2019 Austin Film Festival & Conference

GARY WHITTA is a screenwriter and author best known as co-writer of ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY. He also wrote the post-apocalyptic thriller THE BOOK OF ELI starring Denzel Washington, co-wrote the Will Smith sci-fi adventure AFTER EARTH, and served as writer and story consultant... Read More →

Phil Hay is a screenwriter and producer. Hay, partner Matt Manfredi, and director Karyn Kusama (who is also Hay’s wife) made the upcoming Los Angeles crime drama Destroyer, starring Nicole Kidman, and the thriller The Invitation, which debuted at SXSW in 2015 and went on to play... Read More →

April Shih is a Los Angeles-based television writer and filmmaker. Growing up in a sleepy beach suburb, Aprilentertained herself by catfishing people in AOL chatrooms. This penchant for making shit up eventually turnedinto a passion for storytelling, and after high school April attended... Read More →

Nicole Perlman is best known for her work on “Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Captain Marvel,” and “Detective Pikachu." Nicole received her BFA in filmmaking from NYU in 2003, and has gone on to win the Tribeca Film Festival's Sloan Foundation Grant for Science in Film, the Hugo... Read More →

Stephany Folsom traveled the world producing short-form docs before her script 1969 A SPACE ODYSSEY: OR HOW KUBRICK LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LAND ON THE MOON made the 2013 Black List and Hit List. Since then, she's worked on Marvel's THOR: RAGNAROK, wrote on Lucasfilm's STAR WARS... Read More →