Vera Brunner-Sung was born in Michigan to parents from Korea and Switzerland. Her films have been screened at festivals and museums around the world. Her first feature, Bella Vista, premiered at the 2014 International Film Festival Rotterdam (Bright Future) and won her the George C. Lin Emerging Filmmaker Award at the San Diego Asian Film Festival. She is the recipient of a Center for Asian American Media writer/director fellowship. Here she talks to us about breaking down character stereotypes and how sometimes you’re your own best advocate.

Hira Nabi is a filmmaker and a multimedia artist. Her practice moves across research and visual production interrogating the relationship between memory and histories, witnessing and testimonies through image and narrative. She earned an MA in cinema and media studies from The New School, and a BA in film and postcolonial studies from Hampshire College. She lives and works in Lahore, Pakistan. Herre she talks to us about the making of her film All That Perishes At The Edge of Land, Ditching the crew and spending time alone filming, how she didn’t want to make a traditional workplace documentary and the other female directors that inspire her.

Laure Giappiconi studied at ENSATT, a French national theatre school based in Lyon. Since then, she favors artistic adventures on the long course and contemporary creations, both on stage or in the cinema. She also writes and performs her own creations. Here she talks to us about her collaborative partnerships, lack of funds and production behind her short and some of the female directors she looks up to.

Emily Wilson is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker and an alumna of the SUNY Purchase Film Conservatory. She's edited television series for Viceland, including Dark Side of the Ring, Outsider, and Balls Deep. In 2012 Emily edited Reincarnated, a feature documentary that premiered at TIFF, and then post-coordinated Fishing Without Nets, a narrative that won the U.S. Dramatic Directing Award at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. She co-created the comedy pilot I Adore Dolores, a selection of the IFP Screen Forward Labs and Seriesfest, 2019. Here she talks to us about how she decided to finance her film rather than buying a house, some of the female directors she looks up to and how laughing can be the best stress relief during production.

Sonia K. Hadad is an Iranian writer and director. In 2010, she completed her bachelor’s in theatre and dramatic literature from Azad University in Tehran. She studied film and media arts (MFA) at Emerson College, Boston (2010–2017). She moved to the U.S. in 2013 to continue her education and began making short films, producing for the film industry and also editing TV series and shorts. Here she talks to us on how she took funding her film into her own hands due to the restraints in Tehran and how she feels Sundance is working to decrease the male director domination.

Bridget Moloney is a 2020 AFI Directing Workshop for Women fellow. Her independent pilot, I Was a Teenage Pillow Queen, premiered at the 2018 Tribeca TV Festival. She is also an actress, qualifying for great health insurance one national commercial at a time. She earned her bachelor’s degree in theatre and creative writing for media at Northwestern, and her master’s in clinical psychology from Pepperdine. Moloney lives in LA with her husband and two children. Here she talks to us about her glamorous moment of finding out she had been selected for the festival in the bathroom, her camera man crouching in her shower for that perfect shot and the female directors she looks up to.

Jessie’s films have amassed millions of views and been featured everywhere from the New York Times to TMZ. Jessie wrote, directed, and starred in a dark comedy about bulimia, The Skinny, which was produced by Jill Soloway, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and won a Webby for best dramatic series. Jessie has developed series for Hulu, ABC, CW, and wrote on SKAM Austin for Facebook Watch. She lives in LA with her plants. Here she talks to us about how her script was originally found to be too provocative, why investing in yourself is sometimes the best bet and how making a film is just like looking after her nieces….