Emett Casey is a Los Angeles based filmmaker. His work has been shown at theaters, festivals, galleries and micro cinemas around the U.S. and abroad. Working in both short form and features, his work varies between narrative and experimental.
Paolo Davanzo is a filmmaker, educator and co-founder of the Echo Park Film Center. He was born in Italy to an Italian father and a Canadian mother and then emigrated to North America as a child. His parents were both social justice activists who died very early in his life and their passing became the impetus for opening EPFC in 2001. He believes in the power of cinema to create change, love and harmony in the world.
Daniel Garcia is a Los Angeles native. Daniel likes music and making movies while working on his undergrad degree for Film/Video at CalArts. (Co-op Emeritus)
Alejandra Eliza Jimenez is a Youth Organizer for the Immigrant Youth Coalition. She centers her work around undocumented and queer/trans youth in the San Fernando Valley. Apart from her organizing work, she is part of the Echo Park Film Center family, where she began as a student and continues to be involved as a teacher of on‐site and Filmmobile film/video workshops.
Gemma Jimenez Gonzalez is a multimedia artist who is currently studying Urban Studies and Planning at California State University Northridge. She is an alumna of EPFC Youth Classes and has created several films that center on community development and her own personal narrative. A recent artist‐in‐residence at Pacoima Beautiful and the co‐curator of “Community Cinema from Karachi to Los Angeles” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, Gemma is also an EPFC youth instructor and Co‐op member.
Andrew Kim grew up in the Midwest, among places and people that remain near and dear to his heart. He earned a BA from the University of Michigan and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, where he currently teaches. Much of his work involves the tension that exists between magic and science as suggested by analogue filmmaking and various photochemical processes. His more recent body of work consists of films concerning the nature of the paranormal and impermanence.
Alison Kozberg is a second generation Angeleno, writer, arts administrator and researcher. Her specialties include the history of museums, cinema, the avant-garde and Southern California. She is currently completing a dissertation about the history of arts philanthropy in Pasadena, CA.(Co-op Emeritus)
Eve-Lauryn Little Shell LaFountain is a Los Angeles based Jewish and Turtle Mountain Chippewa multimedia artist from Santa Fe, New Mexico. LaFountain worked as the general operations manager of the Echo Park Film Center from 2009 to 2011, where she continues to teach film classes and curate screenings. Her films have been shown in festivals and venues across the country and abroad, including ImagineNATIVE Film + Media Festival in Toronto and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in New York. LaFountain’s photography has shown extensively and has won numerous awards, such as the Ebner International Trophy and Santa Fe Indian Market Best of Classification. She holds a BA from Hampshire College where she studied experimental film, photography, and Native American Studies. In the spring of 2014 she received a dual MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in Photography & Media and Film & Video.
Kate Lain is an artist working in digital media, film, paper, fabric, and other materials. She has an MFA in Science & Natural History Filmmaking from Montana State University. Her work has shown at festivals and venues including Black Maria Film + Video Festival, Experiments in Cinema, Los Angeles Filmforum, PLUG Projects, Experimental Film and Video Festival Zürich, and Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. She works in new media at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. She runs Marvelous Movie Mondays for EPFC. (Co-op Emeritus)
I am a political geographer and cartographer with a regional focus in Southeast Asia. My current interdisciplinary and ethnographic research focuses on spatialities of peace. I study the phenomenon of community-led demilitarized geographic areas, popularly known as peace zones. I use the term “insurgent peace” to refer to the quotidian work of civilian communities in producing and maintaining the peace zones as processes of carving alternative political spaces and enacting a peaceful present and future in the context of active violence and war. (Co-op Emeritus)
Lisa Marr is an award-winning filmmaker, musician and writer whose work is a catalyst for creative collaboration and community empowerment. Originally from Vancouver, Canada, Lisa is the Operations Director and Youth Film Coordinator at EPFC, and a 2014 Visual Arts Fellow of the California Community Foundation. As The Here & Now, she travels the world with her sweetheart Paolo Davanzo, sharing handmade movies and music with everyone.
Shauna McGarry grew up in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, and graduated from NYU, Tisch School of the Arts. She currently serves as Co-Ep for the CW’s new show, Katy Keene. Other TV writing credits include “BoJack Horseman”, “Tuca & Bertie”, “Craig of the Creek”, “Jeff and Some Aliens”, “Bajillion Dollar Properties”, “Take My Wife”, “Anger Management”, “South of Nowhere” and “24”. A comedic storyteller, Shauna’s stories have been featured on various stage and radio shows, most recently at The Moth MainStage. She produced two live shows in Los Angeles: “Radio Picture Show”, a storytelling show and “I Present two”, a showcase of short films and art at EPFC. Her solo show, “L.A. Homebody,” ran at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater and is now being developed as an original pilot for FX. Shauna lives in Glassell Park, Los Angeles, with Graham and Rose, a person and a dog respectively. Shauna is a board member at Echo Park Film Center, where she has hung out plus (taught/ programmed/ all the things) for 15 years.
Originally from Bakersfield, CA, Beaux Gest Mingus is a filmmaker whose work focuses on capturing intimate, personal rituals and the emotional resonance of overlooked places. His films have screened at The Canton Palace Theatre International Film Festival, REDCAT, Echo Park Film Center, The Kristi Engle Gallery, Public Space ONE in Iowa City, Exploded View Gallery in Tucson, and Monkeytown in Brooklyn. He has received production grants from Kodak and Fotokem, and he was recently an artist-in-residence at Echo Park Film Center. He completed his MFA in Film/Video from the California Institute of the Arts and works professionally as a video editor.
Gina Marie Napolitan is an experimental filmmaker and multi-disciplinary artist originally from Brockton, Massachusetts. Her animated films have screened at the Boston Underground Film Festival, Anthology Film Archive in New York City, LA FilmForum, Antimatter Film Festival, Black Maria, and numerous other venues in the United States and abroad. Her paintings, drawings, and collages have been exhibited in numerous galleries and were recently featured in the Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly Journal. Gina has also worked as a puppeteer and video designer on several experimental theater productions at REDCAT and Automata. She received her BFA in Film/Video from Massachusetts College of Art and her MFA in Experimental Animation from the California Institute of the Arts.
Will O’Loughlen was born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in 1967. He graduated from Memphis State University in 1997. O’Loughlen currently works at UCLA in the World Arts Culture/Dance department helping students shoot and edit. He has been a film festival programmer for a variety of festivals in the last twenty years. O’Loughlen is also a filmmaking educator and has taught at the Echo Park Film Center since 2008.
Ellie Parker is a Los Angeles based artist with a passion for the moving image. Her filmmaking journey began as a student at EPFC in 2010. She currently teaches classes to both youth and adults, focusing on Super 8 storytelling and documentary film. She is especially interested in creating films that explore how the formal elements of experimental and documentary film can expand the narrative world of her imagination. Her work has been shown at festivals in the US and Canada and has been featured on NPR Music. She began her undergraduate work in Montreal under the guidance of filmmaker Francois Miron. Ellie will continue her filmmaking career in New York City in 2015. (Co-op Emeritus)
Miko Revereza is a film and video artist based in Los Angeles. Since relocating from Manila as a child, he has been living illegally in the United States for over 20 years. This struggle and exile from his homeland has influenced the content of Miko’s personal films which explore themes of diaspora, colonialism and Americanization. His work has been exhibited at the MoCA Geffen, Hammer Museum, MoMA PS1 and the New Museum in Brooklyn and recently screened his short film “DROGA!” at various festivals in Southeast Asia and Europe. Between films, working as a P.A. on a TV show and teaching an analog video art workshop at EPFC, Miko directs music videos and performs visual projections within LA’s burgeoning electronic and experimental music circles. (Co-op Emeritus)
Chloe Reyes wandered into EPFC as a teenager and never left. Introduced to the magic of small gauge film formats while in the Echo Park Film Center Youth Program, she is especially interested in chemical processes and handmade techniques. Chloe Reyes is now studying at the California Institute of the Arts.
Los Angeles native Cosmo Segurson is a filmmaker and cartoonist who’s ever growing body of eclectic work has shown nationwide. With his bag of in-camera optical tricks, animation techniques, and soundtrack creations, Segurson is always happy to share his skills with students both young and old. Watch out for his curatorial evenings of strange animation and root beer floats – a combo that keeps him consistently inspired!
Sharmaine Starks, aka SharStar, enjoys making films about inner city life and hip- hop culture. She is a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and in 2014 her short film, Desi Holiday was nominated Best Narrative Short at The Pan African Film Festival and her documentary Imma Hustle Girl: The Heart of the West, developed in the LA Air Residency Program, was an Official Selection. She believes storytelling can be used to not only entertain, but also to educate, provoke thought and strengthen community.
Mike Stoltz began to make films and videos after years of touring in punk and noise bands. His work explores human beings’ relation to machines, architecture and histories. His films have screened around the globe at festivals such as New York Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, Hong Kong International Film Festival and The Ann Arbor Film Festival in addition to art spaces, backyards, rooftops and basements.
Nicole Ucedo studied filmmaking in upstate New York at Bard College. She is a native of Los Angeles and has only become more fascinated with her hometown since returning from New York. She is now pursuing a Masters degree at UCLA in film studies with a focus on independent films shot in LA. Her personal film work tends to mix documentary with narrative fiction, meditating on the nuances between reality and imagination and experimenting with storytelling. She loves spending time and teaching at the Film Center!
Penelope Uribe-Abee is a 3rd generation Angeleno and artist. Currently a student in UCLA’s school of the arts and architecture, she strives to create works which are effective and informative. Penelope also teaches and works at the Fowler Museum as an educator. Let’s just say that P likes to have fun with purpose.