The Team
DIRECTORS
WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD
1957
Kristine Gerolaga
Kristine Gerolaga is a Filipina American filmmaker and actor. Her work has been featured on ATTN:, Amazon Fire TV, ALTER, Shudder, Fangoria, and Vulture. She is a 2023 grant recipient of The Future of Film is Female's Short Film Fund. She is also a Sundance Institute supported artist: She was a 2022 Uprise Grantee, a 2023 Artist Accelerator TAAF Collab Scholar, and most recently, a 2024 Screenwriters Lab Fellow and recipient of the Horror Fellowship in support of her feature film LAMOK. Her short film MOSQUITO LADY, the proof of concept for LAMOK, premiered at the 2023 Beyond Fest and is currently on the festival circuit.
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RIVER
1967
Destinee Stewart
Destinee Stewart is a filmmaker who creates stories that highlight the complexity and nuances of women and BIPOC individuals. Her short films THE TRUTH OF US and BAGELS & COFFEE have enjoyed festival screenings worldwide.
In 2021, Destinee was the recipient of the Cucalorus Writing Residency. Most recently, Destinee expanded her directing skills to dub directing foreign films and TV shows for clients like Netflix, Disney, and Amazon.
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THE TRIP
1976
Rebecca Louisell
Rebecca Louisell is a queer-identified filmmaker and graduate of production in cinematic arts at USC. Their MFA thesis film Genderfreak premiered at Outfest, showed at thirty festivals worldwide and is now on Amazon Prime.
Rebecca has previously been selected as a semi-finalist for the Disney/ABC directing program and a quarterfinalist for the Academy Nicholl Fellowship. They have directed short films, music videos, and numerous web series episodes. Rebecca teaches directing and screenwriting at NYFA LA.
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SOMEONE SPECIAL
1988
Jessica Liu
Jessica Liu is a filmmaker based in Los Angeles who creates playful, genre-blending dramedies centering around WOC characters. She is a 2023 Frieze LA Fellow with support from Endeavor Content and Ghetto Film School and was a highlighted comedy creator in Whohaha's 2022 Winter Callout.
Her films have been selected at and featured on the Hollywood Reporter, MovieMaker, Academy Award qualifying festivals (Cinequest, Dances with Films) and streaming on Amazon Prime.
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THE NEIGHBORS
1994
Sylvia Ray
Sylvia Ray is an award-winning Chicana/Korean-American director and a Satellite Collective Fellow. Born and raised in Barstow, CA, Sylvia’s passion for storytelling was nurtured by her parents, who watched Star Trek and bootleg Korean dramas in separate rooms.
Her dark comedy, PREGGERS, garnered acclaim, earning the Best Comedy Short award at the Arizona International Film Festival and a screening at The Academy through the LatinX InFocus program at New Filmmakers LA. Sylvia was chosen for HBO’s Tomorrow’s Filmmaker’s Today program, where her film LEN(N)Y streamed to audiences on Pantaya and DISH! Latino.
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LOST OR STOLEN
2002
T. L. Quach
T. L. Quach is an Asian American Director and DGA-qualified Assistant Director who focuses on directing Commercial Content and Psychological Thriller Narratives.
For commercials, she works with clients from underrepresented backgrounds, allowing them to have a visual voice for their brand. Her commercial with Brewyard Brewery has aired on ESPN, Comedy Central, and CNN in the local area under Spectrum Reach. In her narrative work, she emphasizes themes about women’s fears, striving to diversify and update the Thriller genre with a Female POC lens. Her feature length script, CRAVE, has been awarded among numerous screenwriting competitions including Scriptapalooza, ScreenCraft, and Final Draft Big Break.
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HOMECOMING
2019
Luisa Novo
Luisa is a Los Angeles based Filmmaker, born and raised in Cascavel - a small city in the Southwest of Brazil near the triple frontier with Paraguay and Argentina. She is drawn to stories that focus on the flaws of society and the struggles of people – especially women – that don’t fit into the constraints of a patriarchal and capitalist world. She loves dramas, coming of age stories, and heartfelt, character driven comedies. To date she has directed seven dramatic short films and two comedy web series episodes.
In 2023 she was selected as a mentee in the inaugural #MentorLatinaDirectors Initiative from The Alliance of Women Directors. In 2019 she was selected as a fellow in the Tomorrow Filmmakers Today program from the Hola Mexico Film Festival, sponsored by HBO and the HFPA.
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PRODUCER
Kay Tuxford
Kay is the writer of THE MISEDUCATION OF BINDU (star. Megan Suri and David Arquette) and played a seminal role in accruing over $60,000 for the film on Seed&Spark.com, winning the Hometown Heroes’ Grand Prize, and drawing the attention of the Duplass Brothers to executive produce. Bindu has been acquired by MarVista for distribution.
Kay produced the breakout short film, THE AWARENESS which premiered on Shortoftheweek.com and is a Vimeo Staff Pick as well as WINE BOTTLES, which won multiple awards, including best LGBT film at the Marina Del Rey Film Festival. Kay’s emphasis focuses on outside-the-box roles for women, the LGBTQIA+ community, and underrepresented minorities in film. She is loved by her family and probably only just tolerated by her cat.