Camille Shooshani and Aaron Shooshani
Camille Shooshani is an Iranian-Jewish writer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Her debut documentary feature, “Léa & I” premiered on Netflix in 2019. She was awarded the USC Presidents’ Sustainability Award in 2024 for “The Concrete River,” a film documenting a 51-mile trek along the Los Angeles River. In 2020, she received her MFA in creative nonfiction writing from Columbia University. She received her BA from the USC School of Cinematic Arts in 2017.
Aaron Shoooshani (he/him) is a writer and producer based in Los Angeles. Before writing, Aaron worked in political strategy for Economic Justice Initiatives like the Fight For $15, that aimed to raise the minimum wage. He has worked as a writer’s assistant to Showrunner Chris Romano (Blue Mountain State, Kill the Orange-Faced Bear) and produced and written a number of independent shorts. Raised in Los Angeles to Iranian Jewish immigrants, Aaron attended Columbia University where he received a B.A. in History and Economics.
Dan Abramovici
Dan is a writer and director whose work often explores questions of identity through a surrealist lens. His films use unconventional storytelling to navigate complex human moments with honesty and imagination. His credits include: PLAY IT AGAIN (acquired by Prideflix)and SEARCHING FOR MARCEAU (Semifinalist Academy Nicholls Fellowship).
Janice (Jan) Fernheimer
Janice W. Fernheimer is a Professor of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies; Zantker Professor of Jewish Studies; and James B. Beam Institute for Kentucky Spirits Faculty Fellow at the University of Kentucky where she co-directs the University of Kentucky-Jewish Heritage Fund Kentucky Holocaust Education Initiative and teaches courses in “Bourbon Writing” and “Bourbon Oral History” in the Certificate for Distillation, Wine, and Brewing. She is also a Stave and Thief Certified Executive Bourbon Steward. In 2024 the Bourbon Women Foundation recognized her as a Woman of Whiskey with the Mike Keyes Ally of the Year Award honoring the trailblazing work of the Women in Bourbon Oral History Project, which she founded in 2021. She currently resides in Lexington, KY with her family and when she’s not writing or teaching, you can usually find her shimmying across the dance floor or cycling across the Bluegrass.
Joshua Kessler
Joshua E. Kessler is a Los Angeles-based showrunner, producer, director, and writer specializing in unscripted, documentary, and docudrama content. A two-time Emmy nominee, he is known for compelling work in true crime, history, lifestyle, and human-interest storytelling. His credits include acclaimed series for Netflix, A&E, and Showtime, such as Unsolved Mysteries, Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, and House Hunters International. A member of both the Directors Guild and Producers Guild of America, Kessler actively seeks new creative opportunities with a strong emphasis on collaboration.
Julia Sebastien
Julia Sebastien draws on her Ph.D. research in media psychology at Cornell University and her Master’s in Learning Design, Innovation, and Technology from Harvard in her ongoing quest to uncover how emerging technologies blur the boundaries between narrative, perception, and reality. Like her research, her creative work explores how immersive media shape human thought and behavior—from directing theatrical productions exploring truth and intercultural understanding to designing interactive digital games and VR experiences that foster self-reflection, experiential learning, and prosociality.
Sarah Wildman
Sarah Wildman is the is the author of Paper Love: Searching for the Girl My Grandfather Left Behind. She was formerly the global identities and borders writer at Vox, a position she originated. She was the recipient of the German Marshall Fund’s 2010 Peter R. Weitz Prize, awarded for excellence and originality in European coverage. Long a regular contributor to The New York Times, Slate, The Forward, Washingtonian (where she is a contributing editor), and The New Yorker online, among other publications, Wildman has won a number of competitive grants and fellowships: from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting (Jerusalem in 2013 and Paris in 2017); Arthur F. Burns and American Council on Germany fellowships in Berlin; a Mile- na Jesenska Fellowship in Vienna; and a Pew Fellowship in International Journalism in Paris. A former New Republic staffer, Wildman has also worked for The Advocate magazine, American Prospect, and Politics Daily. Wildman was the Barach non-fiction fellow at Wesleyan University’s writing workshop in 2014 and a Dart Center Ochberg fellow (a project of the Columbia School of Journalism) in 2015.
Tamar Feinkind
Tamar Feinkind was born in Brooklyn, raised in the suburbs of Chicago, and came of age in LA. She is a writer, actor, and reluctant producer. She previously ran a small theater company for emerging writers where she produced five full length plays, including her own, and currently runs a storytelling event in Los Angeles called Mothers Unleashed with the mission of enabling and empowering mothers to give voice to their experiences. Most recently, Tamar was commissioned to write a WWII historical drama about an Armenian Genocide Survivor, and she wrote for the podcast Solve, set to be released in 2020. BS from Northwestern in Theater and pre-med. MFA from Stephens College in Television and Screenwriting. Tamar is represented by Epicenter.
Daniel Housman
Daniel Housman is a screenwriter, and a former journalist, who works in communications, and is active in cultural programming for the Israeli American Council in Los Angeles. After getting his MFA in Filmmaking from Columbia University, he was an adjunct professor of film studies at Adelphi and Fordham Universities in New York, and wrote the screenplay for the 2007 indie film The Treatment. With the IAC, he co-founded the BINA-LA program in 2010, leading its intellectual salons for six years, presenting a myriad of TED-like events with a range of speakers on topics of science and technology, Israeli concerns, social impact ventures and the arts.
He completed the professional fellowship for NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change in 2014, and directed their annual “Spotlight” event, a night of live storytelling. Daniel was on the steering commit- tee for the UCLA Nazarian Center for Israel Studies’ “Israel in 3D” seminar in May 2015 and designed the concept in 2017, which attracted 300 attendees for a “one-day university.” He was hon- ored to visit Kenya with an Israeli Consulate Mission in 2016, to observe the benefits of Israeli-sponsored development projects with an L.A. delegation. He lives in Los Angeles, where he leads a bi-weekly screenwriting group of 15 professionals.
Leah Gottfried
Leah Gottfried is an award winning writer/director and actor who draws on her life in the Orthodox Jewish community to tell authentic stories about her world. Her short film THE SETUP won Best Short at the Washington Jewish Film Festival where critics called it “clever, whimsical and sneakily poignant”. Leah is best known for her web series SOON BY YOU (“a Kosher version of Friends”), which she writes, directs and stars in and which has garnered fans all over the world. She is the founder of Dignity Entertainment, a production company dedicated to creating meaningful visual content. Leah was named one of The Jewish Week’s “36 Under 36” celebrating young Jews influencing change worldwide. She studied film at Yeshiva University and NYU, and lives in Greenpoint with her rabbi husband.
Samuel Franco
Samuel Franco graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Writing and Producing for Film. Shortly afterwards, he secured an apprenticeship as a researcher under investigative journalist Mike Wallace at CBS News’ 60 Minutes, and six months later he joined The Charlie Rose Show as a research writer. A year later Samuel was recruited to work for The Howard Stern Show, where he focused on marketing, strategic sales and branding, creating Howard’s first-ever ad campaign: Stern Warning.
Samuel then went on to work for Infinity Broadcasting (CBS Radio), Paramount Pictures, and CBS Daytime Television, before moving to Los Angeles to focus on writing and producing. His credits include writing the feature scripts: Keeper of the Diary (Fox Searchlight) and Mayday 109 (Thunder Road Productions), and TV shows: The Fall of the House of FIFA (FX Networks), and Camelot (NBCUni’s Peacock), alongside writing partner Evan Kilgore. On the producing end, Samuel is executive producing a documentary about the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum art heist titled Ghosts of the Isabella (Ample Entertainment), and producing a feature film, which he is also co-writing, about heavyweight boxer Rocky Marciano titled Unbeaten (Impossible Dream Entertainment). Samuel lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.