Festival Judges

Sam Azghandi is a filmmaker, VFX Artist, editor, and sound designer. He graduated with an M.F.A. degree from the School of Visual Performing Arts in the Film and Media program at Syracuse University. Most of his work explores themes of gender, race, and class in queer and immigrant lives. His projects have thus far been screened in Indianapolis, Palm Springs CA, Australia, Los Angeles, New York State, and Texas.

Rick Hamilton, Managing Director of the Chain Theatre and the Chain NYC Film Festival, is an award-winning filmmaker whose short films, including “Seeing Glory,” “Choices” and “The Fear Inside” have screened around the world. He directed the hit Off-Broadway show Fabulous! The Queen of New Musical Comedies, the AUDELCO-nominated Gypsy and the premiere staging of The Orbit of the Soul. At the Chain Theatre, he directed the world premiere of What Passes for Comedy and the workshop production of Georgie D., following their development in the Chain Play Writing Lab. His work Off-Off Broadway includes Geeks! The Musical and Sophia. Other play development work includes staged presentations of Candy Hearts, Sarah was Mine and A Retail Carol. Rick also directed the steampunk burlesque cabaret Suave and the Boner. For more information on past and current projects, please see www.rickhamilton.nyc

Shawna Khorasani is an independent filmmaker who loves telling queer feel-good stories. She considers herself passionate about positive and accurate LGBTQ+ media representation, and strives to deliver that in her works. Shawna graduated with two English Literature degrees, but discovered her passion for film and story-telling in her last year of college. She adapted, wrote, produced, and directed a modern literary webseries based on Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac. From there, she dedicated herself to learning everything she could about the film industry. From taking classes to working on sets to networking and making connections, Shawna loved every second of it. Her award-winning lesbian romcom LoverGirl was a major hit in film festivals during 2020. Shawna’s new romance short Popping the Question premiered on various streaming platforms in summer of 2021. Original and unique stories about women, the LGBTQ+ community, people of color, and other marginalized groups inspire her to keep telling them.

AJ Mattioli (He/Him) is a Queens born, NYC based, Trans Producer/Director with 16+ years in the entertainment industry.
Times Square Gossip, (AJ) “could very well be considered the voice of the LGBT community in the independent film world.”
His work has been celebrated at the Queens Museum, The United Nations, The NY Times, The Advocate, Huffington Post, Gay Star News, Go Magazine, and many others!
As the go-to Trans Producer for Queer filmmaking, he’s worked with some of the hottest LGBTQ+ celebs, including Sasha Velour, Shakina Nayfack, Bob The Drag Queen, Cory Wade, Rain Dove, Vincent DePaul, Carmen Carrera, Miss Fame, and many more.
AJ owns the Production/Distribution company Mattioli Productions. Mattioli Productions caters to the LGBTQ+ community. They are trans owned and queer operated and only tell Queer stories. AJ believes that only queer people should be cast as Queer characters and therefore has been able to hire over 50 Queer actors to date! AJ likes to call this “keeping the money rainbow.” He believes in Queer Liberation, not Rainbow Capitalism. Representation matters and seeing ourselves reflected on screen is vital to our self worth.
AJ also donates a percentage of profits to charity as part of a pay it forward initiative.

Suanne Spoke is a multi-award winning actor/producer, she has made over 150 appearances on stage/film/television, most recently as a series regular on “The Thing About Pam” starring Renee Zellweger, guest starring on “Station 19” and starring in “Second chances with Jason Nash” for YouTubeTV. She can be seen in “Whiplash”, “Wild Prairie Rose”, “Gastropod” and many others. On stage, Suanne has twice won the Ovation Award, the Garland Award/LA Weekly award for Best Performance in numerous productions and has also been awarded the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award/Garland Award for Best Production/Producer. During her lengthy stage career, she served on the Board of Directors for both Company of Angels and Deaf West Theatre. Suanne currently serves on the faculty at the California Institute of the Arts where she teaches acting in both the graduate Film Directing Program and Character Animation.

B. Danielle began laying the groundwork for her career at the age of nine, and by the age of 15, Watkins had her first poem published in the “Poetry Gems Collection”, presented by the Famous Poets Society. In 2011 her first of 5 novels was published, and by 2013 she’d be introduced to writing film. Taking her career to the next level Ms. Watkins became the first and only African American filmmaker to write, produce and star in a REVRY original series, “3030”. Starting at the end of 2020, Watkins added another amazing title under her belt, becoming the Chief Programmer as well as Long Form Content Coordinator for the new, black LGBTQ+ led and centered television network iElevate +TV.