Black British filmmaker Ngozi Onwurah takes on the issues of time and space in her work which embraces heterogeneity and multiple sites of subjectivity. Onwurah consistently navigates and challenges the limits of narrative and ethnographic cinema by insisting that the body is the central landscape of an anti-imperialist cinematic discourse. An accomplished director with several episodes of the top British TV drama series "Heartbeat" to her credit, Ngozi Onwurah also wrote and directed the prize-winning feature "Welcome II the Terrordome." Sometimes fierce and at others more gently humorous, Onwurah tackles the clashes and ironies of the apparent gulf separating black and white, whilst showing that under the skin, emotions are universal. Onwurah’s films have won prizes at the Berlin Film Festival, Germany; Melbourne Film Festival, Australia; Toronto Film Festival, Canada; and at NBPC, USA. (“Women Make Movies” - http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/makers/fm280.shtml)

A native of Tupelo, Miss., Tina Mabry graduated from the University of Southern California, School of Cinema-Television, with an MFA in Film Production in 2005. Her first short film, Brooklyn's Bridge to Jordan, which she wrote and directed, has been screened in more than 50 film festivals worldwide. In 2007, she also co-wrote a feature screenplay entitled Itty Bitty Titty Committee, directed by Jamie Babbit. In 2008, Tina participated in the FIND Directors Lab with her feature film, Mississippi Damned, which an impressive 13 awards from participation in 15 film festivals, including the awards for Best Feature Film and Best Screenplay at the Chicago International Film Festival (2009). The film premiered on Showtime in February 2011.Tina was named among the 25 New Faces of Independent Film in Filmmaker Magazine in July 2009 and was recognized by Out magazine as one of the most inspirational and outstanding people of 2009. Huffington post description- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tina-mabry

Graduate of Dartmouth College and NYU Graduate Film School, New York native Rashaad Ernesto Green was included on the 2010 edition of Filmmaker Magazine's elite 25 New Faces of Independent Film list as well as indieWIRE's 2009 Ten New Voices in Cinema. He won the 2011 Horizon Award at the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts. His short films have screened on HBO, BET, at the Sundance Film Festival, and have won accolades at festivals internationally. Green, Rashaad Ernesto. “About the Director.” Mi Alma Films. Accessed November 3 2012. http://www.mialmafilms.com/aboutdirector.html.

Writer/director Rose Troche grew up in the Midwest suburbs as part of a large Puerto Rican family, which may be related to her knack for ensemble casts. After making short films and videos, she made her feature debut with the romantic comedy Go Fish, which she co-produced and co-wrote with lead actress Guinevere Turner. Shot in 16 mm black-and-white around the Chicago neighborhood of Wicker Park, the film premiered at Sundance and has become something of a lesbian cult hit. In 1998, she directed the British romantic comedy Bedrooms & Hallways about gay men in London. She focused on the heterosexual suburbs her 2001 feature The Safety of Objects, an adaptation of several short stories by A.M. Homes starring Glenn Close and Dermot Mulroney. Moving over to television, she directed an episode of Six Feet Under for HBO. Her latest project is a series about the lesbian community in L.A. called The L Word, which premieres January 2004, on Showtime. (Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide - http://movies.nytimes.com/person/166476/Rose-Troche)

Maryam Keshvarz is a New York born Iranian director receiving her MFA in film direction at NYU’s Tisch School of Arts. She has directed four films; the documentary styled Rangeh eshgh (2004), two shorts in 2006, Not For Sale and The Day I Died. Her film Circumstance (2011) won the Audience Award at Sundance. Her newest project is called The Last Harem. http://www.stardustbrands.com/directors/maryam-keshavarz/bio

Campbell’s previous films include the award-winning BD Women about Black lesbian lives and history; Legacy which explores the lasting impact of slavery on Black families; and Fem, a butch homage to queer femininity. Campbell curated No Heroes as part of the Progress Reports 2010 at Iniva. They have written published short stories and articles on film, sexuality and gender for Diva Magazine, Feminist Review, The Pink Paper, Critical Quarterly, Chroma Magazine, BFM Magazine, Luxonline, and BFI Screenonline.

Rea Tajiri is a Japanese American video artist and filmmaker. She was born in Chicago, Illinois. Tajiri attended California Institute of the Arts and worked as a producer on various film and video projects in Los Angeles and New York. Tajiri's video art has been included in the 1989, 1991, and 1993 Whitney Biennials. She has also been exhibited at The New Museum for Contemporary Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The Guggenheim Museum, The Walker Art Museum and the Pacific Film Archives.  -"in.com"

Lourdes Portillo is a Mexican-born Chicana director, producer, and writer, who first came into contact with film making in Hollywood at 21 years of age while assisting a friend in making a documentary. Portillo apprenticed at San Francisco National Association of Broadcast Engineers and Technicians which  She received her MFA from San Francisco Art Institute in 1978. She specialized in documentary style and has directed several films—After the Earthquake (1979), Las Madres: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo (1986), La Ofrenda: The Days of the Dead (1988), Vida (1989), Columbus on Trial (1992), Mirrors of the Heart  (1993), Sometimes my Feet go Numb (1993), El Diablo Nunca Duerme (1994), Hoy es tu Dia (1998), Corpus: A Home Movie About Selena (1999), Conversations With Intellectuals About Selena (1999), Culture Clash: Mission Magic Mystery Tour (2001), Señorita Extraviada (2001), My McQueen (2004), Al Mas Alla (2008).   http://www.lourdesportillo.com/films/films.php?category=films   http://www.lourdesportillo.com/about/about_bio.php

Liz Garbus graduated Magna Cum Laude from Brown University in 1992 and is a Fellow of the Open Society’s Center on Crime, Communities, and Culture. In 1998, Garbus achieved international public and critical acclaim for her Academy Award-nominated film, THE FARM: ANGOLA, USA. Garbus has also spoken at a number of film-related events, including the 1999 and 2000 Independent Feature Film Market, panels and workshops at the Sundance Film Festival, as a Guest Lecturer at NYU, and she has served on juries at several major film festivals. SOURCE:http://www.sfjff.org/film/biography?id=4696&last=Garbus&first=Liz&role=Director

JENNIFER PHANG wrote and directed the award-winning feature film HALF-LIFE, which premiered domestically at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and internationally at the 2008 Tokyo International Film Festival as a Grand Prix Nominee. LOOK FOR WATER, Phang’s follow-up project, was selected for the 2008 Sundance Screenwriters Labs, won the L’Oréal Woman of Worth Vision Award at the Tribeca All Access, and received both an Annenberg Film Grant and a Cinereach Grant from the Sundance Institute. - http://urbanworld.org/narrative-shorts/advantageous/