Meet the Programmers 2023

Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Meet the Programmers

Let’s give a hearty round of applause to our 25 programmers who watch films year-round to pluck the best of the best for the Fest! This group’s range of backgrounds and tastes runs the gamut—which is the special sauce for cooking up the Seattle International Film Festival program each year, showcasing a diversity of perspectives from around the globe.

To get to know our programmers, scroll this page to read all about them, and click through to see their Letterboxd profiles, in which they supply us with a list of their 10 favorite films of all time and some fun facts about them.

Beth Barrett

Artistic Director
Nordic countries, Western Europe, Australia / New Zealand, documentaries

Meet Beth | Beth's Picks

Beth (she/her) has been with SIFF since 2003 and is responsible for managing the artistic vision of SIFF, including all aspects of programming for the Seattle International Film Festival, SIFF Cinema’s five year-round screens, and the SIFF Education team. She secured SIFF’s status as an Academy Award®-qualifying festival for short film in 2008. Beth currently serves on the Board of the Film Festival Alliance and the City of Seattle Film Task Force. In addition to her daily work in programming, Beth has served on juries and panels in Palm Springs, Park City, Cleveland, Calgary, Vancouver BC, and Berlin.

Stan Shields

Programming Manager
Asian Crossroads, Documentaries, Face the Music

Meet Stan | Stan's Picks

Stan Shields (he/him) has been a member of the SIFF Programming Team since 2004 after having directed for their Screenwriter Salon program and assisted with their Exploding Cinema events. Prior to becoming the Programming Manager in 2017, he served as the Operations Manager for Intiman Theatre. He has also curated and/or taught for Bumbershoot, Cornish College of the Arts, and On The Boards, and currently serves as Artistic Director for (Seattle’s 2008 Mayor’s Arts Award winner) The 14/48 Projects.

Hebe Tabachnik

Senior Programmer
Ibero-American and World cinema

Meet Hebe | Hebe's Picks

Hebe Tabachnik (she/her) has been a film curator, festival consultant, and producer for 20 years and focuses on visionary artists and stories which highlight human rights as well as social, political, and environmental justice. She has participated as juror, project evaluator, and panelist in the U.S., Europe, Latin America, Israel, and China. She is Senior Programmer at the Seattle (SIFF), Palm Springs (PSIFF), and Cartagena International Film Festivals (FICCI), and is the Artistic Director of Cine Latino Minneapolis Saint Paul. She worked for both Sundance and Los Angeles Film Festivals. She was one of the inaugural ARRAY Now Grantees created by Ava DuVernay’s Array Alliance that recognize the top community organizers and arts advocates in the USA. Hebe’s most recent films as Executive Producer are the debut features: Valentina (Brazil, 2020) winner of 25 awards at over 70 film festivals worldwide and The Perfect David (Argentina, Uruguay, 2021 - World Premiere at Tribeca FF 2021).

Justine Barda

Senior Programmer
France, the Middle East, and North Africa

Meet Justine | Justine's Picks

Justine Barda (she/her) has been with SIFF since 2008, programming film from France, the Middle East, and North Africa, and serving on the New Directors Competition committee. She has also consulted with the Sundance Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, and the Dubai International Film Festival. In addition to festival programming, she taught in the Film Studies Program at Seattle University for a decade. In 2019, she founded Telescope Film, a discovery site for international film and TV. She is based in New York.

Angelo Acerbi

World Cinema

Meet Angelo | Angelo's Picks

Angelo (He/him) has been involved in cinema for more than 20 years, starting in film festivals (Turin Film Festival and TGLFF), then contributing to the creation of the Turin Piedmont Film Commission where he was Production Manager for five years. After a period in which he was involved in film production, film events, and film publishing, he resumed his collaboration with the Lovers Film Festival, where he is currently Head Programmer and Assistant to the Artistic Direction. Expanding his activity to the United States, he was a programmer for the Palm Springs International Film Festival, then moved on to the Seattle International Film Festival, for which he has been programming for Europe and Italy for 15 years. He also has curated Cinema Italian Style Seattle for SIFF for the past 12 years. In the cinema field, he collaborates as a reporter and journalist with an English web radio that deals exclusively with festivals and cinema, Fred Film Radio, media partner of the major international film festivals (including Venice, Rome, London, Berlin, Turin, and European Film Awards). For three years, he has been teaching Cinematography and Multimedia Languages at the Galli Academy - IED Network in Como.

Samah Ali

Shorts (Documentary)

Meet Samah

Samah Ali (she/her) is a VR and film programmer based in Toronto and New York City. A lover of documentaries, she currently programs for Academy Award®-qualifying festivals including, Seattle International Film Festival, DOC NYC, and Hot Docs Film Festival. After running her startup Sisterhood Media for five years, she now sits on the Board of Directors at The Black Screen Office and Future of Film Showcase. You can interact with her on Twitter @sistersamah.

SuJ'n Chon

Asian Crossroads, New American Cinema

Meet SuJ’n | SuJ'n's Picks

SuJ'n (she/her) did not grow up watching films. In the immigrant home she grew up in, parents worked all the time, and her job was to study. It was not until the video store clerk days of her youth (R.I.P. Video Library, Sarasota and Blockbuster, Bothell) that the world of film opened up to her. Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Delicatessen was her first cinematic love. Her first SIFF-going memory is Todd Solondz' Welcome to the Dollhouse in the mid-'90s. SuJ'n started as a festival volunteer in 2006. She joined the Asian Crossroads programming team in 2018. Born a Seattlelite, SuJ'n now lives in rural Skagit County with her human companion, Han, and their feline companion, Josephine Baker. The closest movie theater is in Anacortes, 25 minutes away. Thank God for streaming.

James Davis

Culinary Cinema, Shorts

Meet James | James's Picks

Born and raised in Southern California, James Davis (he/him) joined SIFF shortly after arriving in Seattle via Salt Lake City. He started as floor staff at the SIFF Cinema Egyptian in 2014 and two years later moved into his current role as Programming Coordinator. He enjoys biking and running and has a deep curiosity towards the process of distilling. He makes his own hard cider and recently learned the art of roasting coffee. A college minor in photography informed his appreciation for the possibility of film.

Kimberly Dinehart

Shorts (Documentary)

Meet Kimberly

Kimberly Dinehart (she/her) is a shorts programmer at SIFF with a focus on documentary shorts. She has been a programmer with SIFF since 2020 but has been involved with SIFF since 2010, first as a member of the FutureWave committee (2010-2013, president 2012-2013) and then as a festival house coordinator (2017-2019, at Lincoln Square Cinemas in Bellevue and the Kirkland Performing Arts Center). Born and raised in Bellevue, Kimberly received a BA in History from Northeastern University with a concentration in the Cold War and an MBA from UCLA with a concentration in entrepreneurship. She currently does product marketing and operations for RightsTrade, a startup recently acquired by Cinelytic that provides a year-round social marketplace for film and TV distribution rights.

Dan Doody

UK & Ireland, WTF, Short Films

Meet Dan | Dan's Picks

A Seattle-area local, Dan Doody (he/him) received a degree in English from Western Washington University and began working for the Seattle International Film Festival in 1999. He programs both features and short films for the Seattle International Film Festival, serving for the past 15 years as the Festival's lead programmer for its Oscar®-qualifying ShortsFest Weekend. He is an enthusiast of classic horror and the gothic in both film and literature and could quite happily live in a crumbling castle with nothing but the films of Boris Karloff to keep him company.

Megan Garbayo-López

Films4Families and Futurewave

Meet Megan | Megan's Picks

Megan Garbayo-López (they/she) is the Education Manager at SIFF where she cultivates new audiences, and deepens existing ones, with education through filmmaking and film appreciation experiences. Megan previously worked as Outreach and Education Manager for Three Dollar Bill Cinema, where they managed the Reel Queer Youth filmmaking program. Megan is an award-winning filmmaker and screenwriter with a passion for changing hearts and minds by building community through film. A true child of the West, Megan grew up in Texas, California, and Oregon before receiving their B.A. at Emerson College in Boston. Megan has also trained on attachment with the BBC in London with a focus on factual television production. Megan’s passions in life are closing the arts access gap in underserved communities, promoting media created for and by young people, and rejecting the dog-cat binary.

Laura Good

Canadian features, World Cinema for the New Directors Competition, Shorts

Meet Laura | Laura's Picks

Laura Good (she/her) is a veteran film programmer with over a decade of experience in connecting storytellers with audiences at some of the world’s top film organizations including, the Toronto International Film Festival, AspenFilm, Human Rights Watch Film Festival, the Canadian Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, and the Seattle International Film Festival.

Marcus Gorman

New American Cinema, WTF, LGBTQIA+

Meet Marcus | Marcus's Picks

Marcus Gorman (he/him) is a Seattle-based film programmer and award-winning playwright. His original plays and one-acts have been produced in Seattle, Los Angeles, New York City, Ashland, Pittsburgh, and the Wisconsin Northwoods. In the world of film, he has worked for such organizations as the Seattle International Film Festival, Make Believe Seattle, the Seattle Queer Film Festival, the Cleveland International Film Festival, the North Bend Film Festival, and the Grand Illusion Cinema. He currently covers film and theatre for The Ticket at The Seattle Times, has been published in Howlround, The Dramatist, and New American Theatre Magazine, and his voice and writing can be found on such podcasts as Film at Fifty, Eggs & Space, the SIFFcast, and The Ugly Radio. He is also the author of the novels "Triceratops" and "Sky Masterson: Private Detective" and is the founder/editor of the movie review website Ten Years Ago.

Megan Leonard. Photo credit Eleanor Petry.

Megan Leonard

New American Cinema, WTF, Short Films

Meet Megan | Megan's Picks

Megan Leonard (she/her) is a festival programmer and producer based in Seattle, WA. She started working for film festivals in 2010 and currently leads the New American Cinema team and co-leads the Shorts team at the Seattle International Film Festival. She has also programmed for Indie Memphis and DOC NYC and served on juries at Fantastic Fest, Cleveland International Film Festival, and Palm Springs ShortFest. As a producer, she participated in the 2019 Sundance Creative Producing Summit, 2020 Sundance Talent Forum, and The Gotham’s 2020 No Borders: US Narrative program with the feature adaptation of her award-winning short film Mixtape Marauders. Her 2023 project Harbor Island premiered at SXSW where it won a Special Jury Award in the Independent Pilot Competition.

Photo credit Eleanor Petry.

Colleen O'Holleran

WTF

Meet Colleen | Colleen's Picks

Colleen O'Holleran (she/her) fell in love with film at a young age, growing up in rural Nebraska with a family that spent quality time together watching movies. Over the past 15 years, Colleen has supported the arts as a board member (Un Mundo, NatureMoves, Believe in Tibet), volunteer (GeekGirlCon), and consultant (Hepo Hill Productions). Though Colleen's interest in film is broad, genre cinema is her greatest passion. Colleen has been a festival programmer for SIFF, focusing on the WTF lineup, since 2018.

Rita Meher

Asian Crossroads

Meet Rita

Rita Meher (she/her) is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Tasveer, a leading South Asian film nonprofit that empowers underrepresented South Asian filmmakers and storytellers. Her journey in media began in 1995 at a small TV station in Japan where she produced English-language programs. Since then, Rita has edited the award-winning Bangladeshi documentary Threads and directed her first short film, Citizenship101, which was inspired by her own immigrant experiences. Rita has received several accolades for her contributions to the arts and media, including being named Seattle Globalist of the Year (2015) and receiving the Excellence in Arts award from International Examiner (2016). In addition to running Tasveer, Rita is now delving into executive producing films. Rita's passion for bringing unique South Asian diaspora stories to light stems from her deep connection to her roots and experiences as an immigrant. She is committed to amplifying diverse voices and perspectives and has made it her life's work to empower underrepresented communities through storytelling.

Nancy Pappas

African Pictures

Meet Nancy

Nancy Pappas (she/her) is a Congolese Greek American video producer, archival researcher, and film programmer. Growing up a third culture kid, she became interested in cultural studies, with a particular focus on archival theory and research, vernacular photography, and Third Cinema to make sense of the world around her. Her international upbringing gave way to nomadic global wanderings with camera in hand, living and working from Kenya to Vietnam, Morocco to Zanzibar, and beyond. Now Seattle-based, she works as a video producer and has had the pleasure of programming films for the African Pictures program at SIFF since 2019, thanks to a chance encounter with kismet. She has also served on the shorts/mid-length jury for Make Believe Seattle. Nancy holds an MA in Visual and Media Anthropology from Freie Universität Berlin and continues her personal work in experimental archive montage and ethnographic research in her free time. Nancy has a deep love for cinema and believes curation to be a form of mapmaking and tools to foster cross-cultural understanding. She also has an inexplicable love of all things '80s. Don’t ask her why; she knows it’s weird.

Tracy Rector

Global Indigenous Films

Meet Tracy | Tracy's Picks

Tracy Rector (she/her) brings a passion for amplifying and uplifting Indigenous and BIPOC voices. She holds three decades of experience as a community organizer, educator, filmmaker, film programmer, and arts curator, all infused with her deep roots in plant medicine and social justice. For over 20 years she has directed and produced over 400 films including shorts, features, music videos, and virtual reality projects. She has been working with SIFF for 17 years but has been attending the Festival since childhood.

Cory Rodriguez

LGBTQ+ Shorts

Meet Cory

Cory Rodriguez (he/him) is a festival programmer in Seattle. He graduated from Seattle University in 2015 with a degree in Film Studies. He has worked at SIFF in multiple roles in the past and he has programmed for over nine years. He has a special interest in short films and his programming at SIFF has been centered around queer cinema. Additionally, he has worked for Three Dollar Bill Cinema, programmed for the 20th edition of Seattle Queer Film Festival, and served on the shorts jury for SQFF 2021. He has also served on the shorts/mid-length jury for Make Believe Seattle.

Martin Schwartz

Germany, Austria, and Switzerland

Meet Martin | Martin's Picks

Martin Schwartz (he/him) is a writer, film-lover, and arts advocate based in Seattle, WA. Until its recent closure, he served as Program Curator at Goethe Pop Up Seattle, the temporary branch of the international cultural institute of the Federal Republic of Germany, where among other filmic duties he programmed the monthly series GERMAN CINEMA NOW! at Northwest Film Forum. A playwright as well, his play “THE JEW” (after Marlowe; very, very loosely) had a national reading co-produced by the Anti-Defamation League in 2021, and five other of his works have graced and troubled stages in California and Arizona. He earned a BA from UC San Diego and an MA from University of Chicago, working on German literature, drama, and film, and for several years served on the screening committee and Board of Directors of the Berlin & Beyond Film Festival in San Francisco.

Emalie Soderback

Short films

Meet Emalie

Emalie Soderback (she/her) was born and raised in the Seattle area and has been working at Scarecrow Video since 2013. She’s worked as an editor and publications manager for Seattle International Film Festival as well as shorts programmer for the North Bend Film Festival, and has contributed her film writing to several publications including The Stranger. Emalie currently lives in the Columbia City neighborhood of Seattle and spends her time recording Scarecrow’s YouTube show “Viva Physical Media,” stepping in as co host on the ‘90s thriller podcast “The Suspense is Killing Us,” and, of course, always watching movies (especially horror). Follow her on Letterboxd (@whateverokay) and Twitter (@esoderback).

Andy Spletzer

Experimental Film, Documentaries, and New American Cinema

Meet Andy | Andy's Picks

Andy Spletzer (he/him) moved to Seattle in the '90s to help start the alternative weekly newspaper The Stranger, where he was the chief film critic/editor for nearly a decade. Once he left, he began freelancing in the film industry as a Script Supervisor, working with such delightful actors as Viggo Mortensen, David Tennant, and Cary Elwes, among others. That's also when he started freelancing at the Seattle International Film Festival, first editing the program catalog and free guide, and then as a programmer.

Darcy Wytko

Shorts

Meet Darcy

Darcy Wytko (she/her) is a Seattle-based burlesque artist, writer, filmmaker, and lifelong film fanatic whose favorite job was working at Two Boots Video in New York (free movie rentals!). She is a graduate of Circle in the Square Theatre’s acting conservatory on Broadway, holds a BA in journalism, and is the co-founder of Blonde Ambition Burlesque, serving as a producer and performer. She has a soft spot for baby goats, the Velvet Underground, and her rodeo roots, and has a deep love for all films rock’n’roll, indie, arthouse, and international. She has curated shorts programs and worked in print traffic for the Seattle Queer Film Festival and is thrilled to be a part of the Seattle International Film Festival’s shorts programming team. Currently, she is working her way through Al Pacino’s filmography (again) and this fall she will be a graduate fellow at the American Film Institute Conservatory.

Date: March 29, 2023
Share:
Tags: Festival Programmer Picks