Jury

Laura Checkoway

Judging:
Excellence in Documentary Storytelling
1st Prize Storyteller's Award

Documentary filmmaker Laura Checkoway’s Edith+Eddie received an Academy Award and Emmy nomination in 2018 and has won numerous awards including the IDA Documentary Awards Best Short. The film is executive produced by Steve James and Cher. With a background as a writer and journalist, Laura’s award-winning debut film Lucky screened across the globe and premiered on television in 2014. A short doc series that she produced with PBS was nominated for two Emmys in 2020. Her forthcoming feature doc The Cave of Adullam is produced by Laurence Fishburne’s Cinema Gypsy Productions.
Godot Gutierre

Judging:
Excellence in Narrative Short Storytelling
1st Prize Storyteller's Award

Godot grew up in Tacoma and attended college at Western Washington University in Bellingham. Receiving a degree in visual communications with concentrations in Photography and Print. Since moving back to Tacoma in 2007 he has been a board member of the East Side Neighborhood Advisory Council (2015) and is currently a Pythian Knight. He is extremely proud of how Tacoma has grown and believes that Tacoma has a great future ahead of it. Movies have always been Godot’s primary entertainment and he is happy to assist on the DCFF Board to ensure that Tacoma will always have a vibrant cinema culture. Currently, Godot works at Wizards of the Coasts, but when he is not there you will see him in Tacoma at any one of it’s amazing restaurants or watching movies with friends in his backyard in the summers.
Paul Hudson

Judging:
Excellence in Narrative Feature Storytelling
Excellence in Narrative Short Storytelling

A 25-year film industry veteran, Paul Hudson was the co-founder of independent US distribution, production and sales company Outsider Pictures and now runs the company. Since its launch in 2005, Outsider has released Adam’s Apples (2005), Klimt (2006), London to Brighton (2006), Academy Award-winning director Guiseppe Tornatore’s The Unknown Woman (2006) and Baaria (2009). With close to 100 titles in its library, recent acquisitions include Cannes winner Nuestras Madres (2019) and The Weasals’ Tale by Oscar winner Juan José Campanella. In addition to running Outsider Pictures, Hudson has also consulted for MGM, Overture, Relativity, Exclusive Media, Miramax and Cinestaan and continues to consult for independent sales and production companies
Mika Kimoto

Judging:
Excellence in Narrative Feature Storytelling

Mika Kimoto is a native of Japan and the co-president of KimStim, a New York based arthouse film distribution company dedicated to the release of exceptional independent, foreign, and documentary films from around the world. After working for Kodansha publishing company and a contemporary art gallery in Japan, she came to the US to pursue her passion for art. She has an MFA from the California Institute of The Arts. She recently served as a member of the jury for the 2020 Ashland Independent Film Festival and National Film Festival for Talented Youth.
Nicole Pouchet

Judging:
Excellence in Narrative Short Storytelling

A former Broadway assistant director, Nicole Pouchet is a novelist and writer/director for Zombie Orpheus Entertainment’s award-winning fantasy TV series, STROWLERS. Her horror/social thriller short, RETCH, premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) in 2019 and has shown on DirecTV, Amazon, and PBS. Nicole continues to write/direct projects that incorporate social commentary into genre film. She is a Board Member for the Northwest Screenwriters Guild and a guest lecturer for the University of Virginia, SIFF, and Women in Film.
Gray Rodriguez

Judging:
Excellence in Documentary Storytelling
Excellence in Narrative Short Storytelling

Gray Rodriguez is a film festival organizer and enthusiast with a particular affinity for operations and marketing. She is currently the Director of Marketing at the Tallgrass Film Association, as well as the Director of Communications for Film Festival Alliance. She has spent three years volunteering with the Sundance Film Festival in the Artist Relations Department, and has previously served as a Marketing Consultant and programming prescreened for the Bentonville Film Festival.
Jason Rouse

Judging:
Excellence in Documentary Storytelling
1st Prize Storyteller's Award

Jason Rouse is an actor, writer, director and teacher who spent seven years as Announcer and Writer for PRI's Live Wire with Luke Burbank. He's appeared in feature films (Lean on Pete, Cabin Fever, Timmy Failure) television series (Trinkets, The Perfectionists, Angie Tribeca, Portlandia, Grimm, Leverage) and a zillion commercials including a national campaign he made while locked down in his home during the pandemic. He's a teacher at PHAME, an arts and performance academy for adults who experience disabilities and at Pacific Crest Community School. He is lucky to be married to Jessica and to live with their dog, Goldie.
Clemence Taillandier

Judging:
Excellence in Narrative Feature Storytelling

Clemence is a veteran of the independent film industry for over 20 years. She began her career as a theatrical and festival booker at Zeitgeist Films, a NY based distributor renowned for ground-breaking documentaries and award-winning foreign films. She now operates her own distribution services company and provides theatrical, festival booking and consultation services especially on foreign films and documentaries to boutique distributors including Film Movement, Distrib Films and Good Deed Entertainment.
Barbara Twist

Judging:
Excellence in Narrative Short Storytelling

Barbara is a producer and exhibition consultant based in Los Angeles. In addition, she works as a freelance post supervisor. In the exhibition field, she consults for Vidiots, Film Festival Alliance and Europa International, among others. Most recently, she produced BYE BYE BODY which was nominated for Vimeo Pick of the Year 2020, played many festivals including Aspen ShortsFest, and currently has over 220K views on Vimeo. She was listed on Celluloid Junkie’s Top 50 Women in Global Cinema in 2017 and featured in BoxOffice’s “Women in Exhibition and Distribution” October 2015. She is on the board of the Ann Arbor Film Festival and Cinema Lamont. She is a member of Detroit-based Final Girls: a women’s filmmaking collective and recipient of a 2016 Knight Foundation grant. She holds an MFA in Creative Producing from Columbia University.
Monica Valenzuela

Judging:
Excellence in Narrative Short Storytelling
1st Prize Storyteller's Award

Originally from L.A. and currently based in Seattle, Monica loves every aspect of the filmmaking process from idea inception to screening. She’s a trusted, veteran script reader/editor who believes there is nothing without a strong, original story. Monica respects the power of film to encourage imagination, enrich diversity, and break barriers. She’s worked on sets fulfilling many roles, most notably serving as a Producer for the well-received short films “Tina Bobina,” “El Camino Solo,” and “RETCH,” all of which enjoyed great festival runs, including “RETCH” winning Best Film Award at the Seattle Black Film Festival in late 2020. Her most recent film collaboration “Such An Honor,” is presently making its way through the festival circuit. Monica is currently in pre-production for a feature-length anthology project, another short film, and is making strides in starting her own production company.
Philip Whitt

Judging:
Excellence in Narrative Feature Storytelling
1st Prize Storyteller's Award

Philip Whitt has spent his life exploring the realms of the macabre with a mercurial, and sometimes, comedic twist. He has been a puppeteer, entrepreneur, artist, and collector of memento mori, and has worked for a ballet company. Mr. Whitt headed the Rialto Film Guild for 5 years, booking and playing films at the Rialto and Pantages Theatres. For the first two years of its incarnation, he worked with the Tortured Artists Film Festival. He then went on to manage and book films for the Grand Cinema for four years. For the past 30 years, he has bought and sold thousands of vintage movie posters, lobby cards, and other film promotional paraphernalia.