NOFS TEAM

Clint Bowie (he/him) is the Artistic Director of the New Orleans Film Society, where he manages the curation of the organization’s year-round programming, including the Academy Award–qualifying New Orleans Film Festival, the New Orleans French Film Festival, and the organization’s artist development programs: Southern Producers Lab, Emerging Voices Directors Lab, and South Pitch. He has served on review committees for ITVS, Creative Capital, the National Endowment for the Arts, United States Artists, FilmNorth, and Latino Public Broadcasting, and has spoken on panels organized by Sundance Institute, Firelight Media, Center for Asian American Media, The Gotham, Film Fatales, Palm Springs International ShortFest, ArtHouse Convergence, and the Champs-Élysées Film Festival in Paris. He has been invited to serve on juries at film festivals including Denver, Florida, Atlanta, Cleveland, Dallas, RiverRun, Independent Film Festival Boston, and others. He is currently on the Advisory Board for the Overlook Film Festival and was formerly a board member for Film Festival Alliance. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago and previously worked as a print journalist at publications across the country.

Feroz Mughal is a software developer and film programmer based in New Orleans, LA. His passions in film are rooted in championing underserved communities and film as a shared language across cultures. Outside of the festival, he curates a local film screening series with Krewe Da Bhan Gras — showcasing South Asian stories while amplifying their social impact. You can also catch him daydreaming about 2000s-era Bollywood movies in his spare time.

Kate Mason is an LA-based mischief-maker who programs for the New Orleans Film Festival and produces screenings and events at Film Independent, including their infamous Live Read Series. She’s currently in post-production on her debut feature film, SERIOUS PLAY, a hybrid documentary about juggling. Her alter ego is drag king Squirt Reynolds and her favorite movie is Mommie Dearest.

Rashada Fortier is a queer, New Orleans based producer and programmer. Her aim is to support work that focuses on narratives centered around women protagonists, particularly women of color. Rashada holds a B.A. in Communications specializing in film and television from Seton Hall University, and a MFA in film from the University of New Orleans. Rashada currently works as an assistant accountant in the film industry.

Zain is a New Orleans-based filmmaker, raised and educated in Mississippi. He has spent the past five years in Southeastern Louisiana working to uplift the next generation of filmmakers as a programmer for the New Orleans Film Festival, an educator at the New Orleans Video Access Center, and a collaborator on various sets throughout the city. He has worked to share the films of local filmmakers and their visions as a coordinator for the New Orleans Film Festival and the Overlook Film Festival. He is deeply interested in contemporary Southern stories told through a tender, comedic lens that heightens the everyday. His own films explore contemporary struggles told through a nostalgic viewpoint rooted in film history, the machinations of the cinema, and Southern culture. He is a member of Palestine Film Day, NOLA Freedom Forum, and is a contributor to Antigravity Magazine. Much like his favorite films, he’s short and sweet.

Amber is a filmmaker and festival programmer based in the Midwest, who is interested in independent work that is personal, messy, and lives in the ill-defined edges of form and genre. Her work as a non-fiction filmmaker has been supported by HBO, IF/Then, The Gotham, PBS, and Short of the Week and has premiered at festivals including SXSW and Camden International Film Festival. She has been a film festival programmer since 2016 and continues to program across documentary, narrative, and animation.

Born in Oklahoma, raised in Florida, I have lived in Bulbancha (new orleans, louisiana) since 2019. I have worked in television/film production and film festivals for over a decade in various capacities including programming, production, and exhibition. I like little movies that make my teeth grind or my eyes mist.

Steffi is a curator, researcher, and film festival organizer, where she dabbles in print publications, community engagement, and programming administration. She is currently part of the New Orleans Film Festival and Atlanta Film Festival programming teams, with a focus in narrative cinema. Steffi is slowly completing a PhD thesis through the University of Melbourne, Australia, which deals with cultures of horror and masquerade on film. Her research interests broadly span liminal and ritual studies, genre cinema, and the possibilities of the cinematic carnivalesque. She hopes she was an iguana in a past life, but is pretty sure she was a fly.

Brian Thompson acts as Community Partner Coordinator for the New Orleans Film Fest and is part of the New Orleans Film Festival Programming Fellowship focusing on Narrative Shorts and Documentary Features. He creates fine art portraits under the name Benry Fauna, where his influences in art history and traditional film processes pragmatically meet modern and multidisciplinary methods.

Amada Torruella (she/they) is a Salvadoran filmmaker and curator working between El Salvador and the U.S. Currently Amada is developing her first feature film: Vena Acuática. Since 2014, Amada has been a film festival programmer and has programmed for Indie Grits, New Orleans Film Festival, True/False, Festival Utopias y Memorias and SFFILM Festival.

Bo McGuire was born the queer son of a Waffle House cook and his third-shift waitress in Gadsden, Alabama. The first movie he truly fell for was the music video for Reba McEntire’s “Fancy.” He was a Ryan Murphy + Half Initiative Mentee and one of FilmmakerMagazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film.” His feature debut, SOCKS ON FIRE, won the jury prize for best documentary feature at Tribeca Film Festival. He teaches screenwriting at Tulane and belongs to the first church of Dolly Parton.

Jillian is a film curator, writer, photographer, and all-around storyteller born and raised in Puerto Rico, and currently based in New Orleans. They hold a Bachelor’s Degree in Photography and a Master’s in Arts Administration. As a film programmer and curator, they believe film is a powerful catalyst for social change and advocate for underrepresented stories that shake up the norm.

Lizzie Doria is a New Orleans producer and director with over a decade of experience producing narrative films, documentaries, and commercials as co-owner of production company Worklight Pictures. Films she’s produced have premiered at Sundance, Tribeca Film Festival, and of course her hometown New Orleans Film Festival and have been distributed internationally. She is a programmer with the New Orleans Film Festival with a focus in narrative features and Southern shorts. She was a past fellow in the inaugural Southern Producer’s Lab, NOFF Programming Fellowship, and a recipient of the #CreateLouisiana French Culture Film Grant. Born and raised in South Louisiana, Lizzie values stories deeply rooted in the American South and films that make her feel the unexpected. When she’s not watching movies, she’s analyzing them on her queer film podcast Subtextual, learning to bind books, or daydreaming about next year’s Mardi Gras costume.

Rachel Lin Weaver (they/she) is an award-winning filmmaker, artist, musician, writer, educator, and curator. Weaver has contributed to NOFF since 2011 as an Experimental Shorts programmer and curator of Cinema Reset. Their own projects in documentary and experimental film/video art have been screened and exhibited widely. Currently working between the mountains of Appalachia and their beloved New Orleans, Weaver is an Associate Professor of Creative Technologies at the School of Visual Arts at Virginia Tech.