Latin America Environmental Media Fest

GUEST JURY

Panelists consisting of filmmakers, media historians/critics, and content specialists will review all submissions to determine those that will be included in the festival award competition and in the curated series. The festival has four guest jurors to act as final judges in the competition and offer their views on a panel detailed below.

Darron Collins

Darron Collins, PhD is managing director for conservation programs at the World Wildlife Fund. Darron received a bachelor’s degree in Human Ecology from the College of Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine. He later went on to get a MA in Latin American Studies and Ph.D. in anthropology from Tulane University where he focused on ethnobotany – the relationship between people and plants. During those academic times, he lived for many years in the lowland tropical forests of the Americas and worked with indigenous communities in Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. He came to WWF in 2001 as the Regional Forest Conservation coordinator for Latin America. In 2005, after a period managing WWF’s strategic assessment that gave the organization a new goal and strategy, Darron began working in two very different geographies – the southeastern US and the Amur Basin in Russia, China, and Mongolia. But, although the cultures may have changed, his work continues to focus on how to make conservation happen from local origins and in a way that benefits local communities. Darron loves whitewater kayaking and fly-fishing and feels much more at home in the water than on land. Thankfully, his two daughters, Molly (3) and Maggie (5), are great swimmers and he has the grounding of his wife Karen who he’s been married to for eight wonderful years.

Ali Duffey

Ali Duffey has been a successful independent Producer and Arts Administrator for over twenty-five years, based in New Zealand, Australia and the USA. She has produced, directed, researched and developed a wide range of films and TV programs. She lived and worked in Los Angeles for four years, as Series Producer of a syndicated international travel show. Her productions have garnered awards including two ACE awards, and New Zealand Film and Television Awards. She co-produced documentaries for Channel 4 in the U.K., including the award-winning Doodlin’ - Impressions of Len Lye and Jean Batten - Garbo of the Skies, soon to be remade as a motion picture by writer/director Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings, King Kong). She has managed and directed several arts organizations, including the New Zealand Academy of Film and Television Arts; an Australasian-based comedy performing company; and the New Zealand chapter of Women in Film and Television. She currently lives in New Orleans, and has worked for various companies including Moving Pictures, Morrison Productions, MacGillivray-Freeman Films (Los Angeles), Elysian Films, and Insignia Films (New York). She was a Board Member of the New Orleans Film Festival from 2003 until July 2006, and in August 2006 was appointed Executive Director of that organization.

Shari Frilot

While a senior at Harvard/Radcliffe, Shari Frilot went to intern at the CBS affiliate in Boston for the African-American religious public affairs show Higher Ground. Three months later, she produced the show’s first episode about AIDS in the African-American community, the first show of its kind to air in the New England area. After graduation, she produced and directed the independent video short, Fly Boy, a criticism of the sexist policies of a private men’s club at Harvard/Radcliffe. She moved to New York in 1990, and joined WNYC-TV as a production assistant for the series New York Hotline. After 5 months, she produced the series’ first gay show, “Gay Bashing” and became a staff producer. During the same year she was a Hi-8 camera operator for the music video Sera Susu, directed by Joe Brewster, which featured the Gambian cora player in Paris. In 1991, she became a producer on WNET-TV’s live local news series, Thirteen Live and went on to become an Associate Producer with the award-winning PBS national series INNOVATION on the production The Future Is Now, about how technology is shaping the future of the workplace. Afterwards, she served as a consultant for WNET-TV on the development of Crisis: Who Will Do Science, a series of national programs about science education in American communities of color. In 1992, she wrote and directed the internationally acclaimed short A Cosmic Demonstration Of Sexuality and associate produced Fresh Kill, an independent feature film directed by Shu Lea Cheang. That year, she also became the Festival Director of MIX: The New York Lesbian & Gay Experimental Film/Video Festival and co-founded the first gay film festival in Latin America - MIX BRASIL. In 1994, she was selected to participate in the prestigious Whitney Independent Study Program as a studio artist and was commissioned by the 1994 New Festival to write and direct her award winning independent short What Is A Line? In 1995, she was on the core organizing committee of the historic Black Nations/Queer Nations?conference held in New York City. She was also the post-production producer of the award winning short film, The Friends by Kathy Sandler. She wrote and directed a feature-length documentary about the Black Nations/Queer Nations?conference which is available through Third World Newsreel. In 1996, Shari stepped down from the directorship of MIX after co-founding the first gay film festival in the history of México - MIX MÉXICO. Shari has been the recipient of multiple awards including fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the New York State Council for the Arts, the New York Foundation For the Arts, the Ford Foundation, the Independent Feature Film Market Fellowship for Latino Filmmakers, the Astraea National Lesbian Action Foundation, Media Alliance Media Arts Fellowship, the Video Adapters Artist in Residence Program, the Rev. Delores Jackson Community Inspirational Award for Excellence in Filmmaking and the OUT Fund award for the BN/QN? Southern Collegiate/Community Tour. She was a finalist for the 1996 Sundance Institute Scriptwriting Workshop, and the Aperture Short Film. Shari Frilot is presently a programmer for the Sundance Film Festival where she has been for the last seven years. She has recently stepped down from her post as co-director of programming for OUTFEST: The Los Angeles Lesbian & Gay Film Festival and is a consultant for the MIX International Film Festivals. As a writer/director, she has just completed the new award-winning film, Strange & Charmed, about three love lives told from the point of view of two subatomic particles traveling through spacetime. She is presently developing a book project, a documentary film about the intertwined history of race and science, and a feature film project entitled H2O with Producer Effie Brown’s Duly Noted, Inc.

Sarah Laskin

Sarah Laskin is Vice President for Mission Programs at the National Geographic Society. In 2004 she was among the founders of National Geographic's All Roads Film Project, which showcases breakthrough film and still photography from indigenous and under represented minority cultures around the globe. All Roads supports diverse cultural perspectives with an international film festival, funding, networking, and distribution opportunities to bring together voices that celebrate the vibrant cultural stories of our world. She currently serves on the All Roads Advisory Board. She is also a member of the Society's Conservation Trust, a grant-making committee which supports conservation of the world's biological and cultural diversity. Prior to joining National Geographic, Sarah spent five years working on ocean, coastal, and fishery policy issues in the Clinton Administration. Under President Bill Clinton, she served as associate director for fisheries and coastal issues at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. She was also the program examiner for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration programs at the White House's Office of Management and Budget. She was involved in organizing the U.S. Commerce Department and U.S. Navy's National Ocean Conference in 1998, and was a co-author of the Clinton Cabinet's "Looking to the Sea:
America's Ocean Future," a special report on ocean policy.

Screenings:

The final (guest) jury screenings will be held on Saturday, March 30 from 10:00-2:00pm. The guest jury will be presented with 6-10 films that have been pre-selected by the local jury committee consisting of Tulane University faculty, content experts, and filmmakers.

The jury will make awards for the best feature-length, short, and multimedia presentations, and present a Grand Jury Award for the best work in the festival. Jurors will also have the discretion to make special awards based on format and content.

The Grand Jury Award includes a prize of $1500 contributed by the Stone Center for Latin American Studies. The festival is currently seeking sponsors for other prize awards. The awards will be announced on Sunday evening followed by a re-screening of award winning films

Panel Discussion:

The guest jury will participate in a panel discussion that will focus attention on the following issues: 1) the current state of environmental filmmaking 2) challenges in filmmaking in both the U.S. and in Latin America and 3) film as a tool for social activism. The panel will focus on the best possible way to enhance and encourage quality media production related to environmental issues in the region.

The Panel Discussion will be held Friday, March 30, 2:00 -4:30 pm, in the Greenleaf Conference Room, 100A Jones Hall, Tulane University. This event is free and open to the public.