Student Short

Juan Pablo Arias Muñoz is a Chilean writer-director based in Los Angeles, California where he received an MFA in Directing from the AFI Conservatory. He is a Fulbright Scholarship Award recipient and winner of the 2020 HBOAccess Directing Fellowship for diverse emerging directors. His short films and music videos have been presented at dozens of film festivals around the globe, including the New York Film Festival, the Stockholm International Film Festival, and the Seattle International Film Festival. Juan Pablo has also won various international prizes including Best Director, Best Iberoamerican Short Film, and the prestigious Prix Courtoujours at Cinélatino Rencontres de Toulouse, a French festival dedicated to the best of Latin American cinema. Aspiring to tell stories that are both entertaining and thought-provoking, Juan Pablo is developing several television series and features that dissect morally-conflicted characters through elevated genre and magical realism.

Esteban Garcia Vernaza is a Colombian filmmaker based in New York. His films usually revolve around suspense and horror. After working in Colombia as a freelance editor, Esteban moved to New York City to pursue an MFA in Film Directing at Columbia University. Esteban’s Thesis Film Silento was awarded a production grant from the Colombian Film Fund, received Jury Honors, an IFP Audience Award and the National Board of Review Student Production Grant during the past Columbia University Film Festival.

Elwood Quincy Walker is a horror film director & writer living in Los Angeles. As a child his love for halloween & Blockbuster Video led to his passion for horror filmmaking. Since then he has gone on to work as a professional commercial director at age 13, making spots for Disney & TEDx, intern at Blumhouse Productions, & make several short films that have screened & received accolades around the world. After a successful run on the festival circuit, his short film “Kissed” recently premiered online on ALTER.
Elwood’s latest film “The Rule Of Three” is currently making it’s way on the festival circuit & he is developing it into a feature length script.

To see more of his work & to keep up with him check out his website & instagram:

https://www.elwoodqwalker.com

@elwoodw

Brandon Laventure is a filmmaker who finds inspiration in the struggle we all share: to do right by each other in a dangerous world. While working the graveyard shift in a Michigan auto parts factory, he wrote, produced, and directed six independent films with his sister Cameron and a close team of friends, before moving on to a dual MBA/MFA program at New York University.

Cameron Laventure is an award-winning writer/director who aims to use classical narrative to tell radical stories. As a trans woman on the autism spectrum, she has a personal interest in celebrating underdogs and the marginalized. Today, she lives and works in Los Angeles with her brother.

The Laventure siblings’ work is informed by their shared past, from their low-income childhood to their recession-era balancing act of filmmaking and survival. These experiences led them from rural Michigan to the top film program in the world, culminating in their thesis film: the period horror, Out of Order.