Creative bios

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 Sheldon Schiffer has directed short and feature films through a career of two decades as a professor and filmmaker. Most notable is his award winning feature film, Transmigration (2011) a fantasy horror film set in the Brazilian Amazon, Nailed! (2006), a melodrama about an undocumented immigrant Brazilian woman and her document-forging lover, and Comeuppance (2003) the tale of an urban black poet stranded in the rural south with an Orthodox Jew. Schiffer is no stranger to comedy. His feature documentary, The Rise and Fall of Black Velvet Flag (2003) recounts the hilarious journey of a trio of “yuppie” musicians who recover their punk rock youth by creating a lounge-punk-retro band in New York City. More recently, he directed the heart-wrenching short documentary, Please Forgive My Pain (2016).

For more about the director, see www.sheldonschiffer.com.

Marilyn Sanabria is a first-generation Puerto Rican actress and rising talent reshaping what Latina visibility looks like in genre storytelling. After honing her craft on New York’s Off-Broadway stages, she’s now starring in Michael Leoni’s psychological thriller The Fear Project: Part One – Trauma, playing a lead in a vérité-style film that explores fear, memory, and identity. Sanabria plays opposite CJ Valleroy (Unbroken, with Angelina Jolie, Famous) 

 Amir Zeev Kovacs is an Israeli-American actor, writer, producer, and physician who began booking auditions and roles in Atlanta, Georgia while completing his medical internship. Deeply inspired by his grandmother—a Holocaust survivor who made a courageous escape from communist Hungary—Kovacs channels her resilience and legacy into every creative project. His recent work includes  the multiple award winning feature, The Book of Joshua a newly released animated feature, and Goodbye Komarom - an award-winning screenplay co-written with director Sheldon Schiffer. The latter tells the powerful true story of one family’s flight from post-WWII Hungary to Israel. 

 Ly Bolia has lit, framed and directed films screened on the Learning Channel, PBS, Comedy Central Network, National Geographic Channel, and at the Lincoln Center. More than thirty film festivals have shown his work in Atlanta, Santa Fe, the Bronx, Birmingham, Sarasota, Chicago, and Sedona. Bolia’s work spans feature films, short films, public service announcements, and political campaign advertisements. Some of his films are Faith (2021), Blame Falls (2006) and V: Adventure in Alphabet City (2009) His work has been reviewed in Variety Magazine, Hollywood Reporter, Village Voice, TV Guide, Box Office magazine, Filmmaker magazine, and Entertainment Today. He is an Associate Professor at Georgia State University, an independent cinematographer and an author of the upcoming Cognella book, Lighting on the Cheap.