NARRATIVE COMPETITION JURY
Jody Arlington
Jody Arlington brings 20+ years of curation and communications leadership to her role as Associate Director Communications at a leading film organization. She served as Communications Director & Programming at SXSW for over a decade and directed PR and programmed at Silverdocs/ AFI Docs Documentary Festival. Arlington was a VP at Fleishman Hillard before focusing exclusively on entertainment and impact campaigns. Select clients include the President’s Committee on Arts and Humanities, Sundance Institute/Sundance Film Festival, AFI-Silverdocs, Independent Filmmaker Project, and dozens of independent narrative and documentary films. She co-founded Impact Arts & Film Fund and its Film Festivals at the National Political Conventions in 2008 & 2012. Arlington ran the Georgetown University Entertainment & Media Alliance DC, taught Festival Studies and Entertainment PR at Georgetown, and occasionally reviews graphic novels for NPR Books.
Matt Donnelly
Award-winning journalist Matt Donnelly is Variety‘s senior entertainment and media writer. Donnelly has delivered compelling breaking-news stories and deeply reported analysis of the film industry, Hollywood culture and the annual awards race at the historic publication for seven years. He previously served as a senior film contributor at TheWrap and was a founding writer at the Los Angeles Times celebrity and industry vertical Ministry of Gossip. The Philadelphia native holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Temple University and lives in L.A. with his screenwriter partner and his muse, a dog named Chester.
John Benjamin Hickey
John Benjamin Hickey has appeared on Broadway in Love! Valour! Compassion!, Cabaret, The Crucible, Mary Stuart, The Inheritance (Tony Award® nomination), and The Normal Heart (Tony Award). He recently directed the Broadway revival of Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite, which also played the West End. His films include LILLY, SALEM’S LOT, SUBLET, PITCH PERFECT, FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, THE ANNIVERSARY PARTY, TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN, THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1-2-3, and MAPPLETHORPE. On TV, he was Emmy®-nominated for his role on Showtime’s The Big C. Additional credits include Daredevil: Born Again, In Treatment, Manhattan, Gossip Girl, Sex and the City, Modern Family, Hannibal, Law & Order (all of them), The Good Wife and The Good Fight.
DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION JURY
Monica Castillo
Monica Castillo is a critic and film programmer based in New York City. Her curatorial work has appeared at the Jacob Burns Film Center and the Paley Center for Media, and her journalism and criticism has appeared in NPR, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Colorado Public Radio, KCRW, RogerEbert.com, The Wrap, Remezcla, Elle Magazine, Mashable, and Vulture, among others. She is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle, Critics Choice Association, and National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
Agnes Chu
Agnes Chu is a 20+ year entertainment executive with a prescient eye for identifying IP. She is currently producing Werner Herzog’s BUCKING FASTARD, starring Kate and Rooney Mara as inseparable sisters. As President of Condé Nast Entertainment, Agnes founded the film/TV and audio arms of The New Yorker, Vogue and Vanity Fair, and built the digital video strategy connecting modern viewers to Condé’s cultural live events. At The Walt Disney Company, Agnes led the content launch of Disney+ with Star Wars’ The Mandalorian and Andor, Marvel’s Wandavision and Bluey, the most watched show of 2024. Starting her career as a documentary producer, Agnes received her BA from Harvard College and MBA from Columbia Business School.
Loren Hammonds
Loren Hammonds is an Emmy®- and Peabody Award-winning producer and curator of Film, Television, and Immersive work. A NYC native, he is currently Head of Documentary at TIME Studios. He previously held the titles of Vice President of Immersive Programming at Tribeca Enterprises and Senior Programmer at Tribeca Festival. He is currently a board advisor for Subject Matter, Agog: The Immersive Media Institute, and ONX Studio.
Among his recent credits as Producer or Executive Producer are FRIDA (Amazon MGM), VIKTOR (Winner, HIFF Best Documentary Feature 2024), DIRTY POP (Netflix), THE LIONHEART (HBO), THE TERRITORY (Nat Geo), and KATRINA BABIES (HBO).
His views on cinematic storytelling have been featured in several publications and programs, including The New York Times, BBC Click, NPR, The Today Show, and Vice. He has also been featured as a guest speaker at Cannes Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, AIDC, SXSW, Columbia University Digital Storytelling Lab, Mutek, Pratt Institute, Scuola Holden, P&G Signal, and more.
