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II-TRIBECA FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES 2023 JURY FOR STORYTELLERS, DIRECTORS, ACTORS, WRITERS, AND PRODUCERS: 

Jurors include Brendan Fraser, Stephanie Hsu, Dianna Agron, Zoey Deutch, Zazie Beetz, Kate Siegel, Mark Duplass, Stephen Kay, Nina Dobrev, Clea DuVall, Piper Perabo, Chance the Rapper, Noah Centineo, Jeremy O. Harris, Andrew Ahn, Chloe Grace Moretz,...

NEW YORK, NY (SMI-ENTERTAINMENT JUNE 02-18, 2023)- The Tribeca Festival, presented by OKX, today announced the 2023 jury members who will select winning projects in the film, immersive, games, and audio storytelling sections. The Festival has 15 different competition categories for which jurors will honor winning storytellers and creators with artistic awards. 

 

This year’s festival jury include a diverse roster of groundbreaking filmmakers, award-winning actors, celebrated multi-hyphenate producers, and leaders from entertainment and culture, including Brendan Fraser, Stephanie Hsu, Zoey Deutch, Dianna Agron, Zazie Beetz, Kate Siegel, Mark Duplass, Stephen Kay, Nina Dobrev, Clea DuVall, Piper Perabo, Chance the Rapper, Noah Centineo, Jeremy O. Harris, Andrew Ahn, Chloe Grace Moretz, and more. In addition to the awards in competition categories, the Nora Ephron Award, created to honor the spirit and vision of the legendary filmmaker and writer, will be presented.

 

“We are thrilled to announce the jury for the 2023 Tribeca Festival,” said Tribeca Festival Executive Vice President of Artist Relations and Special Events Nancy Lefkowitz. “The diversity of perspectives and experiences across all verticals are representative of the myriad voices reflected in this year’s program.”

 

More than 58 industry leaders were selected to honor feature-length and short film categories, composed of narrative and documentary films, as well as Storyscapes, the juried section of immersive. A jury has also been established to honor the best work in games and to honor submissions in Tribeca’s returning audio storytelling category. 

 

The winning films, projects, filmmakers, storytellers, and actors in each category will be announced at the Tribeca Festival ceremony on June 15th. 

 

Feature Film Competition Categories

 

Short Film Competition Categories

 

The jurors for the 2023 Narrative & Animated Shorts Competition section are:

 

Midori Francis

Midori Francis is a series regular on ABC's GREY'S ANATOMY portraying Dr. Mika Yasuda. She also stars in the HBO MAX hit THE SEX LIVES OF COLLEGE GIRLS.  Midori can be seen in the Blumhouse MGM + film UNSEEN starring opposite Jolene Purdy, and in the Netflix series DASH AND LILY (Daytime Emmy nomination). She had a breakout performance in Universal's GOOD BOYS (SXSW premiere). Midori's a Drama Desk nominee for her performance in NYT critics pick USUAL GIRLS at the Roundabout. Other credits: THE WOLVES at Lincoln Center (NYT Critics Pick and Obie Award Winner), CONNECTED at 59E59 (NYIT Award).

Jeremy Holt is a non-binary author whose works include Gatsby, Made in Korea, Virtually Yours, and Before Houdini. An original art page from After Houdini was acquired by The Houdini Museum of NYC, where it now hangs in its permanent collection. Their work, Skip to the End was one of three works of fiction that The New York Times included in an in-depth expose on the 25th anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death.

 

Sheila Nevins

Executive Producer for MTV Documentary Films, Sheila Nevins served as president of HBO Documentary Films and Family Programming, making her responsible for development and production of more than 1500 programs. She has received 32 Primetime Emmy® Awards, 35 News and Documentary Emmys and 42 George Foster Peabody Awards. A New York Times best-selling author, Nevins has been honored with numerous prestigious career achievement awards and inducted into Broadcasting & Cable’s Hall of Fame. She has garnered an IDA Career Achievement Award and the New York Women in Film & Television Muse Award for Outstanding Vision & Achievement.

 

Chance the Rapper

Hailed as “a generational voice” by GQ and “an outstanding role model” by President Barack Obama, multi-Grammy award winner Chance the Rapper has built a multi-faceted career, redefining what it means to be an independent artist. Chance has never signed a record deal—opting instead to make his music available for free. Born and raised in Chicago, Chance made history in 2017 when he became the first artist to win a Grammy for a streaming-only mixtape—collecting a trio of statues for “Best New Artist,” “Best Rap Performance” and “Best Rap Album” for his now-iconic Coloring Book.

Chance is currently on a path to intertwine the worlds of art, music and cinematography through groundbreaking work and installations, as he prepares to release a new body of work, Star Line Gallery, this year. The project contains a series of interdisciplinary works in collaboration with fine artists from The Continent and The Diaspora. The resulting pieces redefine the notion of ‘album art’ and are compelling conversations and meditations on Black life. Over the past year, these works (“Child of God,” “A Bar About A Bar,” “The Highs & The Lows” and “YAH Know”) have premiered at art institutions around the world including Art Basel, Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), The Art Institute of Chicago, and Los Angeles’ Museum Of Contemporary Art (MOCA). Alongside his music, Chance’s expanding career also includes film and television credits. In 2021, he became the first artist to independently distribute a film through AMC Theatres via his Magnificent Coloring World concert film, written, produced, edited and distributed by Chance himself. His portrayal of the character Herbert on the HBO Max series Southside earned Chance a 2023 NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Performance. In Spring 2023, Chance made his highly-anticipated debut as a coach on Season 23 of The Voice.

Coming from a long line of activists and community organizers, Chance was raised with a strong sense of purpose and a dedication to giving back. Through his nonprofit organization SocialWorks, he aims to inspire and empower youth through arts, education and civic engagement. Since 2016, SocialWorks has contributed $10M to the Chicagoland community, impacting approximately 10k students annually. Chance kicked off this year by organizing a self-funded free festival in Accra, Ghana that drew upwards of 52,000 attendees. The “Black Star Line Festival” was founded with a mission to foster cultural exchange between Black people of The Continent and the global Diaspora. 

The jurors for the 2023 Short Documentary and Student Visionary Competition section are: 

 

Andrew Ahn

ANDREW AHN is a queer Korean American filmmaker. Ahn's latest feature FIRE ISLAND (Searchlight Pictures) starring Joel Kim Booster, Bowen Yang, and Margaret Cho is currently streaming on Hulu. The film won the Ensemble Tribute at the 2023 Gotham Awards. Ahn's sophomore feature DRIVEWAYS premiered at the 2019 Berlinale and was nominated for two Film Independent Spirit Awards. Ahn's first film SPA NIGHT premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival in US Dramatic Competition and went on to win the 2017 Cassavetes Independent Spirit Award. Ahn has directed television for Netflix, FX, HBO Max, CBS, and the Sundance Channel.

 

Jimmy Akingbola

JIMMY AKINGBOLA is an actor and producer who can currently be seen reprising his role as ‘Geoffrey’ in season 2 of Peacock's BEL-AIR, the acclaimed serialized one-hour dramatic analogue of the '90s sitcom THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR and the second series of BritBox's THE TOWER, based on Kate London's Metropolitan novel series. Just recently, Peacock released Jimmy’s documentary HANDLE WITH CARE, which follows Jimmy's personal journey and works to uncover the truth about growing up in the care system in England.

 

Noah Centineo

Noah Centineo has quickly become one of Hollywood's most in-demand actors. He was most recently seen starring and executive producing in Netflix’s THE RECRUIT and seen starring in DC’s BLACK ADAM. Centineo rose to fame in thepopular Netflix original TO ALL THE BOYS I’VE LOVED BEFORE, for which he reprised his role in the following two installments of the trilogy. Additional credits include Elizabeth Banks’ CHARLIE’S ANGELS, Ian Samuel’s SIERRA BURGESS IS A LOSER, ABC’s THE FOSTERS, and the subsequent spinoff GOOD TROUBLE. Centineo is also the founder of production company ARKHUM PRODUCTIONS. 

Agnes Chu

With a track record of success across entertainment mediums, Agnes Chu builds lasting brands through the power of quality storytelling. Formerly the head of content for Disney+, Chu joined Condé Nast Entertainment in September 2020, leading the division of 300+ worldwide charged with growing the film, television, digital video and audio portfolio with Condé Nast’s iconic global brands and IP.  Leveraging a century of culture-defining journalism from The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, WIRED, Vogue and GQ, Chu is expanding the company’s entertainment business, with 70+ current projects in development and production, 40 podcasts globally, and 4,000 videos across brand channels annually.

A member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Chu earned her BA in Art, Film and Visual Studies from Harvard University and MBA from Columbia Business School.

 

West Duchovny

West Duchovny is a rising American actress who stars as a lead opposite Alycia Debnam-Carey in “Saint X,” Hulu’s eight-part series from writer Leila Gerstein and director Dee Rees. Based on Alexis Schaitkin’s novel, “Saint X” focuses on how a young woman’s mysterious death during an idyllic Caribbean vacation creates a traumatic ripple effect that eventually pulls her surviving sister into a dangerous pursuit of the truth. Duchovny will star as ‘Alison,’ a smart and charismatic young woman who is beginning to look at her own privilege through a critical lens as she vacations with her family at a beautiful island resort. “Saint X” premieres on Hulu April 26, 2023. Duchovny can soon be seen starring in the upcoming Netflix limited series, “Painkiller” opposite Uzo Aduba and Matthew Broderick. Directed by Peter Berg, “Painkiller” will explore the origins of the opioid crisis with a focus on Oxycontin maker Purdue Pharma. The show is based on Patrick Radden Keefe’s New Yorker article “The Family That Built an Empire of Pain” and Barry Meier’s book “Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America’s Opioid Epidemic.” Duchovny appeared in the independent feature “Linoleum” opposite Jim Gaffigan, which premiered at this year’s South by Southwest Film Festival. Previously, Duchovny was cast in the HBO Max pilot, “Vegas High,” and had a recurring role on the SyFY series, “The Magicians.”

 

Immersive Competition Categories

 

The jurors for the 2023 Storyscapes Competition section are:

 

Katayoun Dibamehr

Katayoun Dibamehr is an Iranian, French Canadian producer based between Paris and Montreal. She is an XR industry veteran and expert. A seasoned and award-winning producer with a demonstrated history of working with festivals, public and cultural organizations since 2009. In 2014 she was appointed Head of the New Media Program FNC Explore at the Montreal Festival du nouveau cinéma. In 2018 she joined the Paris-based production company Floréal Films, dedicated to producing feature films, short films and immersive experiences. SXSW speaker, she is a member of the Venice Biennal College Alumni and mentor for International Film Festival Rotterdam’s CineMart Immersive cohort from 2020. For the last three years, she is behind acclaimed and award-winning productions The Hangman at Home – VR, (Grand Jury Prize at Venice Film Festival 2020, Cristal for Best VR at Annecy International Animation Film Festival 2021), and the groundbreaking Goliath: Playing with Reality, (Grand Jury Prize at Venice Film Festival 2021 and Emmy News and Documentary nominee 2022).

 

Loren Hammonds

Loren Hammonds is a Peabody Award-winning producer and curator of Film, Television, and Immersive work. A NYC native who has worked in the film & entertainment industry for over 20 years, he is Head of Documentary at TIME Studios. He previously held the titles of Vice President of Immersive Programming at Tribeca Enterprises and Senior Programmer at Tribeca Festival. Among his recent credits as an executive producer are The Territory (Nat Geo, Sundance winner of the World Cinema Documentary Audience Award 2022,) Katrina Babies (HBO, Tribeca winner of the Best New Documentary Director Award 2022,) and MLK: NOW IS THE TIME (SXSW XR Experience Spotlight Audience Award 2023.) His views on cinematic and immersive storytelling have been featured in several publications and programs, including The New York Times, BBC Click, NPR, The Today Show, and Vice. He has also been featured as a guest speaker at Cannes Film Festival, SXSW, Columbia University's Digital Storytelling Lab, Mutek, Pratt Institute, Scuola Holden, P&G Signal, and more.

 

Vassiliki Khonsari

Vassiliki Khonsari is an award-winning creative producer and co-founder of iNK Stories. Recognized by Fast Company as an "Innovation Agent", iNK Stories is an acclaimed development studio of storytellers and creative technologists––with a distinctive pedigree across Blockbuster AAA franchises, games, films, VR/AR/XR, and virtual spaces in Web2 and Web3. iNK's original titles have received the industry's top honors, including the recent 2023 Sundance + Stars Collective Imagination Award for Best Metaverse, BAFTA Nominations, AIS Lumiere Award for Best Immersive, META's Game of the Year, Tribeca's Storyscapes Award, Mobile Game Award Winner, IGN's Best of E3, and Academy of Interactive Sciences for Best Game, Telly Award, New York Game Critics Awards for Best Writing and Best Game, Dice Award Nomination Best Game and Best Director, Jury Top Prize at IndieCade, Nexon Award, UNESCO and more. Collaborations include Louverture Films, Meta, Google, Verizon, Pico, Microsoft, and more. Khonsari's background is as a Visual Anthropologist and documentary filmmaker, and contributes to the dialogue of inclusion and equity in the entertainment industry. Khonsari consults and mentors at top institutions like Sundance, Tribeca, CPH:Dox, AIDC, Visions du Reel, and Talent LabXR. Founding Member of Rolling Stone Culture Council, PGA's Women's Impact Network and Ambassador for Women in Games.

 

The jurors for the 2023 Immersive New Voices are:

Salome Asega

Salome Asega is an artist and Director of NEW INC at the New Museum. Her work invites the playful and absurd to critique the speed in which technology develops and poses new consentful tech futures leveraging the power of collective imagination. Salome is a 2022 United States Fellow and an inaugural cohort member of the Dorchester Industries Experimental Design Lab developed by the Rebuild Foundation and Prada. She is also a co-founder of POWRPLNT, a Brooklyn digital arts lab for teens. Salome has participated in residencies and fellowships with Eyebeam, New Museum, The Laundromat Project, and Recess and has exhibited at the 11th Shanghai Biennale, MoMA, Carnegie Library, August Wilson Center, Knockdown Center, and more. 

 

Sandra Rodriguez

Sandra Rodriguez, PhD, is a creative director of XR and AI experiences, and a sociologist of emergent technology. Her work spans interactive and immersive non-fiction experiences showcased internationally (Peabody, IDFA DocLab; Best VR Leipzig, Numix, UNVR, and the 1st Golden Nica award for VR at Ars Electronica). She explores AI, VR and human creativity, crossing it with live performance, dance, multi-user games and large-scale exhibits. Rodriguez is a Sundance StoryLab Fellow, Sundance Institute and MacArthur Foundation Grantee. An MIT Opend Doc Lab Fellow and MIT lecturer, she inaugurated and taught HackingXR from 2017-2022, MIT’s first official class on VR and XR.

 

Lance Weiler

An alumnus of the Sundance Screenwriting Lab, Lance Weiler is recognized as a pioneer in mixing storytelling and technology. Wired magazine named him “one of 25 people helping to reinvent entertainment and change the face of Hollywood.” Weiler has designed experiences that have been official selections at Sundance, Tribeca and New York Film Festival. He was nominated for an International Emmy in digital fiction for his work on Collapsus: The Energy Risk Conspiracy. In addition, he is a founding member and director of the Columbia University School of the Arts' Digital Storytelling Lab.

 

Games Competition Categories

 

The jurors for the 2023 Games Competition section are: 

 

Chloë Grace Moretz

Chloë Grace Moretz most recently starred in Amazon's sci-fi thriller series THE PERIPHERAL, created by Scott B. Smith. Moretz will next voice the role of Nimona in Netflix’s animated film NIMONA, opposite Riz Ahmed. The film is adapted fromThe New York Times bestselling graphic novel of the same name, by ND Stevenson. Moretz also recently starred in the Miramax and 6th & Idaho Productions sci-fi thriller MOTHER/ANDROID, directed by Mattson Tomlin. Moretz previously starred in SHADOW IN THE CLOUD, which premiered at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival, and won the Midnight Madness Award. Additionally, Moretz starred in Focus Features' GRETA, opposite Isabelle Huppert, and directed by Neil Jordan. Prior to that, Moretz starred in THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST, which opened to rave reviews and won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Later that year, she starred in Luca Guadagnino's SUSPIRIA, which premiered at the 2018 Venice Film Festival and went on to win the Robert Altman Award at the Film Independent Spirit Awards. When she was eight years old, Moretz made her debut with THE AMITYVILLE HORROR. She followed that with KICK-ASS, and Matt Reeves' remake of LET ME IN, which landed her on TIME Magazine's ‘Top 10 Performances of the Year’ list, as well as the New York Times' ‘Best Performances of 2010’ list. Moretz’s film credits also include the Academy Award-winning HUGO; IF I STAY; DARK SHADOWS; Kimberly Peirce’s remake of the Stephen King classic CARRIE; THE 5TH WAVE; Marc Webb’s 500 DAYS OF SUMMER; THE EQUALIZER; and KICK ASS 2. In addition to her acting career, Chloë served as an executive producer on Snapchat's Discover series COMING OUT. 

 

Evan Narcisse

Evan Narcisse is the Senior Writer at Brass Lion Entertainment. He's worked as a screenwriter, producer, and narrative design consultant in video games, comic books, film, and TV, often focusing on the intersection of blackness and pop culture. As a journalist and critic, he wrote for The Atlantic, Time Magazine, Kotaku, and The New York Times, in addition to teaching game journalism at New York University and appearances as an expert guest on CNN and NPR. He's also the author of the Rise of the Black Panther graphic novel, Marvel's Black Panther: Wakanda Atlas, and The New Day: Power of Positivity. As a narrative design consultant, he's worked on Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Redfall, Marvel's Avengers, Gotham Knights, and the award-winning Dot's Home. He also served as story producer on the HBO Max documentary Milestone Generations, documenting the rise, fall, and rebirth of the groundbreaking black-owned comics company Milestone Media. A native New Yorker, he now lives in Austin, Texas.

 

Danny Peña

As a gaming consultant, filmmaker, published author and Gamertag Radio’s founder and host, Danny Peña has been at the forefront of video games media for over 20 years. Known for his unmistakable voice and S-rank interview skills, Danny is an Inaugural Podcasters Hall of Fame inductee who is a regular panelist and keynote speaker for podcasting, gaming and radio events and conventions. Today Gamertag Radio - which has earned millions of lifetime downloads and is the first gaming podcast to reach 1,000 episodes in 2020 - is a well-respected and sought-after outlet for fans, developers and companies in gaming who routinely provide the podcast early samples of games and products to be reviewed on the show. 

Danny has been featured in Podcast Magazine, Forbes, CNN, NBC News, ABC News, MTV, Discovery Channel, Telemundo, IGN, Univision, and Paramount Plus content as a gaming industry expert. He has a unique interview style that draws out headline-making stories from games industry titans like Phil Spencer and Reggie Fils-Aimé. His other newsworthy interviews include Keanu Reeves, Giancarlo Esposito, Danny Trejo, and Michael K Williams, and Snoop Dog, to name a few. In 2018, Danny won Florida Supercon’s Best Feature Film for Gamertag Radio: A Podcast Story, and debuted his first children’s book Danny Loves Video Games which was co-created with his cousin Mr. Luna during last year’s Hispanic Heritage Month.

Audio Storytelling Awards 

 

The jurors for the 2023 Audio Storytelling Established Nonfiction Competition section are:

 

Leital Molad

Leital Molad is the SVP of Content Development for Pushkin Industries, where she has developed and launched award-winning, chart-topping podcasts such as Lost Hills, A Slight Change of Plans, Death of an Artist, The Loudest Girl in the World, and Hot Money, as well as the Apple Fitness+ audio feature, Time to Walk. Previously, she was the executive producer of podcasts at First Look Media/Topic Studios (Missing Richard Simmons, Intercepted with Jeremy Scahill, John Cameron Mitchell’s Anthem). She began her career at WNYC radio, where she produced the Peabody Award-winning arts and culture show Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen. Molad has an MA in journalism from NYU and teaches podcasting at the School of Visual Arts. 

 

Latif Nasser

Latif Nasser is co-host of the New York Public Radio show Radiolab, where he has done stories on everything from professional badminton to the nuclear button to a polar bear who liked to have sex with grizzly bears. Latif also hosted the miniseries “The Other Latif,” about a Guantanamo detainee who shares his name. In addition to his work in audio, Latif is the host and executive producer for the Netflix science documentary series, Connected. He has given two TED talks and written for the Boston Globe Ideas section. He got his Ph.D. from Harvard’s history of science department in 2014.

 

Avery Trufelman

Avery Trufelman is the host and creator of Articles of Interest, a podcast about fashion that was named a best of 2022 by the New York Times and The New Yorker. Previously she worked as a producer on the design podcast 99% Invisible, and she has also created and hosted the podcasts for The Cut and Curbed, from New York Magazine.

 

The jurors for the 2023 Audio Storytelling Independent Nonfiction Competition section are:

 

Zayd Dohrn

Zayd Dohrn is the creator and host of the Tribeca Award-winning podcast Mother Country Radicals. As a playwright, his work has been produced off-Broadway, across the country, and internationally. Awards include the Horton Foote New American Play Prize, the Edgerton Foundation New Play Award, the Kennedy Center’s Jean Kennedy Smith Award, the Sky Cooper American Playwriting Prize, Theatre Master’s Visionary Playwright Award, and Lincoln Center’s Lecomte du Nouy Prize. Zayd has developed TV pilots for HBO, Showtime, and BBC America, and feature films for Netflix and FilmNation. He holds degrees from Brown, Columbia, and NYU, and was an American Playwriting Fellow at Juilliard. He is currently Professor and Director of the MFA in Writing for Screen + Stage at Northwestern. 

 

Rachel Ghiazza

Rachel Ghiazza is EVP and Head of US Content at Audible. In this role, she oversees all US content and global operations, and is a dynamic force behind Audible’s innovation and investment in original programming, which has garnered international recognition and acclaim. During her tenure leading Audible’s US Content team, Rachel has helped grow Audible into the leading creator of audio storytelling, developing new genre-bending categories and forging unique talent collaborations with industry leaders. She is committed to ensuring that Audible content represents people across a diverse range of backgrounds and has built long-standing relationships with renowned artists working to amplify underrepresented voices in the entertainment industry. Her accomplishments include overseeing the curation of Audible Plus, scaling-up in-house brands such as Audible Theater and Words + Music, the launch of Dolby Atmos on Audible, and pioneering multi-project arrangements within the entertainment industry, including signing President and Mrs. Obama’s Higher Ground Productions to Audible.

 

Shima Oliaee

Shima Oliaee is the CEO and founder of Shirazad Productions. Her first independently-produced series Pink Card premiered in 2022 at ESPN 30 for 30, and received two Gracie Awards, an Overseas Press Club Award, and a National Headliner Award. Prior to that, Oliaee created the miniseries Dolly Parton’s America, receiving a Peabody Award and a Murrow Award, along with several national honors. For Radiolab, she co-created the critically-acclaimed Vanishing of Harry Pace, and her audio documentary The Flag and the Fury won a duPont-Columbia Award and Best in Show at the National Headliner Awards. Her first reported and produced miniseries UnErased was named podcast of the year by KQED News. After studying music and cinema-television at USC, Oliaee received her graduate degree in psychology. She worked as a teacher, a translator, and in comedy tv, including the Golden Globe-winning Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Her next investigative series will be released in 2023.

 

The jurors for the 2023 Audio Storytelling Established Fiction Competition section are:

 

Chioke I’Anson

Dr. Chioke I’Anson is director of the VPM+ICA Community Media Center at the Institute for Contemporary Art in Richmond, VA. He is also a national underwriting voice for NPR and the creator and organizer of RESONATE Podcast Festival. As a philosopher, Chioke is an advocate of media education who believes that there can be no critical thinking without media literacy. He sits on the board of the Association of Independents in Radio and has been heard on podcasts such as Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, Everything is Alive, Love + Radio, and The 11th.

 

Ayeesha Menon

Ayeesha Menon’s play RAMAYANA RESET was performed at the National Theatre as a part of the Connections festival, 2022. In the category of Best Adaptation at the BBC Audio Drama Awards, Ayeesha adaptation of THE JUNGLE BOOK won in 2022 and A TALE OF TWO CITIES won in 2019. Her MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN won the Outstanding Achievement award in 2018. She has won Sony Awards for her adaptations of Q&A (Slumdog Millionaire) and THE CAIRO TRILOGY. Ayeesha’s original detective drama UNDERCOVER MUMBAI has run for three series on Radio 4. She also wrote INTO THE MAZE for the Riot Girls series and co-wrote three seasons of TAKE OVER. Her adaptations for radio include MAHABHARATA NOW, THE WOODLANDERS, GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING, OLIVER: Lagos to London, A FINE BALANCE, THE SEVENTH TEST, THE MUMBAI CHUZZLEWITS, SIX SUSPECTS, and MY NAME IS RED. Ayeesha’s adaptation of Agatha Christie’s THE MIRROR CRACK’D, re-imagined for an Indian audience and directed by Melly Still, was performed in Mumbai in 2020. Her play PEREIRA’S BAKERY AT 76  CHAPEL ROAD ran in Mumbai for three years and was read at the Royal Court.

 

Mimi O’Donnell

Mimi O’Donnell is currently Head of Scripted Fiction at Spotify Studios. She has recently Executive Produced and directed, Case 63, the English language adaptation of the hit Chilean podcast Caso 63 starring Julianne Moore and Oscar Isaac. She also directed and executive produced 2022's Quiet Part Loud, a co-production with Jordan Peele's Monkeypaw Productions featuring Tracy Letts. She has served as EP on audio series such as Sandra, The Horror of Dolores Roach, Motherhacker, The Two Princes, and Gay Pride and Prejudice with the award winning podcast company Gimlet. She served as the Artistic Director of Labyrinth Theater Company for 7 seasons, where she directed the World Premieres ofNice Girl and Thinner Than Water by Melissa Ross and the New York premiere of The Way West by Mona Mansour. As a producer with the Company, she was nominated for a Tony Award for the Broadway production of The Motherf**ker with the Hat.

 

The jurors for the 2023 Audio Storytelling Independent Fiction Competition section are:

 

J.T. Green

JT Green is an audio documentarian by trade and artist by practice. They are the founder of the creative studio Molten Heart, which takes an immersive and artistic approach to podcasts, musical albums, and in-person audio experiences. Molten Heart’s latest co-production, Finding Tamika, has been featured on numerous best of lists (including The New York Times and Vulture) and won a 2023 duPont-Columbia Award. Outside of Molten Heart, they are a multi-disciplinary artist, exploring the spiritual qualities of improvisation, the convergence of health and personal technology, and gender expression on the internet. Their independent audio documentary, PMHx, won the 2021 Third Coast Award for Best Documentary Short. Along with performing at EXPO Chicago, Chicago Home Theater Festival, and NYUs Brooklyn venue, The Garage—they’ve exhibited visual artworks at The University of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and Mass MoCA.

 

Arielle Nissenblatt

Arielle Nissenblatt is the founder of EarBuds Podcast Collective, a weekly podcast newsletter and podcast. She is the head of community and content at SquadCast.fm. She is a graduate of the Salt Institute of Audio Documentary Studies. Nissenblatt is a podcast marketing expert, having spoken on panels at conferences such as Radiodays Asia, Radiodays Europe, Sounds of New York, Podcast Movement, International Documentary Association’s Podcast Day at USC, Montana Media Lab, American University, and more. She is one of the founders of Podcast Taxonomy, an international effort to categorize roles and credits in the podcast industry. She is the cohost of the Sounds Profitable podcast, a show about the business of podcasting. She hosts a podcast about podcast trailers called "Trailer Park."

 

Jemma Rose Brown

Conceptual artist, curator and community-builder, Jemma Rose Brown creates cultural programs in the audio storytelling space. Jemma helped found On Air Fest, and has led the festival’s curation, partnerships and growth since 2017. In addition, she serves as Director of the podcast-focused creative agency work x work. Alongside her professional practice, Jemma’s independent projects engage ritual-making, cooking, scent, writing and recordings to create environments for intimacy, and test the boundaries between self and other. Her work has been awarded multiple residencies as well as gallery shows and staged performances all across Brooklyn as part of Cosmophage Collective.

 

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