Writers Café

Maria Tran is a Vietnamese-Australian filmmaker, actor, martial artist, cultural practitioner, and TEDx Speaker based between Sydney and Las Vegas. In her TEDx talk, We Need to Embrace Conflict, she explores how tension and challenge can fuel creative resilience, drawing from her refugee family background and martial arts training.

Creator of the Echo 8 Trilogy and founder of Phoenix Eye Films—a female-led, culturally diverse production company dedicated to championing equity, inclusion, and representation in the screen and arts sector—Maria produces documentaries and microbudget action films through community-led productions. Phoenix Eye not only develops film content but also runs community-based workshops and training programs to uplift emerging creatives from underrepresented backgrounds.

Notable works include Hit Girls, Tiger Cops, Quest for Jackie Chan, and Echo 8—Australia’s first female-led action feature—which has earned awards at the Tokyo Film Awards and World Carnival Singapore. As an actor, Maria has appeared in TV series such as Fat Pizza: Back in Business, Street Smart, and Maximum Choppage, and in international action films including Fist of the Dragon, Tracer (Truy Sát), Death Mist, and Bleeding Steel. She also plays “Madame Tien” in Paramount+’s Last King of the Cross, co-wrote and starred in the autobiographical theatre work Action Star, and served as fight director for Bell Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

Through her filmmaking practice, Maria continues to challenge traditional boundaries between art and activism, proving that action films can be as socially conscious as they are entertaining. A 2025–26 Sundance Collab Community Leader, she champions bold, diverse storytelling that empowers underrepresented voices and bridges cultures through her creative work.

Etiuwa Michelle Umobong (b. Lagos, Nigeria) is an anti-disciplinary artist: filmmaker, writer, culture curator, and creative researcher exploring memory, history and culture in Africa and its diaspora, often from a speculative lens.

Driven by a desire to spark reform and accountability, Michelle creates insightful and informative resources that translate abstract ideas into felt

experience. Her mediums shift, but the throughline remains: introspection. She invites us to pause and reflect on the human experience; the vast diversity and contradictions of who we are, alone and together; the layered complexities of the worlds we inhabit. The play of light at the water's edge...

Hello to the beyond and the forth! I am a writer/actress (and newly director!) currently based in LA (from NYC) with a love for horror and VERY dark comedy. Fine... I like not so dark comedy too, aright?

Rafael Denis is a director, producer, editor, and educator based in Mexico with over 15 years of experience developing documentary, fiction, educational, and experimental film projects. His work explores filmmaking as a tool for knowledge-sharing and community building.