Louisiana Tourism has asked filmmakers to show the world in 90 seconds or less the kind of magic #OnlyLouisiana holds for Audience Awards Reel Louisiana Video Contest.
The jury has been selected by Louisiana Tourism and is made up of award-winning filmmakers, producers and film festival directors. We’d love for you to get acquainted with them!
Chesley started as a development intern with Morgan Freeman’s production company Revelations Entertainment. Her first music video Aesop Rock’s “Fast Cars” was nominated for three MTV Woodie Awards in 2005. She line produced “Don’t Feel Right” music video for The Roots and popular Italian singer DJ Jad’s music video, “This Feeling”.
Chesley line produced the cult comedy feature film, “Team Extreme” for Fox/Fuel TV, which premiered at X-Dance at Sundance 2006, a series of commercials for J. Walter Thompson Chicago and short films for Mandate Pictures (Juno, Finding Neverland). Her independent produced feature film, “The Woods Have Eyes” was released on Blu-Ray by Echo Bridge. As Producer, Chesley’s Nike commercial entitled “Goal” for the World Cup Soccer 2006 games was an Official Telly and Webby Awards Honoree.
Chesley co-founded agency Pangea Reps and managed Stan Winston Studios and ReelFX for commercial production/post/vfx. She served as visual effects producer with BarbedWire FX on theatrically released “Bratz”, visual effects associate producer on “Hostel: Part II” and many others.
She co-wrote the feature film screenplay “Vijj” with Robert Englund. She also adapted the feature thriller screenplay, “Webcam” for Sole Goldstern Media and “I Want To Be A Soldier” for Canonigo Films. “I Want To Be A Soldier” won the Rome International Film Festival 2010 Kid’s Choice Award.
Chesley founded the Louisiana International Film Festival & Mentorship Program (LIFF) in 2012.
Gregory Kallenberg is the founder and Executive Director of the Louisiana Film Prize. Kallenberg moved from Austin, TX to Shreveport, LA to film his award-winning documentary “Haynesville” and never left. The Film Prize offers up $50,000 cash for the best short film and, to date, has given away over $250,000 in prize money and $25,000 in film grants. Kallenberg’s ultimate goal is to build an indigenous film community in Louisiana, and to build a beacon for independent filmmaker to come to the state and create their work. Kallenberg graduated from the University of Texas and completed his production degree at the University of Southern California. He likes playing poker while listening to bleeding edge indie pop and drinking expensive tequila (not necessarily in that order).
Jolene Pinder is the Executive Director of #CreateLouisiana, a non-profit organization committed to championing Louisiana talent and supporting the entertainment industries that are integral to the region. Prior to this position, Jolene was the Executive Director of the New Orleans Film Society, the producer of the Academy-accredited New Orleans Film Festival. She also worked at Arts Engine in New York for three and half years as a documentary film producer and Director of the Media That Matters Film Festival. Her producing + associate producing credits include: Arctic Son, Election, Day, Pushing the Elephant, (A)sexual, Terra Blight. Jolene co-directed (with Sarah Zaman) the Student Emmy-winning film “Bismillah.” Jolene holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in English Literature from the University of Chicago and a Masters in Journalism and Communications from the University of Florida’s Documentary Institute.
Conni Castille holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy, and a Masters Degree in Folklore from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where she currently teaches and directs a film program. Over the past few years, she has directed several award-winning documentaries on Cajun and Creole culture that have been supported by the Louisiana Division of the Arts and the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.
By using the everyday to convey universal meaning, her films tend to reveal something unexpected. Her hope is that audiences leave with a new point of view, not just about Cajun or Creole culture, but about the power and worth of everyday people doing everyday things. Her films include I Always Do My Collars First (2007), Raised on Rice and Gravy (2009), King Crawfish (2010), and T-Galop: A Louisiana Horse Story (2012). The films have shown at numerous film festivals including Cannes in France and Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, and have garnered several awards. T-Galop received the Humanities Documentary of the Year in 2012 from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. Most recently, she accompanied her films and a Cajun band to China as part of an initiative to bring Cajun culture to Chinese students studying America.
Julie Bordelon is the founder and executive director of Southern Screen, an organization that curates year round events and an annual festival showcasing and cultivating storytelling through film, music, podcasts and more. Julie also coordinates other events such as Lafayette Live @ SXSW and Louisiana International Music Exchange (LIME), which both were created to introduce Louisiana musicians to music industry professionals from around the world. Julie has over ten years experience in the film and music industry working as a producer, production coordinator, and location manager, and was the city film commissioner in her hometown of Lafayette, Louisiana for five years.
Pat Mire is a prize-winning documentary and narrative fiction filmmaker based in Lafayette, Louisiana. Mire’s documentaries on Cajun culture have been aired nationally in the United States on PBS, the Discovery Channel, and other television and on-line networks around the world and have won numerous awards in national and international competitions.
Mire’s narrative feature film debut, “Dirty Rice,” was an official selection at the 1998 London Film Festival, where it played to two sold-out auditoriums. Theatrically released on United Artists screens, “Dirty Rice” still has the record of the longest running film to play in a Lafayette, Louisiana movie theater where it was held over for five straight months in 1998.
Mire directed “Against the Tide: The Story of the Cajun People,” which was a November 2000 PBS “Pick of the Week” and won the national “Best Historical Documentary” by PBS
Pat Mire is founder and artistic director of Cinema on the Bayou Film Festival in Lafayette Louisiana. Now in its 13th year, COTB was born when Hurricane Katrina resulted in the cancellation of the New Orleans Film Festival that year. COTB is ranked in the top 15 winter film festivals in the U.S., and with over a thousand film submissions worldwide, it screened 165 films in January 2017, most of which were world, U.S. and Louisiana premieres.
Here is a trailer to Pat Mire’s new documentary “Sushi and Sauce Piquante” being released in December 2017.
Visit the Reel Louisiana Video Contest page for more information!
SUBMISSIONS DUE BY
Jul 31, 2017 at 12:00pm MDT (America/Denver)
VOTING OPENS
Aug 01, 2017 at 12:00pm MDT (America/Denver)
VOTING CLOSES
Aug 08, 2017 at 12:00pm MDT (America/Denver)
WINNERS ANNOUNCED
Aug 14, 2017 at 12:00pm MDT (America/Denver)
