Cinequest 22 Jury

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Cinequest Film Festival 22 Jury

NARRATIVE FEATURES JURY

Roger Nygard
Roger Nygard has made several independent films, including a comedy called High Strung, an action picture called Back to Back: American Yakuza 2, a movie about car salesman called Suckers, and Six Days in Roswell, a docu-comedy about UFO fanatics. But he's probably most notorious for, "Trekkies," a documentary about the most obsessive sci-fi fans in the Universe. His recent feature documentary is about "The Nature Of Existence," in which he asks why are we here, and what the hell are we supposed to do about it? In television Nygard has directed shows like the HBO series, "The Mind Of The Married Man," the FOX series "The Bernie Mac Show," the NBC series "The Office," the DisneyXD series "Zeke & Luther" as well as having edited episodes of HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and the FX series, "The League."

Don Hardy
Don Hardy is a documentary film director, cinematographer and editor whose films have been seen by millions of people around the world. His first film, Sound Man, premiered at the Cinequest Film Festival in 2006. His second film, Witch Hunt, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2008, won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at Cinequest Film Festival in 2009 and was purchased by MSNBC Films. It is currently available on Netflix, iTunes and Amazon. In 2011, Dons third film, Love Hate Love, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. The film has now won the Artivist Spirit Award at the 2011 Artivist Film Festival and the Best Directing Award at the 2011 DocUtah Film Festival. Love Hate Love will have its world television premiere on the Oprah Winfrey Network later this year. Currently, Don and his team are hard at work on their third feature, The Human Experiment. Prior to moving into the independent film world, Don spent more than a decade working as a television news photojournalist with FOX, ABC and NBC affiliates in New York, Florida and the San Francisco Bay Area. He also spent a year as lead photojournalist and editor for TechNow, a weekly technology and business show that airs on NBC Bay Area and is syndicated to select major markets across the country. He has won numerous awards for his photography and editing including 6 Emmys, 3 Edward R. Murrow Awards, 7 Associated Press Awards, the prestigious San Francisco Bay Area Photographer of the Year Award and more than 15 National Press Photographer Association Awards.

Kurt Kuenne
Kurt Kuenne is an award-winning filmmaker and composer of both fiction and documentary films. His work includes the documentaries "Dear Zachary: a letter to a son about his father" (winner of audience and jury awards at Cinequest 2008) and "Drive-In Movie Memories", a four part short film series that includes the popular "Validation" and "Rent-A-Person" (winner of the audience award at Cinequest 2004), and the feature film "Scrapbook" (winner of an audience award honorable mention at Cinequest 1999). He is a recipient of the Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and a graduate of the USC School of Cinematic Arts. His new narrative feature film "Shuffle" is playing at Cinequest this year. He is currently adapting Frank Beddor's New York Times bestseller "The Looking Glass Wars" into a musical for the stage. He grew up in San Jose and loves returning home for Cinequest.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURES JURY

Shelly Cole
Actor Shelly Cole spent her childhood in Texas and the bulk of her late teens traveling around the country looking for something to happen. Sometimes hitchhiking, sometimes in a Winnebago, she made stops in Seattle, Minneapolis and Alaska. Finally landing in LA in her early 20s to begin her acting career, she was fortunate enough to land her first job; a 3 1/2 year recurring role on the hit television series Gilmore Girls. She subsequently had a long line of guest starring roles on hit shows such as ER, NYPD Blue, Criminal Minds, NCIS, Without A Trace, Cold Case, and CSI NY. She had several starring roles in movies, including Prey For Rock n Roll, playing Sally, a drummer in an all girl band, opposite Gina Gershon, Drea de Mateo, Lori Petty & Marc Blucas. This cult classic had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. She then went on to play one of her favorite roles, Gloria, in The Village Barbershop, opposite John Ratzenberger. For this hidden gem she won the award for Outstanding Actress at the Newport Beach Film Festival. The Village Barbershop premiered at Cinequest in 2007 and received the audience award for best feature. She is honored to be back at Cinequest as a juror!

Chris Ford
Chris currently serves as the Chief Creative Officer for Draftfcb West. Prior to that he was Executive Creative Director at Ogilvy & Mather Advertising, Sydney. Prior to that he was Group Creative Director at Goodby Silverstein & Partners advertising, San Francisco. Prior to that hes not sure anyone really cares. During his 20ish year career, hes worked on brands like The Glenlivet, Chivas Regal, Absolut, Budweiser, Saturn, TiVo, Coke, KFC, Nestle, Emerald Nuts, as well as Comcast, Quaker Oats and some others hes forgotten about either accidently, or intentionally. His work has been recognized by Cannes Lions, D&AD, The One Show and the Museum of Modern Art in Los Angeles. He also took time out to write, produce and direct and secure distribution for the full-length feature film The Village Barbershop which won the Audience Award for Best Feature at Cinequest 19, Best Actress at the Newport Beach Film Festival and is currently holding tight with 3.4 stars on Netflix.

Joke Fincioen
Born and raised in Belgium, Joke started learning the Hollywood ropes after graduating from UCLAs school of Theatre, Film & Television at the age of 20, under the tutelage of such producers as Gale Anne Hurd (Terminator, The Abyss, The Walking Dead) and Harry Ufland (Last Temptation of Christ, Snow Falling on Cedars). Together with her husband, Biagio Messina, she produced the documentary A Galaxy Far Far Away which had a small theatrical distribution. From there they moved more firmly into the unscripted world, earning their documentary wings under acclaimed documentary director R.J. Cutler (The War Room, September Issue). Dying to do Letterman is their directorial debut in the feature documentary world, and as it has been a passion project of theirs for the last 6 years. Having won numerous awards at festivals, including an official selection of DocuWeeks 2011, Dying to do Letterman will enjoy its theatrical and VOD release second quarter 2012. Jokes day job is as an executive producer in unscripted television where she and her husband run the production company Joke Productions, Inc. You can catch their recent docu-series Caged, currently airing Mondays on MTV. Some of their other work includes: Rhett & Link: Commercial Kings on IFC and Beauty and the Geek on CW.

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Cinequest Film Festival 22