garnered 40 Film Festival Awards, 2 Prism Award Nominations, as well as inclusion in several “Top Films of the Year” lists. Her most recent feature ODD BRODSKY is a quirky Wes Anderson style comedy about a woman who’ll do just about anything to make it in Hollywood. Check it out on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play or your favorite VOD platform –and look for DWF founders Leslee Scallon and Michael Trent playing the “Casting Directors”. Follow Cindy on twitter @CindyBaer Learn more at www.FreeDreamPictures.com

Kimberley Browning a filmmaker and film festival professional based in Los Angeles.  is the Founder and Festival Director of Hollywood Shorts Film Festival, and is an Associate Short Film Programmer at the Tribeca Film Festival.  She produced Diamonds in the Rough, a hip hop documentary that won the Audience Award at DWF.  She most recently produced three comedy pilots for HBO and Executive Produced EAR BUDS: A Podcasting Documentary, that will be released later this fall.

Jamielyn Lippman made her first appearance on the big screen was in BOOGIE NIGHTS. Lippman also guest starred in popular TV shows including THE DREW CAREY SHOW as well as numerous independent films. In 2006, she directed and produced her first feature-length documentary, DIE TRYING, Lippman directed & produced the feature-length documentary entitled WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS about postpartum depression, which is Executive Produced and Narrated by Brooke Shields and distributed by Gravitas Ventures. Point Of View Pictures has acquired the rights of several true-life stories that are being developed into features and documentaries. Lippman is currently directing and producing the documentary 3 YEARS IN PAKISTAN: THE ERIK AUDE STORY which follows the life-changing journey of an actor who was duped into drug smuggling and spent three years in the most dangerous prison in Pakistani, she is also developing a feature length film based on this same story entitled THE PRICE OF PRIDE.

John W. Mann has worked as a writer, director, editor and producer for 20 years. His films include the award-winning indie feature The Week, starring Rick Gomez Band of Brothers and Joelle Carter (Chicago Justice), and various shorts including festival favorites Pissing Vocal Gold and Breadcrumbs. Upcoming television projects include Ultra (Sony Pictures Television). With his writing partner Jon Gunn, Mann co-wrote over a dozen studio movies, including The Magic 8 Ball for Paramount, The Nutcracker for Universal, Imaginary Friends for Skydance Productions, A Tale Dark and Grimm for Film Nation, Monopoly for Hasbro/Sony, and multiple features for Dreamworks Animation, including Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians, Nano, and B.O.O. The Bureau Of Otherworldly Operations.

Carmen Marron is a self-taught writer/director/producer whose debut hip hop indie feature, “GO FOR IT!” was distributed in theaters by Lionsgate across the US. As well as writing and directing, she edited, cast the actors and co-composed the theme song for this well-received inspirational dance drama. It was based on her experiences growing up as an inner-city street dancer in Chicago, as well as a guidance counselor in South Phoenix. The film sold out at festivals from coast to coast and won four Audience Awards. Marron was nominated for many awards, including the coveted Emerging Filmmaker Award at the Chicago International Film Festival. It was also Gina Rodriguez’s (Jane The Virgin) first film break from which Marron cast her through her audition on Youtube. The New York Times hailed the movie as “an unpretentious rite-of-passage drama, thanks to the supple script and capable direction of Carmen Marron, the force behind “Go For It!”
Carmen’s second feature “ENDGAME”, which she wrote, directed and produced, premiered on HBO in July 2016. This aspirational coming-of-age story, stars Rico Rodriguez (Modern Family) and Efren Ramirez (Napoleon Dynamite) and was based on true events in South Texas.
Carmen’s next movie, a women-empowering comedy, Fairy Badmother, is set to start pre-production in Summer 2017 in TX. Her production company, Sparkhope Productions, created a film fund to produce films like Fairy Badmother, to utilize the power of movies and media to encourage the ever-growing voices of women, youth and diverse cultures.
Since 2013, Marron travels on behalf of the US State Department as an international guest speaker to do public diplomacy through her work in Latino Cinema and Education for US Embassies in South and Latin American countries. Marron has a B.A. from DePaul University and a Master’s Degree in Educational Psychology from the University of Arizona. She is a member of Film Independent & NALIP, and when time permits, a jury member for film festivals and the Hispanic Heritage Foundation created by The White House.