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2022 Honored Guests & Jury


Honored Guests 

Lloyd Kaufman  – Ad Astra 2022 Recipient

In 1971, Kaufman met his future partner Michael Herz at Yale. The Troma Universe was born in 1974 with a series of highly original, raunchy comedies such as “Squeeze Play!,” “Stuck On You!,” “Waitress!,” and other titles ending with an exclamation point. These movies, independent precursors to such later smash hits as National Lampoon’s “Animal House” and “Porky’s,” did well financially. However, Kaufman continued to work on such outside productions as “Rocky” and “Saturday Night Fever.” Kaufman’s relationship with mainstream Hollywood would not last long “There were problems,” Kaufman said, “I always wanted to do things my own way, and my employers insisted I do things the correct way.” 

He continued to build up a list of impressive credits and some overpowering debts. Kaufman proved his former employers wrong with his 1984 breakthrough movie, “The Toxic Avenger.” This tale of a health club mop boy named Melvin who is transformed into a hideously deformed creature of superhuman size and strength struck a chord with audiences and critics alike, demonstrating that many people were interested in seeing things done Kaufman’s way. “The Toxic Avenger” led to an animated television series, Toxic Crusaders, action figures, different Marvel comic book titles, a hot sauce, etc. There were three sequels. The most recent film in the series is “Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger Part IV.” Currently, “The Toxic Avenger” is being developed by Legendary Entertainment and their team as a big-budget Hollywood remake. “Toxic Avenger The Musical” is playing in London’s West End, with music by Bon Jovi’s David Bryan.

The success of The Toxic Avenger was followed by a string of commercial and artistic triumphs in a similar vein, blending fantasy, heavy action, comedy, and eroticism in a style that can only be described as “Tromatic.” These films, including the “Class of Nuke ˜Em High” trilogy, “Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD,” and “Troma’s War,” were often ignored or scorned by the intelligentsia of the time but spoke to an entire generation of young people who rejected the pandering, commercial films of the mid-to-late ’80s. Some Troma fans became filmmakers, including Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, Mike Judge, Peter Jackson, and Trey Parker. Thanks to these admirers, Kaufman has been asked to make cameo appearances in films like James Gunn’s “Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Sharknado 4,” Trey Parker’s “Orgazmo,” Eli Roth’s “Cabin Fever,” and about 200 other indie movies.

Lela Meadow-Conner – 20th Anniversary Honoree

Lela Meadow-Conner is a Creative Producer and Founder of mama.film – a village at the crossroads of art & advocacy where storytellers, changemakers, and nurturers unite to champion humanity through a maternal gaze. She has 20 years of experience in independent cinema exhibitions, most recently as Executive Director of Film Festival Alliance (2017-2022.)

Through its curation arm, mama.film operates as a nomadic experience, partnering with regional and national organizations to program films that center on women, identity, and the human experience. In 2020, mama.film launched rePRO Film, a monthly film, and podcast advocating for reproductive justice. In 2021 & 2022 mama.film served as a Satellite Screen for the Sundance Film Festival in Kansas.

She currently serves as Co-Producer on the documentary feature ‘Chasing Chasing Amy’, Producer on the narrative short and feature ‘’Run Amok,’ with several other projects in development. 

Lela is an alumnus of The Industry Academy, a Film program at Lincoln Center/Locarno Film Festival and recently participated in the Brand Storytelling Certificate Program and Sundance Co//ab Film Producing Program. She’s served on multiple film juries, including AFI and the NAACP Image Awards, and is a frequent panelist for national industry organizations.

Eric Moore – 20th Anniversary Honoree

Eric Moore’s tenure in film, media and entertainment has included many roles to support the creation and reach of meaningful storytelling, including being a founding member of the Tallgrass Film Festival. In addition, he has been a key staff at other international film festivals and events like AFI FEST, AFI DOCS, LA Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival, Palm Springs International Film Festival, the American Film Market, and the Independent Film Awards. As a creator and a facilitator of the arts, Moore has passionately worked to allow stories to be seen and heard, especially from people and communities who rarely have a spotlight. Moore currently serves as a Senior Programmer at the American Film Institute’s Festivals division. During his time at AFI, he has also overseen the Programming Department’s film submissions for three festivals: AFI Fest, AFI Docs, and Meet the Press Festival, and cultivated relationships with filmmakers and industry contacts. During the festivals, he is busy with front-facing responsibilities such as intros and Q&As with domestic and international filmmakers and guests. He has a BA in film from Emerson College and received his Master of Communication Management from USC’s Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism. Moore is currently segueing into the field of Social Work, where he will take his love for helping people tell their stories in a new direction.

David Parks – Son of Gordon Parks

David is the author of G.I. Diary and recipient of two Purple Hearts from his service in the Vietnam War.  He is a professional filmmaker, director, executive producer, and motivational speaker. He serves on the Tallgrass Advisory Committee for the Gordon Parks Outstanding Black Filmmaker Award. Parks travels nationwide speaking to promote his father’s, Gordon Parks’, legacy. Parks reaches out to youth and faculty at schools named after his father.


Filmmaker Advisory Board

Mye Hoang – Cat Daddies
Mye Hoang is a Los Angeles-based producer and director. She has directed numerous films showcased internationally and recently won at Tallgrass with Cat Daddies

Aaron Hosé – One Pint At A Time
Aaron Hosé is a producer, director, and editor with over 20 years in film, television, and video. His work has been screened at over 150 film festivals worldwide and distributed on streaming platforms such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Tubi, and Gaia. Aaron has received numerous awards and honors, including five regional Emmy Awards and thirteen nominations. His latest film, One Pint at a Time, is the first feature-length documentary to examine the Black experience in the American craft beer industry.

James Kautz – Frankie
James Kautz (he/him) is hailed by The New York Times as “fearless” and as “fiercely talented” by Time Out New York. James is the founder of Red Seed Films, an independent film production company whose stories focus on personal transformation, gender, and identity. Frankie has won several awards, including Best Narrative Short at Tallgrass. 

Dan Mirvish – 18 1/2
Dan Mirvish is an award-winning filmmaker with a recent win at Tallgrass with 18 ½ and author of The Cheerful Subversive’s Guide to Independent Filmmaking (Focal Press), frequent film school guest lecturer, and co-founder of the Slamdance Film Festival.

Allyson Morgan – First Date 
Allyson Morgan is the founder of the award-winning film and theatre collective F*It Club. Her short film, Sitting, won Outstanding Narrative Short at Tallgrass Film Festival. First Date, her newest short, commissioned by 20th Digital Studio, is currently airing on Hulu in their Bite-Size Halloween series and is being developed as a feature film.


2022 Juries

Stubbornly Independent and Narrative Feature Jury

Milan Kumar Chakraborty
Milan Chakraborty, Head of Film at Marginal MediaWorks, oversees the company’s independent, studio, and streaming film efforts. He is an 18-year veteran of the film industry. 

Aaron Hillis
Aaron Hillis is the Director of Programming (VOD) at Cinedigm. Brooklyn Magazine praised him as one of “The 100 Most Influential People in Brooklyn Culture,” alongside Lena Dunham and Spike Lee.

Dan Mirvish
Dan Mirvish is an award-winning filmmaker with a recent win at Tallgrass with 18 ½ and author of The Cheerful Subversive’s Guide to Independent Filmmaking (Focal Press), frequent film school guest lecturer, and co-founder of the Slamdance Film Festival.

Female Filmmaker and Documentary Jury

Faridah Gbadamosi
Faridah Gbadamosi is a pop culture-obsessed film lover working towards making the space more inclusive. She is currently the Artistic Director of Outfest.

Victoria Gayer
Victoria Gayer is a Wichita-based actress and producer known for Ghostwriter, Wish You Were Here, and Mack.

Mye Hoang
Mye Hoang is a Los Angeles-based producer and director. She has directed numerous films showcased internationally and recently won at Tallgrass with Cat Daddies

Gordon Parks Jury

Tamara Mariam Dawit
Tamara Mariam Dawit is an Ethiopian-Canadian producer and director. Her most recent film is the award-winning documentary Finding Sally which premiered in 2020 and won the Tallgrass Gordon Parks category in 2021.

Robert Daniels
Robert Daniels is a Chicago-based film critic with freelance bylines in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, RogerEbert.com, Polygon, and The Playlist. He has written widely about Black American pop culture and issues of representation.

Sean Armstrong 
Sean Armstrong is an award-winning entrepreneur and seasoned business professional with more than 15 years of experience across many functional areas and co-founder of Homestead Entertainment.

Kansas & Vortex Jury

Harmon Sisters
Sara Harmon is a local director/producer and Adjunct Professor at Wichita State University and Friends University. Charity Harmon is a local director/producer and freelancer. The two sisters co-produced Who Scammed Rajah Rabbit? Which won the Tallgrass 2021 Kansas Doc Short.

Alex Liu
Alex Liu is a New York-based writer, director, and producer. His first film, A Sexplanation, won Outstanding First Feature at the 2021 Tallgrass Film Festival. 

Cheri Gaulke
Director/Writer/Producer Cheri Gaulke is a pioneer in the feminist art movement in Los Angeles, working in film and visual art. Her films have been screened at national and international film festivals. Her film Miss Alma Thomas: A Life in Color won the 2021 Tallgrass Doc Short Award.

Narrative Shorts Jury

Diane Becker
Diane is a Peabody Award-winning producer and a graduate of the American Film Institute. She is the co-founder of Fishbowl Films alongside Melanie Miller. Their latest film, Navalny, won both the U.S. Documentary Audience Award and the Fest Favorite Award at the 2022 Sundance Film Fest and can currently be seen on CNN and HBOMax

Allyson Morgan
Allyson Morgan is the founder of the award-winning film and theatre collective F*It Club. Her short film, Sitting, won Outstanding Narrative Short at Tallgrass Film Festival. First Date, her newest short, commissioned by 20th Digital Studio, is currently airing on Hulu in their Bite-Size Halloween series and is being developed as a feature film. 

James Kautz
James Kautz (he/him) is hailed by The New York Times as “fearless” and as “fiercely talented” by Time Out New York. James is the founder of Red Seed Films, an independent film production company whose stories focus on personal transformation, gender, and identity. Frankie has won several awards, including Best Narrative Short at Tallgrass. 

Murmurations and Documentary Shorts

Enrique Navarro
Associate Professor of Spanish, Wichita State University

Jennifer Merin
Film critic and activist Jennifer Merin is President of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists and Editor-in-Chief of AWFJ.org, for which she also writes the Cinema Citizen blog. 

Jean Anne Lauer
Jean Anne Lauer has promoted the development and exhibition of film and media on the festival and independent cinema circuits, specializing in Latinx, Iberoamerican, and Indigenous titles. Currently, Jean programs sidebar titles at Cine Las Americas and short films with Fantastic Fest

Emerging Filmmaker Jury

Geib Lusenaka
An upcoming professional video editor, Geib Lusenaka’s goal is to graduate from Wichita State University and continue his freelance work until his experience grows to full-time studio work.

Alyssa Pfeifer
A Media Arts major at Wichita State University, Alyssa Pfeifer found her passion for telling stories through filmmaking at a young age. She looks forward to pursuing all aspects of filmmaking, especially motion graphics and film editing, after graduating in 2023. 

Legacy Victorio-Coto
Legacy Victorio-Coto is a production manager and pre-production specialist studying at Wichita State University. She is a senior pursuing a degree in Media Arts in Film. 


EDA JURY 

The Alliance of Women Film Journalists EDA Awards recognizes the amazing work done by and about women in film – both in front and behind the camera. 2022 is the second consecutive presentation at Tallgrass. EDA Awards are presented in two Best Female-Directed categories for feature-length and short films. The festival nominates the films. AWFJ jurors watch the films, and deliberately vote for a winner in each category. The EDAs are named in honor of AWFJ founder and President Jennifer Merin’s mother, Eda Reiss Merin, a stage, film, and television actress whose career spanned more than 60 years. Founded in 2006, AWFJ is a nonprofit 501(c)3 professional membership association of highly esteemed women film critics and reporters from the US and Canada, the UK, Australia, Austria, Germany, and Serbia. For more information about AWFJ, our members, and our EDA Awards, visit AWFJ.org. 


AWFJ EDA AWARDS JURY

AWFJ EDA AWARDS JURY
Jamie Broadnax (Features)
Jamie Broadnax holds a Master’s Degree in Film and a BS in Broadcast Journalism. She reports entertainment news, reviews film and TV reviews, and interviews entertainers for her publication Black Girl Nerds. Jamie also writes for Variety, THR, New York Post, Huffington Post, Vox, Vulture, IGN, Essence Magazine, The Lily (Washington Post) and SYFY. She’s executive producer and host of the Black Girl Nerds podcast and is known for her popular Twitter presence @jamieBroadnax. She’s based in Virginia Beach.

Tara Karajica (Shorts)
Tara Karajica is a Belgrade-based film critic, journalist and programmer. Her writings appear in Indiewire, Screen International, Variety, Little White Lies, Film New Europe, and others, including European Film Academy’s online magazine, Close-up.  In February 2018, she launched Fade to Her, a magazine about successful women working in Film and TV. Tara is a regular at film festivals as a film critic, moderator and/or jury member.

Brandy McDonnell (Shorts, Chair)
Brandy McDonnell writes reviews and writes features for The Oklahoman and NewsOK.com. She started journalism in seventh grade, submitting stories to local weeklies through high school. She wrote for The Daily O’Collegian at Oklahoma State, earning a journalism degree with honors. She worked at Oklahoma dailies, joined The Oklahoman, moving to the entertainment desk in 2007.  A founding member of Oklahoma Film Critics Circle, she writes AWFJ.org’s THE WEEK IN WOMEN blog.

Jennifer Merin (Features, Chair)
Jennifer Merin, AWFJ President and AWFJ.org Editor-in-Chief, writes the CINEMA CITIZEN blog. She’s covered film for NY Press, About.com, Women’s eNews, USA Today, L.A. Times, Christian Science Monitor, US, Ms., Daily News, NY Post, SoHo News and others. A Tisch SOA grad, she acted Off-Broadway, in regional theaters and Tokyo, where she belonged to the famed Tenjo Sajiki company and acted in films. She taught at U of Wisconsin and URI, reported for ABC, NBC CBS Radio and Westwood One. She’s a member of Critics Choice Association in the Film, TV and Documentary branches, and a voting member of the Black Reel Awards. Her syndicated culturally-oriented travel column began in 1984.

Kristen Page-Kirby (Shorts)
Kristen Page-Kirby is a freelance film journalist whose reviews and other writings can be found in the Washington Post, the Washington Post Express, the Washington Post Magazine and on AWFJ.org. Her column The Reelist, which used contemporary film to explore topics of race, gender and other social issues, ran in the Washington Post Express for nine years. She has also moderated panels on film and television at the Washington Jewish Film Festival, the Middleburg Festival, and Awesome Con.

Jeanne Wolf (Features)
Jeanne Wolf covers film and entertainment for the Saturday Evening Post and Jeanne Wolf’s Hollywood. She has served as West Coast Editor for PARADE and written ”Celebrity Parade,” a daily column on Parade.com. She appears on radio and television, reporting on annual surveys including What America Eats, What America Earns and Pop Culture. Over the years, Wolf has covered every aspect of show business for television, radio, newspapers, magazines and the internet. She was awarded the Publicists Guild Press Award for outstanding show business reporting, and is known for being first with inside scoops  On radio, she hosts the daily syndicated ’Jeanne Wolf’s Hollywood,’ and created the ”Inside Entertainment Report” for Entertainment Tonight. She’s also reported for ABC’s ’Nightline’ and ’Good Morning America,’ and has hosted ’Jeanne Wolf With’ on PBS. She has been contributor/editor for Ladies Home Journal, TV Guide, Town and Country, and Redbook, and writes regularly for Ocean Drive  and Vegas Magazines.