Join the conversation at the 2021 Virtual Fargo Film Festival with live panel discussions broadcast on the Festival’s Facebook page at 1pm on Saturday, March 20th and at 3pm on Saturday, March 27th. Watch the panels live on Facebook and you can suggest questions for the panelists in the comments on the video.

Get to Know Our Panelists:

Panel 1: Film Exhibition and Production During the Pandemic

1pm, Saturday March 20th Live on Facebook

Brian Owens became Artistic Director of the Calgary International Film Festival in 2018. Prior to that, he served as Artistic Director for the Nashville Film Festival for a decade. After seven years as an online critic, he began his career in the film festival world when he founded the Indianapolis International Film Festival (now Indy Film Fest) in 2004. He has served on film festival juries across the world including Slumani Film Festival in Iraqi Kurdistan, Heartland Film Festival, Cleveland International Film Festival, Oxford Film Festival and more.

Producer and Entrepreneur Ryan Donnell Smith has emerged as a leader in the entertainment industry over the last few years, lending his expertise in line production and tax equity structure to some of the most critically acclaimed films in the business today. As Partner and President of Production and Development at Streamline Global and Co-owner of Thomasville Pictures (based in the burgeoning area of Thomasville, Georgia), Smith has successfully financed and produced a slew of A-list independent projects, garnering Executive Producer credits along the way. Smith’s most recent films include Executive Producing Netflix’s Academy Award nominated historical drama “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” starring Sacha Baron Cohen, Eddie Redmayne, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, with Aaron Sorkin directing. Smith wrapped production on “One Way” starring Colson Baker a.k.a. Machine Gun Kelly, and is gearing up for his latest feature “Supercell” starring Alec Baldwin. The disaster action film
will be co-produced by Thomasville Pictures and financed by Streamline Global. In addition to his film projects, Smith serves as a producer on Broadway’s musical comedy “Mrs. Doubtfire,” which is set to resume performances following the coronavirus epidemic.

Sabrina Doyle is a writer and director based between Los Angeles and London. Her feature directing debut, Lorelei, starring Pablo Schreiber and Jena Malone, was an Official Selection of the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival. It won the Jury Prize at the 2020 Deauville American Film Festival, along with Audience and Jury Awards at the 2020 Mannheim-Heidelberg Filmfestival. It’ll be released theatrically and on VOD by Vertical Entertainment in the US in Summer 2021. The late Sir Alan Parker called Sabrina’s work “outstanding […] refreshingly intelligent, serious and lyrical. Much needed in tomorrow’s cinema.”

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Nora Mariana studied English and Creative Writing at Stanford University and subsequently worked in documentaries around the world — on subjects as diverse as Daft Punk to Korean pro-gamers — before turning her focus to narrative storytelling. She recently worked as a staff writer on the upcoming Sam Esmail-produced miniseries Angelyne and is currently a 2020 Fellow at the Jewish Film Institute, where she is developing a feature film. Nora is an alumna of the Sundance Feature Film Program and previous finalist in the HBO Access Screenwriting Competition. She is the writer and producer of Alina, screening in the Fargo Film Festival.

Panel 2: Personal Narratives and Empathy in Film

3pm, Saturday March 27th Live on Facebook

Cristian Gomes is the director of the documentary short Road to Roxham. Gomes is an emerging documentary producer, director and cinematographer based in Toronto, Canada. His work often focuses on exploring identity, politics and economics in North America. In 2018, he graduated from the Film Production major at York University, Canada’s oldest film school. Since then he has been independently producing, directing and shooting short docs, commercials and music videos and is in development on his first feature length documentary.

Tiffany Hsiung is a Peabody award-winning filmmaker based in Toronto, Canada and is listed as one of DOC NYC’s 40 under 40. Her film ‘Sing Me a Lullaby’ (2020) won the Oscar qualifying Grand Jury Prize at DOC NYC, America’s largest documentary film festival, along with the inaugural Toronto International Film Festival ‘Share Her Journey Short Cuts Award’ during her world premiere at TIFF. ‘Sing Me a Lullaby’ went on to winning The Directors Guild of Canada Best Short Film Award, and is Listed as one of TIFF Canada’s Top Ten of 2020. In 2018 Tiffany received the prestigious Peabody award for her debut feature ‘The Apology’ (2016) (Produced by the NFB) along with the DuPont Columbia Award, the Allan King Memorial Award and over 15 international awards. Tiffany’s work has been screened in over 150 film festivals around the world, theatrically distributed in Asia and Canada and broadcasted by PBS and world-wide by Al Jazeera. Tiffany currently sits on the board of DOC Canada Ontario chapter, Hot Docs Executive Board and is second vice-chair of the Directors Guild of Canada Ontario Executive Board and is a member of the National BIPOC committee for the DGC.

Miles Levin has had intractable epilepsy since he was very young and has been a passionate advocate for many years. Miles now serves as a board member for the Epilepsy Foundation of Northern California, where he advocates for the use of Cinema to break down stigma that has plagued the epilepsy community for so long. Miles’ new film ‘Under the Lights’ has been used by the community to include the general public in the conversation. He is currently working on the feature length version of Under the Lights. You can help Miles’ efforts by subscribing at www.underthelightsfilm.com or @underthelights on instagram.

Doug Roland‘s film ‘Feeling Through’ is the first film to star a DeafBlind actor and is nominated for the Oscar for Best Live Action Short film. Featured on The Daily Show, in The New York Times, and LA Times, Feeling Through is executive produced by Academy Award winner Marlee Matlin, and has won 17 awards at film festivals including Slamdance, San Diego International, and Portland. Doug also made Feeling Through in partnership with Helen Keller Services and created a fully accessible screening event around it called ‘The Feeling Through Experience,’ which he has shared with organizations, schools, and universities as SEL curriculum, and has been featured at numerous events and conferences including the India Inclusion Summit and Pac Rim Conference.