An Unforgettable Entrance

Aristotle Torres is a writer, director, creative from The Bronx, NYC. He has built a career as a visual artist directing music videos, experimenting with photography, and telling award-winning stories. He most recently was chosen as a Sundance Institute Feature Film Directing and Screenwriting Fellow. His start began as the creative director for his then college classmate and up and coming recording artist, J. Cole. After J. Cole signed with Jay-Z at his newly founded label Roc Nation Records, Aristotle started By Any Means, a multi-media artist collective which went on to produce and direct 70+ music videos and developing new talents such as Justin Bieber, Big Sean, Asher Roth, and Rihanna. Aristotle personally directed content for NAS, Kanye West, The Roots, Ludacris, 2 Chainz, Busta Rhymes, and more. He was nominated in 2012 for an MTV Music Video Award/Best Rap Video for Fabolous’ You Be Killin Em. 

He recently directed, wrote, and produced branded content for a Starbucks global campaign where visual artists teach us about growing and roasting coffee with their art. The campaign is now being transitioned into a coffee table book, releasing holiday 2018. The journey into narrative filmmaking began in 2015 when he self-funded, wrote and directed his first short film, S2T, a loose adaption of Notorious BIG’s I Got a Story To Tell. Sean “Puffy” Combs went on to purchase the film. Shortly after he went on to produce a feature film Are We Not Cats which premiered at the Venice Film Festival 2016 and won the audience award at Sitges 2016. The film was purchased and distributed by Cleopatra Entertainment. In 2017, he created a proof of concept short film for Story Ave which has received an official selection to a variety of regional film festivals across the US with an international premiere at Festival Sayulita in Mexico City 2019. He recently wrote and directed his third short film, The Chair, a Mandarin thriller shot on location in Taiwan, starring Tzu-Chiang Wang.

Since 1986 Valerie Soe has produced nearly two dozen short films and documentaries, which examine gender, pop culture, identity, and anti-racism struggles. Her work has received dozens of awards, grants, and commissions, and exhibited at venues such as the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Museum of Modern Art, and the New Museum in New York City, on cable and broadcast television, and at film festivals worldwide. Her essays and articles on Asian and Asian American art, film, culture, and activism have been published in books and journals including Countervisions: Asian American Film Criticism; Afterimage; Asian Film, and Amerasi Journal, among others. Soe is the author of the blog beyondasiaphilia.com (recipient of a 2012 Art Writers’ Grant from the Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation). She is Professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University. Her latest film, Love Boat: Taiwan, premiered in 2019.

A.V. Rockwell is an award-winning commercial, film and television director from New York City. Hailed as a “rising indie filmmaker” by Entertainment Weekly, her distinctive voice has been celebrated for slyly addressing issues of race, family, identity, and systematic oppression.

Rockwell studied filmmaking at NYU Tisch School of the Arts where she was awarded full scholarship as a Dean’s Fellow. She’s received additional fellowships from Tribeca Film Institute, the John S. Guggenheim Foundation, and the Sundance Institute. 

Fox Searchlight acquired her short film Feathers ahead of its premiere at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. Most recently, Rockwell was selected to participate in the 2019 Sundance Screenwriter’s and Director’s Labs.

Kobi Libii is an actor, writer, and director, most recently seen writing and performing on Comedy Central’s The Opposition with Jordan Klepper. Past acting credits include Transparent, Girls, Jessica Jones, Madam Secretary, Doubt, and Alpha House. Libii studied theater at Yale University and comedy at Second City Chicago. The American Society of Magical Negroes is his feature film directorial debut.

Barbara Cigarroa is a Mexican-American filmmaker from South Texas. She holds an MFA in Screenwriting from Columbia University and a BA in English from Yale. Cigarroa’s screenplay, El Otro Lado (The Other Side), was a featured project at IFP's 2018 No Borders Co-Production Market, and was selected for the 2019 Sundance Institute Directors & Screenwriters Lab, as well as the 2019 Hamptons Screenwriters Lab. Cigarroa was also the recipient of the Sundance Latinx Fellowship. Her short film Dios Nunca Muere had its world premiere at the 2018 New York Film Festival, where she was invited to be a member of the 2018 NYFF Artist Academy. Dios Nunca Muere went on to screen at dozens of film festivals, including IFF Boston where it won the Grand Jury Prize. Her previous short Marta Rosa was also an official selection at dozens of film festivals, including Palm Springs, where it won Panavision’s Best North American Short under 15 minutes.