Diversity and Inclusion Panels

November 3, 2021

at 4 PM

LGBTQ+ Representation

Filmmakers discuss the growth of queer visibility on Film & TV.

Lane Michael Stanley

Lane Michael Stanley (he/they) is a transgender filmmaker, playwright, and producer. Lane has been featured in The New York Times, USA Today, and the Austin Chronicle. They won Best Director from Baltimore City Paper’s Best of Baltimore 2016, and received the Mayor’s Individual Artist Award. Their films have shown at the Big Apple Film Festival, Transforming Cinema Film Festival, and REEL Recovery Film Festival. Their plays have been produced by nineteen theaters in eight states. Their first feature film is Addict Named Hal.

Tyler Stone

Tyler Stone is a Los Angeles based filmmaker and composer. His work as a music score composer was screened at the Cannes International Film Festival 2017. At the Nice International Film Festival his films received awards Best Original Score and Best Short Film. Stone was awarded Best Editing of a Short Film in Amsterdam for his debut short The Crusties. Billboard Magazine called his debut music score of a horror feature titled Killer Unicorn “instant cult classic.” Additionally, Stone scored over a dozen award-winning short films for other filmmakers.

Stone produced original music and directed music videos for drag queen winners of RuPaul’s Drag Race: RAJA, TRINITY & PEPPERMINT. The Trinity album Plastic, written and produced by Stone, debuted at #1 on iTunes in 2019. The track “I Call Shade” from the same album reached 2.1 million views on YouTube in one week. As a Director, Editor and Music Producer, Stone has been profiled by publications such as Billboard, Rolling Stone, PAPER, Entertainment Tonight, Interview Magazine, OUT, The Advocate, World of Wonder, and more.

Cashmere Jasmine

Cashmere Jasmine is a Caribbean gal with southern roots who is a writer-director of genre-bending films and episodic inspired by anime, witchcraft, and more than a dash of Plato. As a winner of Sundance’s Uprise Fund, she will direct her next short film Sick, a psychological body horror centering on a black woman traversing the medical system. Cashmere continues to imagine new ways to tell disability-inclusive stories by using dark humor and surrealist imagery. These stories are often queer and often Black, though not in ways you are used to seeing while highlighting marginalized stories featuring women you’ll love to hate.

Matthew William Ellis

Matthew William Ellis is a good ol’ Jersey Boy. After twelve years studying acting, working in off-Broadway theaters, a lot of retails jobs, and walking dogs in New York City he decided a climate with less humidity worked better for his hair. So he moved to LA. Secondary to his amazing dog walking career, Matthew said one line on the original Gossip Girl, Blue Bloods and a role cut out of an episode of Nurse Jackie. He also dabbles in stand up comedy, but the pandemic really put a hold on that. But not a one-trick pony, he currently is a post production Junior Producer for shows including This is Us, Only Murders in the Building, Queens, Dollface, and Shining Vale. It brings him so much joy, he’s so grateful and so lucky to work on both sides of the camera. It’s a true blessing.

WOMEN IN FILMMAKING

Discussion of career gains by women filmmakers.

Tamika Lamison

Tamika is currently serving as the SVP of Development and Production at PhilmCo, a film company with a double bottom line of art advocacy and commerce. Tamika is a graduate of AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women, The American University and Howard University. She is an award-winning writer, director, actor and producer who has produced/written/directed many shorts, features, and documentaries including Ferguson Rises, Last Life, and Hope.

Her first script, The Jar By The Door, was a Sundance Finalist and won several awards including IFP’s Gordon Parks Indie Film Award. She was the Director and DP on BET’s first reality show, College Hill. Tamika worked as a Research Consultant at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences helping to develop their Academy Gold Inclusion Program; Executive Director of the Commercial Directors Diversity Program (CDDP) in which she built an Inclusion & Diversity Program under the umbrella of the Directors Guild of America (DGA) and the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP). Tamika also created and founded Make A Film Foundation (MAFF)- a nonprofit that grants ‘film wishes’ to children with serious or life-threatening medical conditions.

Currently, Tamika is Staff Writer and Supervising Producer of the Amazon Prime/ALLBlK series Monogamy and the Tribeca Audience Award winning feature Documentary Ferguson Rises. Tamika is pitching her original one hour dramedy series, B.E.E.S., a finalist for the Producer’s Guild Power of Diversity Award. Tamika was honored with the ‘Trailblazer Award’ from the Baron Jay Foundation for her various levels of impact and service in the entertainment industry. A list of other honors and awards include Cinema for Peace Award, ABC/Disney Fellowship in Screenwriting, AFI Directing Workshop for Women Fellowship & the CBS Directing Fellowship.

Anna Chi

Anna Chi is a Chinese-born writer, director and producer whose wide-ranging career has spanned two continents and more than two decades. She has directed narrative features including Blindness, Dim Sum Funeral, and Cicada Summer, the animated feature The Boxcar Children: Surprise Island and the short film Swimming. Chi recently finished her latest narrative feature The Disappearance of Mrs. Wu that Bob Berney’s Picturehouse picked it up for sales/distribution.

As a producer, Chi put together Chinese-U.S. co-financing and co-producing projects including the 2020 IMAX documentary Asteroid Hunter and the 2018 Sundance Audience Award-winning dramatic feature Burden, staring Forest Whitaker and Garrett Hedlund. Chi’s writing credits include scripts for Miramax, John Woo’s Lion Rock Productions, Zoom Hunt International Productions (Taiwan) and Hsu Feng’s Tomson Films (Hong Kong). She also developed an animated feature script for DreamWorks and a theme park project for Disney World.

Chi spent her youth as a zealous member of China’s Red Guard, the student-led paramilitary social movement championed by Mao Zedong. She later earned a degree in literature and began working as a film editor and producer. Prohibited from telling the stories she wanted to in her home country, Chi took a leap of faith and immigrated to Los Angeles, where she graduated from UCLA’s film school with an MFA in directing. After graduating she worked in various roles with acclaimed directors including Wayne Wang (Joy Luck Club), Oliver Stone (Nixon) and Chen Kaige (Killing Me Softly). Chi currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband Doug and their two children, two cats, a dog and a chicken.

Kamala Lopez

Kamala Lopez is an award-winning filmmaker, actress and activist. A Yale University graduate in Philosophy and Theater studies, Kamala started her career as a child actor on PBS’ Sesame Street. Her feature leads include BORN IN EAST LA, DEEP COVER, THE BURNING SEASON, CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER, LIGHTNING JACK, I HEART HUCKABEES and many more. Her extensive TV career spans comedy and drama, from recurring roles to guest roles on dozens of network TV shows including 24, ALIAS, NYPD BLUE, MIAMI VICE, 21 JUMP STREET, MEDIUM and more.

Kamala is the recipient of multiple awards from government and the private sector, she received the Woman of Courage Award from the National Women’s Political Caucus, the Latino Spirit Award and Yale Women’s first Impact Award for Excellence. She was named one of the 21 Leaders for the 21st Century and has spoken at the UN, the US Congress, Stanford Law School, The Smithsonian Institute, the National Archives and the Women’s March in Washington D.C.

EQUAL MEANS EQUAL, a documentary that Kamala directed/produced and co-wrote, won Best US Documentary (Audience Award) at Michael Moore’s TCF Festival and was a NY Times Critic’s Pick. The film was the catalyst behind a national movement resulting in the ratification of the 28th Amendment to the US Constitution: The Equal Rights Amendment.

Moderator for both Panels

Rosa Costanza

Award-winning Screenwriter & Director. Emmy nominated TV producer. Rosa is a third-generation filmmaker with twenty plus years of experience in film and television production. Currently directing a feature length documentary, producing a TV series and casting for a feature film XING, the short film of the same name was screened in Cannes and 25 other festivals, and won six awards. She received credits in multiple departments on over one-hundred projects from North America, Asia and Africa. She’s an advocate for the arts, and feels passionate about mentoring, lecturing, and volunteering: past-times that have involved her with The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the Yale University’s Film Studies Center, the Ojai Film Society, CalArts and the Orange Coast College where she taught film production master classes. Honorable withdrawal from IATSE Local 695 after a decade. Producer member of the Emmys/TV Academy (ATAS). VIP member of Women In Media.