Filmmaker of the month August - Joshua Mangrum

Alex is an up-and-coming writer/director born in Guernsey in 1999. He started out making stop motion animations at the age of 11 and has since moved on to live action short films. After graduating from the Northern Film School, where he directed the dystopian sci-fi short film Badges, he moved back to Guernsey and directed Occupied, which performed well in festivals last year. He has since moved on to write and direct his latest short, Dare to Dream.

Joseph Lao is an Internationally Award Winning Filipino-American Filmmaker and Published Photographer.  Born in Cleveland, Ohio, he developed his interest in filmmaking by making home-videos with his neighborhood friends. Joseph would later receive a Masters in Film from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA.  His first film industry job was working as a Office Production Assistant at Ridley Scott's and Associates.  Today he is the current Director of Creative Services at Tilta of North America.  

I’m Jessy Langlois. I made my first movie in 1999. But life forced me to make some choices. I’m a tv editor since 2002 but something is incomplete. I always wanted to be a movie director and year 2015 gave me a second chance. « Deus Ex Machina » is my third achieve movie and that’s how i see my life in the future ;)  Ratings

An immigrant from Yugoslavia, Maria Juranic is a director and editor working in New York and Los Angeles. She has made visuals on a variety of media platforms from music videos and advertising to fashion and film. She also teaches graduate students cinematography at Brooklyn College.

  In the last decade, Maria has been writing and directing short form content for brands and companies as disparate as Conde Nast and Sesame Street. She recently directed the 10-part SnapChat Originals miniseries "Action Royale,” and her short documentary “RedBone” is currently distributed on NBC LX.   

She is also sought out by labels such as Warner and Universal for her music videos. Her work has been seen on MTV, VH1, Rolling Stone and Nowness. Her latest music video for Poliça, "Agree," is a Vimeo Staff Pick, and her most recent branded spot won a 2019 Gold Telly Award. She is a recipient of the 2017 Jerome Foundation Grant and 2013 WIFT Grant.  Director Statement

Elifnaz Yılmazcan was born on the 6th of January 2000 in Mersin. She continues her education at Marmara University in the Faculty of Fine Arts Department of Film Design and Management. She has worked in several different projects in related areas and has her own ongoing projects at the moment.  

Nicolás P. Villarreal was born and raised in La Plata, Argentina. He studied at the Escuela of Animación y Cinematografía de Avellaneda where he earned a degree in 2D Animation. While studying animation, he was taken under the wing of Miguel Alzugaray, a well-known fine artist from Argentina. He continued studying animation and fine art painting until he entered the Master’s Program at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. 

Villarreal graduated with honors in the Spring of 2002, and since then he has been working as a traditional animator, character designer, sculptor and Visual Development artist for films and video games including Walt Disney Studios, Sony Computer Entertainment, Jim Henson Studios, Sega, Reel FX, Digital Domain, Duncan Studios, and Amazon Studios among others. He has given presentations at Pixar Animation Studios, Dreamworks Animation, Apple, Stanford University, The Sydney Opera House, and several universities in South America and Europe as well as a TEDx talk.  

Nicolás is the co-founder of Red Clover Studios where he is currently developing his first Feature Film as well as the writer and director of the awarded animated short films “Pasteurized”, “Nieta” winning Best Animated Film at the Toronto Kids International Film Festival 2015, co-writer and Director of “The House of Colors” and the live-action short film “Things are looking up”.  He is also the Director of the Visual Development and Traditional Animation Department at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, where he shares his experience with his students.  Director Statement

Dušan Popović was born in 1991 in Loznica, Serbia. He finished elementary school and high school in Krupanj. He completed his Basic Academic Studies in architecture in 2013 at the University of Belgrade - Faculty of Architecture, and then his Master of Academic Studies in 2015, as the first in his generation, with a thesis and a project on the City of Stage Experience: Krupanj - Film City (mentor: prof. dr Eva Vaništa Lazarević). 

In 2015, he enrolled in the Doctoral Academic Studies of Architecture at the same faculty, and in 2019 he enrolled in the Master's Studies in Directing - the art of documentary forms, at the Academy of Arts in Belgrade, in the class of Oscar-nominated director, prof. Dragan Elčić. He has been engaged in teaching at the Faculty of Architecture since 2014 as a demonstrator in the subjects Visual Research, Architectural Graphics, 3D Visual Communication, Transformation of Graphic Form, and in 2016 he was elected assistant for the scientific, ie artistic, field of Visual Communication and architectural graphics at the Department of Architecture.  

His works have been exhibited in the exhibitions of the best student works on the subjects Visual Research (2010, Friends Profile), Architectural Graphics (2011, Modular Analysis), 3D Visual Communications (2011, Spatial Relations, Photo Series), Urban Miniatures (2013. Kvake !, brochure; 2013. Knob! 3D presentation panel), Graphic identification (2013. Visual identity analysis: Citroen, presentation panel; 2013. DP, monogram; 2013. Beyond Protocol, band logo), and during the demonstration engagement he was one from the author of the exhibition. In his recent professional life, he designed several publications, visual identities, film posters, video presentations... 

He is the author of the concept of the collective memorial exhibition Ozdo dedicated to the victims of the '99 bombing, and he was one of the authors or coordinators of numerous student exhibitions. His author's work, design, music, film, published and presented on the public service. In addition to graphic design, he has an interest in the field of film, film directing and scenography architecture, as well as photography, poetry and prose. He was a guest lecturer at a BEST design week workshops in period between 2017-2019, as a graphic design advanced course lecturer. Music is also a permanent field of research and interest, and he is also the frontman, lyricist, composer and guitarist of the punk rock band Mimo Protokola, behind which he currently has 3 albums Prokleti Grad (2015), Odlazim (2016), 100 Svetlosnih Godina (2021), as well as his solo project Kaubojka (2018), and several music videos.

Abracadabra (91) - among others - audience award San Sebastian film Festival
Why get married the day the world ends (99) - among others - best director Fantosporto - Jury's price at Cabourg film festival - Best actor at Puchon film festival in Seoul
Trouble (2004) - among others - Grand Prix Gerardmer Film Festival - Best European Feature at Sitgès international film festival.
Mon Ange (2017)- among others - Best Cinematographer's debut at Camerimage Film Festival