Michael Almereyda
Writer, Director
Michael is a film director, screenwriter and producer whose work includes features, documentaries and shorts. He directed the features Hamlet, Happy Here and Now, New Orleans, Mon Amour, Cymbeline, Experimenter, and most recently Marjorie Prime and Tesla – both of which won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize at Sundance. Michael directed award-winning documentaries William Eggleston in the Real World, Paradise and Skinningrove. He is a recipient of the Moving Image Creative Capital Award. Michael is a multi-time NHFF alumni filmmaker with both Experimenter and Marjorie Prime, and also a participant in the festival’s first-ever morning coffee block discussion in 2017.
Ed Gonzalez
Film Critic, Co-Founder/Editor – Slant Magazine
Ed Gonzalez is the co-founder of Slant Magazine. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle, his writing has appeared in The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications.
Alicia Witt
Actress, Singer-Songwriter
Alicia made her debut in David Lynch’s sci-fi classic Dune. Her most recent film is Longlegs, opposite Nicholas Cage, released worldwide in 2024. Other films include I Care A Lot, Two Weeks’ Notice, Last Holiday, The Upside of Anger, Mr. Holland’s Opus, Urban Legend, Four Rooms, and Vanilla Sky. TV includes Orange Is The New Black, The Walking Dead, Justified, Nashville, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and Twin Peaks. Alicia is also a familiar face to audiences for her holiday movies and original music. She is a multi-time festival alumni going back to her 2006 short film Belinda’s Swan Song and 2010 short film The Pond, and also sat on the 2012 NHFF Grand Jury.
Sarah Archambault
Documentary Filmmaker, Program Director
Sara is the Program Director for the Shorenstein Center’s Documentary Film in the Public Interest research initiative at Harvard. She is also an experienced documentary film producer, whose credits include the Indie Spirits-nominated film Riotsville, USA; Truth or Consequences; A Decent Home; and Richland. Sara’s programming and foundation work includes 10 years as Program Director at the LEF Foundation and 9 years as Founder/Programmer of the Brattle’s The DocYard film series.
Karen Konicek
Documentary Producer
Karen has worked with documentary director Frederick Wiseman for 43 years as Producer and Director of Distribution of Zipporah Films, the distribution and production company of all the Wiseman films. She is a voting member of the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and has been a judge for the News and Documentary Emmys since 2020. Karen has presented at IDA, pitched at HotDocs and also been a jury member at Camerimage Film Festival.
Alex Ross Perry
Writer, Director
Alex was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania in 1984. He attended the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and worked at Kim’s Video in Manhattan. He is the director of the films Impolex, The Color Wheel, Listen Up Philip, Queen of Earth, Golden Exits, Her Smell, and the writer of Disney’s Christopher Robin. He has directed music videos for Pavement, Ghost, Kim Gordon, Sleigh Bells and many more. He is an NHFF alumni filmmaker with Golden Exits and lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Mike Bowes
Producer
Mike has produced indie features including American Fiction (Oscar winner for Best Adapted Screenplay, five Oscar nominations, Audience Award at Toronto), John and the Hole (Cannes, Sundance), Free in Deed (Best Film winner at Venice, four Spirit Award nominations), Terrence Davies’ A Quiet Passion, We Don’t Belong Here, Alex Karpovsky’s Red Flag and Rubberneck. He has also produced shorts, commercials and docudrama series. Mike has been nominated for Gotham and Spirit Awards for producing.
Elisabeth Holm
Writer, Producer
Elisabeth is an Oscar-nominated producer and screenwriter. She produced and co-wrote Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, which garnered Academy Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA and PGA nominations. Elisabeth co-wrote and produced Obvious Child, which won her the Sundance Producers Award, and Landline, which also premiered at Sundance. She produced Jenny Slate’s comedy specials Stage Fright and Seasoned Professional; wrote and executive produced pilots for FX, Hulu, Amazon, A24, and Annapurna.
Kathleen McInnis
Producer, Publicist
Kathleen is a producer and strategic publicist with a deep background in festival programming, marketing and distribution. Films represented have won major awards at Berlinale, Sundance, Karlovy Vary, Cannes and Toronto. She had a 10-year tenure at the Palm Springs Int’l ShortFest & Market, created the “New Works-in-Progress Forum” at Seattle Int’l Film Festival, created the first international shorts program at TIFF, and runs Oscar campaigns for features and shorts. She is a member of AMPAS, BAFTA, and IDA.
Cynthia Fenneman
Producer, President Emeritus – American Public Television
Cynthia is President Emeritus of American Public Television, the leading syndicator of programs to U.S. public television’s 356 stations and a worldwide distributor. She was Executive Producer of documentaries for A&E Biography and PBS lifestyle series Ciao Italia, and held management/producing positions at KYW/Philadelphia, KPIX/San Francisco and WJZ/Baltimore. Cynthia has been honored with more than 40 international, national and regional awards, including 12 Emmys and a Peabody.
Paul Moakley
Documentary Filmmaker, Executive Producer – The New Yorker
Paul is an executive producer at The New Yorker, where he curates and creates work for the award-winning short film program. Since joining The New Yorker, the program has earned seven Oscar nominations. Paul has earned numerous awards and nominations, including an Emmy as producer for HBO doc Beyond 9/11: Portraits of Resilience. In 2020, he produced the short doc When the News Hits Home. Paul also produced and directed the short doc Denial, an award-winner at the 2023 NHFF..
Nathan Truesdell
Documentary Filmmaker
Nathan is an Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker who is best known for Balloonfest, Ascension, The Water Slide, When the LAPD Blows Up Your Neighborhood, and How To with John Wilson. He is a multi-time NHFF alumni filmmaker with The Water Slide and When the LAPD Blows Up Your Neighborhood.
Wendy Battles
Writer, Producer
A native New Englander, Wendy has enjoyed a career spanning 25 years as a writer/producer for network television in Los Angeles. Her credits include: Law & Order, CSI:NY, Vengeance Unlimited, Get Real, The Glades, The River, Unforgettable, Crossing Lines, and Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial. Wendy has also served as a mentor for young writers through the Writer’s Guild of America’s mentorship program. Prior to her writing career, Wendy was a film/video editor in NYC working with Barbara Kopple, Bill Moyers, The MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour, PBS, Danish Television, and MTV’s Real World. She also produced, directed and edited an award-winning, 30-minute documentary about the Paralympics which aired nationally on PBS. Wendy holds a BS in Film and Television from Boston University and currently resides in Portsmouth, NH.
Rebecca Lavoie
Podcast Host/Producer
Rebecca Lavoie is a podcast creator, host and critic, anchoring the long-running Crime Writers On…, a twice-weekly show that reviews true crime and crime-adjacent podcasts, journalism, and pop culture. Rebecca also hosts the Netflix podcast You Can’t Make This Up. As Director of On Demand Audio at New Hampshire Public Radio, she works with the teams that make NHPR’s podcasts, including Outside/In, Civics 101, and Bear Brook.
Deborah Scranton
Documentary Filmmaker
Deborah’s directorial debut The War Tapes, the first war movie filmed by soldiers on the front lines, won Best Documentary Feature at Tribeca, played in the program of NHFF, and was shortlisted for an Oscar. She reprised her ‘virtual embed’ directorial technique in Bad Voodoo’s War, commissioned and broadcast by PBS about a platoon of California National Guard soldiers during the Iraq War. Deborah’s film Earth Made of Glass premiered at Tribeca, was nominated for Best Documentary Feature of the Year by the PGA, and won a Peabody Award. Her film War Dog: A Soldier’s Best Friend, highlighting the relationship between U.S. Army Special Operations dog handlers and the K9s that serve together, was commissioned and broadcast by HBO. Deborah was a former member of the U.S. National Alpine Ski Team and an academic fellow at Brown University. She continues to speak at TED Talks and top academic institutions.
Angus MacLachlan
Screenwriter
Angus has written plays, short film Tater Tomater, and features including Junebug (Indie Spirit Award nominee for Best First Screenplay, Sundance Special Jury Citation and Oscar nomination for Amy Adams). He wrote & produced Abundant Acreage Available, Best Narrative Feature nominee and Best Screenplay winner at Tribeca. He wrote & directed Goodbye to All, Best Narrative Feature nominee and Best Actor winner for Paul Schneider at Tribeca, and A Little Prayer, which debuted at Sundance and played NHFF.
