Directing: Core Elements (Level 1) (Oct. 2019)

Alex is a screenwriter, filmmaker and educator who grew up on a ranch in western Montana. His feature film WALKING OUT, which he made with his twin brother, Andrew, was nominated for the Grand Jury prize at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. The Smith Brothers also wrote, directed and produced the contemporary Indian Cowboy film WINTER IN THE BLOOD, which won numerous awards and is distributed by Kino Lorber. They also wrote and directed THE SLAUGHTER RULE, which was a Sundance Grand Jury nominee in 2002, and have written scripts for HBO, Warner Bros, Disney, Columbia, Focus Films and FX. They adapted the graphic novel SON OF THE GUN by legendary cult filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky for Fox Searchlight and adapted the Pulitzer- Prize-winning Wallace Stegner novel REMEMBERING LAUGHTER for filmmaker Rodrigo Garcia. Alex has taught screenwriting and filmmaking at Columbia University, NYU, and at the University of Texas at Austin, where he was the Creative Director of the University of Texas Film Institute.

Ian Hendrie is a Brooklyn based director, screenwriter, and producer. He is the recipient of SFFILM/Kenneth Rainin Foundation Screenwriting and Development grants and is an alumnus of the Sundance Screenwriters, Directors, Sound Design, and Catalyst Labs for his forthcoming film MERCY ROAD. He is also the co-founder of Fantoma, a production company and independent media label which has been releasing special edition DVDs of the films of such famed auteurs as Francis Ford Coppola, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Samuel Fuller, Fritz Lang, and Kenneth Anger since 1999.

Ioana was born and raised in Romania, where she lived through a communist dictatorship and a traumatic socio-economic transition before becoming an immigrant to the US. She is an alumna of the Cannes Cinefondation Residency, the Sundance Screenwriting and Directing labs, and the Torino Film Lab. Her work as a director has been part of the official selections at the Cannes, Berlin, Sundance, Tribeca, and AFI international film festivals.