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Gasparilla International Film Festival | March 21 - 24, 2024
Grand Jury
Hawk Ostby is a screenwriter best known for his work on Children of Men (for which he was nominated an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay) and Marvel's Iron Man. His other work includes First Snow, which was also directed by Fergus, Cowboys & Aliens, and The Last Vermeer. He is a creator and executive producer of the TV series The Expanse, which debuted on Syfy in December 2015. Currently, he is adapting Sony Play Station’s God of War for Amazon TV.
Hawk Ostby
Paul Wilson
Paul Wilson began acting and singing professionally on stage at the age of 9 in the operetta Amahl and the Night Visitors. He studied Shakespeare in London and theater at FSU before graduating from USF. He spent 3 seasons with St. Petersburg’s prestigious American Stage (AEA). Since then, he’s appeared in more than 18 feature films, including Big Stone Gap, The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It and most recently he’s played Richard Nixon twice in Showtime’s The First Lady and the acclaimed HBO/MAX series Minx. He currently runs his media and producing company in St. Petersburg Florida.
Chris has over 22 years of experience in the motion picture industry. As Head of Acquisitions, he oversees all feature acquisitions, production and development operations for Allen Media Group Motion Pictures, and acquisitions for Freestyle Digital Media, where his extensive contacts with sales agents and filmmakers allow him to identify new films for worldwide theatrical, digital, and ancillary distribution. To date, he has licensed over $100MM in fees to Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, HBO, Showtime, Starz, Lifetime, BET and more. He has a strong understanding of the ever-evolving independent distribution landscape for all release platforms.
Chris Charalambous
Rochelle Williams is a Finance Manager with AMC Networks. Her lifelong film and television appreciation has paired well with her vast collection of classics that span multiple genres. The opportunity to participate at the 2023 Gasparilla International Film Festival is a thrilling experience that will undoubtedly enhance her affinity for the complex process of bringing storytelling to the big screen.
Rochelle Williams
Jason Gorber is a film journalist and member of the Toronto Film Critics Association, OFCS and the Critics’ Choice Association. He is Editor-in-Chief/Chief Film Critic at ThatShelf.com, CBC Radio Metro Morning's Film Correspondent, and regularly contributes to POV Magazine, RogerEbert.com and the Toronto Star. Jason has been a jury member at many film festivals including the Reykjavik International Film Festival, Calgary Underground Film Festival, TIFF Canada's Top 10, Reel Asian and Fantasia's New Flesh Award.
Jason Gorber
Joe Restaino is a member of the Producers Guild Association(PGA) based out of Tampa, FL. and an award-winning film producer He is the principal of Hungry Bull Productions and produced Michael Sarnoski’s critically acclaimed film PIG starring Nicolas Cage and Alex Wolff, Rebecca Hall’s PASSING which premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, Lionsgate Films’ FEAR OF RAIN, LADY OF THE MANOR, and Diane Keaton’s MACK & RITA. Joe is also a past President of the Gasparilla International Film Festival.
Joe Restaino
Cinda Snow
Cinda Snow is a Producer, Talent Manager, and the Founder/Owner of Snow Entertainment with offices in both Los Angeles and Tampa. She is also VP at Capital Pictures with films such as MADE GUYS, WITCHBOARD, YELLOW EYES and more. Cinda was involved with Origin Entertainment on feature films FATIMA and IM Mortal. As a talent manager, her clients have worked on feature films (BRIGHTBURN}, as series regulars (STARGIRL, NASHVILLE, FULLER HOUSE etc...) and on a variety of networks and streaming services. Cinda began her career asmanager for her daughter, Actor/Producer/Writer Brittany Snow. Having a master's degree in education and working in the entertainment industry, she has seen the need to provide entertaining as well as transformational media in an ever-changing world.
Chris Eaton currently works in marketing and programming for Green Light Cinema, a new art house cinema in St. Pete. He was previously the programmer for Sunscreen Film Festival for 3 years where he was responsible for selecting 135+ films to be screened each year. Chris brings a diverse background to the table having worked and lived in Latin America for years, while also being an advocate and supporter of the local arts scene in Tampa Bay.
Chris Eaton
Marcus Ovnell
Marcus directed his first feature film THE BREAK IN which won numerous awards all over the world, and propelling Marcus’ director career into overdrive, landing commercial gigs for major companies like Ecophon-owned Saint Gobain, NA-KD and many more. The BREAK IN’s success at festivals led to securing the financing for Marcus’ follow up feature FAUNTLAND AND THE LOST MAGIC. The film was renamed for global release and is now entitled EMILY AND THE MAGICAL JOURNEY. This film has sold to a total of 130 countries including, US, Canada, Germany, and Russia. Currently, Marcus is in post-production of his third film SCAPEGOAT slated to premier in 2023, and has recently begun working on a video game as well as his fourth film THE MAGIC OF THE ETERNAL FIRE.
Tamara Nemirovsky is an international award-winning filmmaker, animator, and educator. Her award-winning stop-motion films have been screened internationally at several film festivals. Tamara was granted a scholarship by the Fulbright Commission to pursue an MFA in the United States. Currently, she is a faculty member at the University of South Florida at The Honors College and The School of Art and Art History.
Tamara
Nemirovsky
Taylor Curry
Hailing from a close-knit Black military family, Taylor Raye Curry is a celebrated writer, director with no true home state. Her work has been selected and featured in spaces like the American Black Film Festival, Cannes, the Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival and Lecture Series, and Southern Screen Festival in Downtown Lafayette. Curry’s work and festival circuit methodology celebrate the voices of women and women of color and the spaces that honor them. She is a graduate of Spelman College and received her MFA in directing for film from UCLA’s School of Theatre, Film and Television. Curry lives in Tampa Bay where she teaches courses on film production and screenwriting in a tenure track position at the University of Tampa as an Assistant Professor of Film. When not teaching, Taylor develops her own work and nurtures projects through her budding independent production company, Abundant Life Productions.
Pete holds a BA in Film/Media Arts and earned his MBA from the University of Tampa. He quickly catapulted to success through a variety of production experiences as a Commercial Director, Executive Creative, Executive Producer, and Indie Film Director, winning numerous and substantial global awards. He founded Kestum Bilt, a creative and production services company, in 2016. His company works with Ad Agencies and Companies around the country to deliver a wide variety of video content.
Pete Guzzo
Grace Santos is an Award-Winning Producer and Hollywood Executive that has worked for companies that have financed, produced, and distributed hundreds of films and series, including Gamechanger Films, Patriot Pictures, Ethos Pictures, the Bentonville Film Festival, Silver Pictures / Dark Castle Entertainment, and AMC Networks’ divisions: RLJ Entertainment, ALLBLK, and Acorn TV.
Grace Santos
Mike Smith
Michael Glover Smith wrote and directed the feature films COOL APOCALYPSE (2015), MERCURY IN RETROGRADE (2017), RENDEZVOUS IN CHICAGO (2018), and RELATIVE (2022), all of which won awards at festivals across the U.S. and were the subject of rave reviews. The Chicago Sun-Times' Richard Roeper wrote that "Smith has a deft touch for creating characters who look and sound like people we know" and RogerEbert.com’s Matt Fagerholm has called him “one of the Windy City’s finest filmmakers.” His films have screened at the American Cinematheque and Rooftop Cinema Club in Los Angeles, Spectacle Theater, the Regal UA Midway in NYC and the Gene Siskel Film Center and Music Box Theater in Chicago. Mike teaches film history at several colleges and is the author of FLICKERING EMPIRE (Columbia University Press, 2015), an acclaimed nonfiction book about film production in Chicago during the silent era.
Philip Booth, a Florida native, has written about pop culture for a variety of publications. His reviews and essays on film and books have variously appeared in the St. Petersburg Times, Las Vegas City Life, Folio Weekly, Tampa Tribune, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Orlando Weekly, The Journal of Popular Culture, The Journal of American Culture, Literature Film Quarterly, online in Pop Matters and the journal SawPalm. Philip, a graduate of the University of Florida (B.A., history) and the University of South Florida (M.A., English), is a member of the Florida Film Critics Circle (FFCC) and The Hemingway Society.
Phillip Booth
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