Adapting to Paradigm Shifts

Marisol Gómez-Mouakad, a filmmaker, artist, and educator from Puerto Rico, has a Master’s degree in Media Studies with a concentration in Film Production and has participated in scriptwriting and acting workshops. Her two short films Rosa, and Lazos premiered at several festivals such as Boston Film Festival, Festival Tous Courts in France, Huesca Film Festival in Spain, Short Shorts Film Festival México, Borges en Curt 2006 in Spain, Cartagena International Film Festival, XXII Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara. Her first feature-length film, Angelica, was selected by the IBERMEDIA Program to receive development support and in 2011 for co-production. She is Angelica’s producer, screenwriter, director, and editor. Angelica was an official selection to the Curaçao International Film Festival Rotterdam, Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival, New York Latino Film Festival, African Diaspora Film Festival, Festival de Cine Global Dominicano, and Pan African Film Festival. Angelica received the Best Diaspora Narrative Film Award at the African Movie Academy Awards 2018, the Honorable Mention award at NYLFF 2017, and the lead actress received the best actress award at the Pan African Film Festival in Cannes, France. Currently, she has two documentaries (Nomadas Boricuas and Nomadas Ayiti) and a series in development. As a visual artist, she has had exhibitions in New York, Boston, and Puerto Rico.

Originally born in Pakistan, Rijaa Nadeem is a producer and director whose work has aired on a number of cable networks across the United States and internationally in several different countries such as Australia, Italy, France and the United Kingdom. She has produced some of the highest rated series for Reelz network including Murder Made Me Famous, Scandal Made Me Famous and The Price of Fame. She has been part of several other series on networks such as Discovery, Cooking channel, HGTV and Food Network. Her short film Piece of Naan which she wrote and directed, has received critical acclaim at several film festivals around the globe including Cannes, Kashish Mumbai International film festival, Dallas Video fest, Women Texas film festival and QCinema Fort worth film festival. Rijaa is currently in post production for her latest short film called “Meet Him at Noon” which is slated to be released in the festival circuit in fall 2020. She currently works at a media agency called Quantasy in Los Angeles where she produces and manages 360 media campaigns for clients such as Essence and CTCP (California Tobacco Control Program)

Leah Meyerhoff is the founder of FILM FATALES, a non-profit arts organization which advocates for parity in the film industry and supports a membership community of over one thousand women and non-binary feature filmmakers around the world. Meyerhoff wrote and directed the narrative feature film I BELIEVE IN UNICORNS, starring Natalia Dyer and Peter Vack, which was released theatrically after premiering at SXSW and winning the Atlanta Film Festival Grand Jury Prize. Her previous work has screened in over 200 film festivals and aired on IFC, PBS, LOGO and MTV. She is a fellow of the IFP Narrative Labs, Tribeca All Access Labs, and Emerging Visions program at the New York Film Festival. She holds a BA in Art-Semiotics from Brown University and an MFA in Directing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.