Education at the Festival - Tallgrass Film Association

2025 Festival Education is TBA. Sponsorship is now being accepted to keep it free.

To see video of some of the 2024 education visit:

Marriage of Music and Film Panel

Reflections on Hattie McDaniel panel

Facts and Fallacies about the Short Film Festival Run

The 2024 panels are listed below:

Filmmaker Mentorship Sessions

Thursday, October 24, 1-4pm

Hosted by Crickett Rumley

Kick off your Tallgrass experience with our Mentorship Sessions, an engaging event designed to welcome our filmmakers and set the stage for a weekend of film, fun, and fellowship! Think of it as a twist on speed dating, where you’ll have the opportunity to connect with industry experts in a series of small group conversations. Afterwards, we’ll head over to the Opening Reception for drinks and more networking as we celebrate the start of the festival together. Please note this event is for 2024 Tallgrass filmmakers only.

Space is limited, so please be sure to click here and sign up in advance.

Industry Experts include:

Ian Bignell is a Film Festival Strategist at Festival Formula. He watches films that come into the company, providing impartial feedback on how they best fit into the worldwide film festival circuit. Drawing on his wisdom as the companies previous Submissions Coordinator, he has expert insight into the circuit and uses it to create bespoke festival strategies. Behind the scenes, he is the companies go-to nerd for technical help on anything from codecs to subtitles. Away from the desk, you will often find him at film festivals worldwide as an industry guest, sharing his expertise and giving honest advice. Previous speaking engagements include: HollyShorts, Heartland Film Festival, Encounters Film Festival, Flickers Rhode Island Film Festival, Bolton International Film Festival, Norwich Film Festival, Manchester International Film Festival and many more. Selected prior jury service includes: DC shorts, Indy Shorts, Tallgrass Film Festival.

Katie Bignell graduated from Bournemouth Media School in Scriptwriting for Film & TV and is also a graduate of the London Royal Court Writer Groups. She founded Festival Formula in 2014 after spotting a gap in the festival knowledge of filmmakers around film festivals. With 20 plus years experience behind it they are providing strategy and submissions support to filmmakers world-wide. They’re active members of the Short Film Conference and the Film Festival Alliance. Katie is also a key spokesperson on festival issues with coverage in The Hollywood Reporter and Screen Daily regarding suspect and fraudulent film festivals. She co-created the Filmmaker Lounge in partnership with Film Festival Alliance – an online space for programmers and filmmakers to discuss their roles. Previous speaking engagements include: HollyShorts, Heartland Film Festival, BFI Flare, Flickers Rhode Island Film Festival, Sundance, and many more. Selected prior jury service include: Cleveland International, Heartland International, St. Louis International, Palm Springs Shortsfest, Young Directors Awards, Raindance.

Eliza Hajek is an LA-based writer/producer in addition to Manager of Development at SAGindie. Her duties with SAGindie include traveling to film festivals, speaking on panels and at seminars, and interacting with independent producers worldwide in order to demystify the SAG-AFTRA Low Budget Agreements. Currently, she is in pre-production on a film about possession.

Valorie Hubbard owns the company Actor’s Fast Track, where she consults with working actors about their career paths. Having navigated her own career, she knows the pitfalls and successes of the path and how to avoid the one and create the other. She gives actors the tools they need to get recognized. In her newest book, RULE BREAKERS: Changing the Way Actors Do Business, she shows professional actors how to create and operate their acting career as a successful business – and how to move from being “stuck” into the limelight.

Credits include Resident Evil: Extinction, Castle, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D; How I Met Your Mother; Glee; American Horror Story; Workaholics; True Blood; 90210; ER; and many more, plus tons of Major Theater and Commercials and Video Games. She also plays the “hot” Rhonda in the video game Dead Rising 3. And has another huge NDA project in the works.

Valorie lives in Irvington, New Jersey, with her husband, chef Gill Boyd, and dog Gracie.

Rachel Kephart is the Director of the Kansas City Film Office. She has been an active member of the Kansas City film community for over a decade, starting in casting and various production roles, before eventually joining the Kansas City Film Office in 2015. There, Rachel worked to promote Kansas City as a premiere destination for film and assisted over 200 productions annually. After nearly five years with the Film Office, Rachel began traveling with large-scale reality television productions around the country as the head of their Covid departments. After 3 years, she returned to Kansas City, and the KC Film Office, as the newly appointed KC Film Commissioner.

David Mai, film scholar and filmmaker, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Film and Media Studies at the University of Kansas. His creative work in narratives, animations, and interactive media is inflected by his interests in experimental forms of aesthetics. Through social narratives, his work aims to examine and broaden intersectional representations of Asian Americans in film. In his collaborative film work, he specializes in post-production having worked as a picture editor, visual effects artist, and animator. His research activity has seen different modes of exhibition from VR installations, to audiovisual essays, and to cinemetric analyses. He received his M.F.A. in Cinema from San Francisco State University.

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 and a voting member of the Black Reel Awards. Her syndicated culturally-oriented travel column began in 1984.

Gray Rodriguez is a film festival organizer and enthusiast with an affinity for operations and marketing. She has spent three years volunteering with the Sundance Film Festival in the Artist Relations Department and has previously served as a Marketing Consultant for the Bentonville Film Festival. Gray began her career in the festival industry as a volunteer in 2010, evolving into the role of volunteer director for the Tallgrass Film Association before ultimately going full-time, where she was the Director of Marketing for three years. Her marketing experience includes both corporate and agency roles.

Moderator Crickett Rumley received her MFA in Film at Columbia University and is the founder and senior director of the Film Festival Department at the New York Film Academy (NYFA) in Los Angeles. With diversity, equity, and inclusion centered in her work, she develops educational programs and festival strategy for a diverse student body. She has guided filmmakers to official selections at festivals ranging from Sundance to Bronzelens and to wins and nominations at the BAFTA Student Film Awards, the Student Academy Awards, the Directors Guild of America Student Awards, and the College Television Awards. She is on the board of the Film Festival Alliance, serves as the Panels Director for the Tallgrass Film Festival, and has taught workshops and served on juries for festivals around the U.S.

Meet the Programmers/Meet the Filmmakers

Friday, October 25, 10-11:30 am

Moderated by Crickett Rumley, Panels Director

Panelists: Tallgrass Executive Director Melanie Addington, Programming Director Andre Seward, and Programmers Alex Megaro, Brian Ratigan, and Canan Turan.

Join us for an informal mix-and-mingle session with the crackerjack team behind our Stubbornly Independent programming and you, the filmmakers of Tallgrass 2024! You’ll learn how to make the most of your festival experience, hear more about the films screening this weekend, and get to talk to each other in a setting more casual than a Q&A and quieter than 3 am karaoke. Please note this event is for 2024 Tallgrass filmmakers only.

Tallgrass Team:

Melanie Addington (Executive Director) has worked in the film festival world since 2006, first as a volunteer, and then eventually becoming the Oxford Film Festival Executive Director in August 2015. In 2021 she moved to Wichita to be Executive Director for Tallgrass Film Association. She was a reporter for the Oxford Eagle (a community newspaper) and then Pizza Magazine Quarterly (Global Trade magazine). She still loves pizza. She is from Southern California originally but lived in the South for 20 years. She has family in Wichita and considers it a great home.

Andre Seward, Program Director

Andre started volunteering for the Tallgrass Film Festival when he was 15. He started in events and transitioned into prescreening, and somehow ended up as Programming Director. Along the way, he also has worked for Bentonville Film Festival and Tampa Bay International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in programming as well. He has gone from Wichita, to LA, Madrid, and now is in Berlin but Wichita will always be home. He is happy to be involved in an organization that plays a big part in what makes Wichita special.

Alex Megaro (Documentary Shorts Programmer) is a filmmaker best known for producing/editing DRIFTWOOD, winner of the Slamdance Grand Jury Prize for Narrative Feature. He produced & edited 2 seasons of his VICE documentary series SOURCE MATERIAL as well as produced the Sheffield Doc Fest and AFI Docs official selection 8:08 HOW WE RESPOND. In 2023 Alex directed the multi-award winning documentary short KRUSH THE WRESTLER about the king of underground fetish submission wrestling, an official selection at 30+ international film festivals including a few in predominantly Catholic countries, a phenomenon he finds “rather delightful.”

Brian Ratigan (Vortex Shorts Programmer)is an award-winning director and film curator. He is the founder of Non Films, a label for ephemeral animation and experimental cinema in New York City. Ratigan is established in the film festival circuit as a programmer and juror for the Slamdance Film Festival, Atlanta Film Festival, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Indie Memphis, and the London Indie Festival, among others. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Moviemaker Magazine, 1883 Magazine, and film festivals worldwide.

Canan Turan (Narrative Shorts Programmer) holds a BA in Film Studies from the Free University Berlin and an MA in Screen Documentary from Goldsmiths College London. Her graduation short film “Kıymet“ (2012) and the feature-length documentary “From Here“ (2020) by Christina Antonakos-Wallace, which Canan is the creative producer of, were shown at international film festivals. After over 10 active years as a filmmaker, Canan now works as a freelance curator, currently for Berlinale Generation and Tallgrass Film Festival, as well as an independent researcher, film educator, consultant, critic, speaker and moderator. She is committed to anti-discrimination, equity and intersectionality in cinema and the film industry. In her podcast „film.macht.kritisch.” Canan talks, alone and with guests, about the *other* cinema that focuses on marginalized perspectives and challenges the status quo by telling stories beyond othering, stereotypes and tokenism: a truly anti-discriminatory, intersectional feminist, queer and decolonial cinema. Canan started working as Head of Communications at the German Anti-Discrimination Association in August 2024. She lives in her hometown of Berlin.

Moderator Crickett Rumley (Panels Director) received her MFA in Film at Columbia University and is the founder and senior director of the Film Festival Department at the New York Film Academy (NYFA) in Los Angeles. With diversity, equity, and inclusion centered in her work, she develops educational programs and festival strategy for a diverse student body. She has guided filmmakers to official selections at festivals ranging from Sundance to Bronzelens and to wins and nominations at the BAFTA Student Film Awards, the Student Academy Awards, the Directors Guild of America Student Awards, and the College Television Awards. She is on the board of the Film Festival Alliance, serves as the Panels Director for the Tallgrass Film Festival, and has taught workshops and served on juries for festivals around the U.S.

SAG-AFTRA Low Budget Contracts Made Easy

Friday, October 25, 1-2:15 pm

Presented by Eliza Hajek

A great cast can help level up a low-budget indie film. But many filmmakers assume they can’t afford to hire SAG-AFTRA actors. While going through the SAG-AFTRA signatory process may seem intimidating, SAGindie makes it easier by educating independent producers about the ins and outs of hiring professional actors for low-budget films. This workshop, perfect for beginners, highlights the details of the various contracts SAG-AFTRA offers to low-budget films, demystifies the process of working with the union, and offers best practices for indie producers.

The Marriage of Music and Film

Friday, October 25, 4-5:15 pm

Moderated by John Haley

Music and film have been in relationship since the dawn of cinema, and today’s filmmakers spend considerable time and effort curating music for their work. This conversation will explore how directors and musicians collaborate in both narrative fiction and documentary films and identify key considerations for designing soundtracks, from selecting pre-existing music to understanding the contributions a composer or original artist can bring to the experience.

Panelists include:

Rudy Love, Jr.

Born into a musical family, Rudy’s love for music was instilled at an early age by his father, Rudy Love Sr., a renowned musician in his own right, best known for his family band Rudy and the Love Family and work with Sly and The Family Stone, Marvin Gaye and many more.

Katherine Propper is a writer-director born and raised in Los Angeles.

Her feature directorial debut, LOST SOULZ premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival 2023, where it was acquired by distributor Kino Lorber and theatrically released in 2024. She enjoys merging both fictional and non-fictional worlds in her filmmaking, and drawing upon experiences including working on director Terrence Malick’s editing team. Her short films can be streamed on The New Yorker, Short of the Week, and Omeleto.

Katherine received her MFA in Film Directing from the University of Texas at Austin and a BA in Art History from Georgetown University.

Shawn Rhodes has produced and directed over 350 television episodes and 5000 commercials, and has been nominated for two Emmy Awards with one win, 6 Billboard Music Video Awards including a win, and numerous KAB awards. He has worked for CBS, FOX Sports, ESPN, and Univision as well as America’s Most Wanted (ABC), Snapped (Oxygen), and Vengeance (HLN).

Producer of five films, his film “This is Love” was in 45 international film festivals including London, Rome, Madrid and Lisbon and won 15 international awards on the way to qualifying for the Academy Award competition. His latest film endeavor “Little Satchmo” enjoyed a World Premiere at the Thessaloniki Film Festival in Greece, has been in over 80 International film festivals and aired nationally on PBS in March of 2022.

His latest film, The Sunshine Dreamer, will premiere on Saturday, October 26th, 2024, at the Tallgrass Film Festival’s Orpheum Theater.

Alexis Spraic is a fourth generation Angeleno who is drawn to emotional stories of underdogs and outsiders. Previous credits include “M for Magic” (SXSW), “Shadow Billionaire” (Tribeca), “Ray Charles’ America” (A&E), State of Play: War on Sports (HBO). Alexis produced/edited: “Basquiat: The Radiant Child” (PBS), “Cat Dancers” (HBO). She’s repped by CAA.

Moderator John Haley is a documentary filmmaker, artist, and educator whose stories reflect fissures and seams in the American social fabric. Focused on individuals and communities navigating a fractured national landscape, his films juxtapose these narratives against institutional structures through observational cinematography, personal testimonies, and symbolic imagery. His films have screened at DOC NYC, Palm Springs International ShortFest, Tallgrass, Nashville Film Festival, Virginia Film Festival, St. Louis International Film Festival, New Hampshire Film Festival, Santa Fe International Film Festival, and Sidewalk, among others. His work has been supported by the Verdant Fund, the McCanna House Artist-in-Residence Program, the Southern Exposure Fellowship, and the Anderson Center at Tower View Residency. John is currently an Assistant Professor of Creative Media at the University of Alabama.

Celebrating Hattie McDaniel

Poetry Reading

Saturday, October 26 9:30 am – 10 am

Join us as we celebrate Hattie McDaniel Day with a special reading of Kevin John Goff’s poem for the sign dedication in 2021

He will read the poem on site, and we will kick off the day’s festivities. Tallgrass celebrated Hattie McDaniel in 2004 by proclaiming October 10, 2004, as Hattie McDaniel Day and commissioning a commemorative artwork on display at The Kansas African American Museum all weekend.

This event is free to all.

Reflections on Hattie McDaniel

Saturday, October 26 11 am – 12:30 pm

Location: The Kansas African American Museum

Moderated by Denise Sherman

Filmmaker, actor, and public speaker, Kevin John Goff attributes much of his entrepreneurial spirit to his legendary entertainment family, The McDaniels. The great-grandnephew of Hollywood’s first black artist to win an Oscar (actress Hattie McDaniel, for her work on the 1939 film Gone with the Wind), Goff continues to honor her legacy by inspiring the newest generation to take courage from her trailblazing accomplishments. He will speak on the personal life of growing up with Hattie.

Women in Film Today

Saturday, October 26, 1-2:15 pm

Moderated by Jennifer Merin

Join us for an empowering and insightful discussion with filmmakers who are not only shaping the future of cinema but also creating more inclusive and diverse narratives. This event will delve into the latest industry trends, focusing on the successes, challenges, and unique experiences of female filmmakers from various backgrounds and identities. We warmly invite all women, women-identifying, and non-binary individuals, along with allies, to attend.

Panelists include:

Lagueria Davis wrote and directed BLACK BARBIE: A DOCUMENTARY, ‘a gorgeous film with heart,’ which was acquired by Shondaland after its acclaimed premiere at SXSW and a very successful festival run. It will be premiering on Netflix on Junetheenth. While making this documentary, she shadowed on the full third season of THE L WORD: GENERATION Q for Showtime, where she took on directing establishing shots and marketing materials. Prior to shadowing for all of the final season, she was the writer’s PA on season 2 with Showrunner Marja-Lewis Ryan. She was also selected to participate in the Mentorship Matters Program where her mentor was Nicole Levy. Commercially, Lagueria just wrapped directing promotional materials for Bel-Air and Peacock Olympics featuring Bel-Air Cast. Lagueria hails from Fort Worth, TX and brings her Southern, Black, and Queer perspective to a range of premium storytelling as a writer and director. She is currently developing her scripted feature directorial debut.

Katherine Propper is a writer-director born and raised in Los Angeles. Her feature directorial debut, LOST SOULZ premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival 2023, where it was acquired by distributor Kino Lorber and theatrically released in 2024. She enjoys merging both fictional and non-fictional worlds in her filmmaking, and drawing upon experiences including working on director Terrence Malick’s editing team. Her short films can be streamed on The New Yorker, Short of the Week, and Omeleto.

Katherine received her MFA in Film Directing from the University of Texas at Austin and a BA in Art History from Georgetown University.

Moderator 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 and a voting member of the Black Reel Awards. Her syndicated culturally-oriented travel column began in 1984.

Filmmaking Unveiled: Navigating the Essentials for Actor Filmmakers

Saturday, October 26, 3-4:15

Presented by Valorie Hubbard

Ready to create your own film as an actor filmmaker but unsure where to start? Join Valorie in this workshop that unpacks the filmmaking process for actors. She will share crucial insights on how to begin, what elements you need, and the order in which to tackle them. Explore the roadmap to crafting your own film, with practical guidance from an industry expert to set you on the right path.

Valorie lives in Irvington, New Jersey, with her husband, chef Gill Boyd, and dog Gracie.

Black Representation on Screen: Then and Now

(Photo of David Parks by Carla Eckels/KMUW)

Saturday, October 26 4:30-7.

Panel begins at end of film screening of In This Our Life.

Location: The Orpheum

Join the conversation with Kevin John Goff, David Parks and our Gordon Parks filmmakers as they discuss representation of Black people on the big and small screen, What’s changed, what’s stayed the same, and what to strive towards in the future.

Panelists include:

David Parks, son of Gordon Parks

Kevin John Goff, Great-Nephew of Hattie McDaniel

Christine Swanson, Albany Road

Dwayne Cheers, I Needed Paris, Inspired by Gordon Parks

Lagueria Davis, Black Barbie

Facts and Fallacies about the Short Film Festival Run

Sunday, October 27, 2-3:15 pm

Moderated by Crickett Rumley

With over 30,000 film festivals in the world, new and emerging filmmakers often struggle to create a strategy or even know what their strategy should be. In this candid conversation, our team of festival programmers and strategists will bust through the myths, misinformation, cons, and scams abounding in today’s festival circuit to deliver timely information that will help you navigate the system and manage your expectations. Come with questions, because with our combined experience of over a hundred years, we’ve got answers.

Panelists include:

Kimberley Browning is a filmmaker and film festival professional based in Los Angeles. She is the Program Advisor of Tribeca Festival’s AT&T Untold Stories feature film grant program, and also serves as an Associate Short Film Programmer. She is also the Film Chair of YoungArts, which facilitates the evaluations for the US Presidential Scholars in the Arts. Kimberley is a producer of Uprooted: The Journey of Jazz Dance (HBO/MAX) which screened at the 2021 Tallgrass Film Festival and is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

Marc Longbrake is a professional photographer and filmmaker based in Omaha, NE. With over two decades of experience, Marc has made significant contributions both behind the scenes and in front of the camera on numerous independent productions. His extensive knowledge and relentless work ethic have made him a trusted advisor and supporter among independent filmmakers.

Since the inception of the Omaha Film Festival in 2005, Marc has played a pivotal role, initially as Program Director and now as Executive Director since 2020. His visionary leadership has also driven the development of the OFF Academy over the past decade, providing invaluable educational opportunities to local students in various filmmaking disciplines.

Ask the Entertainment Attorney

Sunday, October 27, 4-5:15 pm
Presented by Tyler Emerson

If you’re making a film in the U.S., chances are you’ve encountered legal questions around topics ranging from releases and insurance to distribution and financing contracts. In this dynamic session, our entertainment attorney will answer your burning questions, unpack the law, and provide general guidelines on proceeding. He’s not your lawyer, though; the answer to every question will likely start with “It depends…”

Tyler Emerson is an entertainment attorney at Conlee Schmidt & Emerson LLP with over a decade of experience. In his motion picture practice, he counsels production companies in connection with structuring, financing and distribution; rights clearance; provides production legal services.; and arbitration services. He also represents individual producers, writers, actors and social media influencers. In addition to his law practice, Tyler is a writer and producer, most recently producing the critically-acclaimed Chasing Chasing Amy, distributed by Level 33, and Greg’s Going To Rehab, now in post-production and starring Cameron Mann, Sailor Bell, Jim Beaver and Dot-Marie Jones.