Every year an esteemed panel of judges from a variety of backgrounds and experience in the film industry reviews all the films in the GBFF program. Scores from the panel are brought together and averaged to award the highest scoring 2SLGBTQIA+ projects.
Meet the 2023 festival judges below:
Tab Ballis
Tab received the National Association of Social Workers Media Award, for the 2013 short documentary film, “My Marriage Isn’t Threatened By Gay Marriage in North Carolina.”
Capturing the remembrances of LGBTQ elders in coastal North Carolina for a national advocacy group, Tab directed over twenty interviews for the SAGE Story grant program in 2014.
Researching the hate crime that took the life of 32-year-old lesbian Talana Kreeger in 1990, Tab brought the documentary feature “Park View” to completion in 2020.
Tab served on the Screening Committee for Out at the Movies Film Festival 2022, 2023.
Rani Deighe Crowe
Rani Deighe Crowe is an independent filmmaker and screenwriter as well as theater and interdisciplinary artist. Her short films including Safety State, Quiet on Set, Trying to Remember, Heather Has Four Moms, Welfare Check, Texting: A Love Story, Beautiful Eyes, The Test, Just in Case, and Unmasked, have screened in hundreds of festivals all over the world including Athens International Film and Video Festival, BFI Flare, QFest St. Louis, Final Girls Film Festival Berlin, Female Eye Film Festival Toronto, Southampton Film Festival UK, Sapporo Short film Festival Japan, Provincetown Film Festival, and Northern Wave International Film Festival Iceland.
Emmalie El Fadli
Emmalie is a writer/director based in London, who started writing scripts and acting them out with her friends at a very young age. She always knew she wanted to be a storyteller.
Before making her directorial debut in 2016 with the lesbian short film ‘Seasons’, she studied post-production at Ravensbourne University and has been working as an editor in film and TV since.
After directing ‘Seasons’, she knew she wanted to create more positive LGBTQ+ stories, and set out to write/produce/direct her first short film ‘The Date’ in 2017. It did extremely well at film festivals around the world, including the BAFTA qualifying BFI Flare in 2019, the Inside Out film festival in Toronto, and the Roze Filmdagen in Amsterdam, amongst others. She was also awarded ‘Best Director’ at the Rob Knox film festival.
Tathagata Ghosh
A Berlinale Talents alumnus, Tathagata has always believed in telling stories of people from different social backgrounds. His last short films “Miss Man”, “Footprints”, “The Scapegoat”, “The Meat” and “The Demon” have travelled to numerous prestigious international film festivals and have won several awards.
Rick Hamilton
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
Demy Lion
Demy Lion is a graduate from the University of Chichester in England, where they studied Screen Acting & Creative Technologies for 3 years, discovering their preference for the acting, directing and ADing sides of production. Originally from Italy, they moved to the UK after finishing high school, in order to study acting and pursue a career in film and TV. Demy is currently editing a couple of projects they started at university, one focused on mental health, and the other on self-acceptance as a non-binary and queer person; as these are still taboo topics in Italy, they strive to create stories that will give comfort and hope to anyone who can’t freely be out and proud.
AJ Mattioli
Times Square Gossip, (AJ) “could very well be considered the voice of the LGBT community in the independent film world.”
AJ Mattioli (He/Him) is a Queens born, BK based, Trans Producer/Director with 16+ years in the entertainment industry.
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, Peppermint, Carmen Carrera, Miss Fame, and more.
Rosa Sungjoo Park
Rosa Sungjoo Park is a media artist and sound designer whose research interest is centered on the study of the physicality of sound, experimental film and sound, and expanded cinema. Park’s creative practice is deeply grounded in her cultural identity, memories, and religion, and her work has been exhibited in galleries and theaters internationally. Park’s film music and sound design have screened at more than twenty film festivals, including the Cannes World Film Festival, Toronto Documentary Feature and Short Film Festival, and São Paulo International Film Festival, among others. She currently serves as an Assistant Professor in the School of Cinema at San Francisco State University.
