Laugh Riot

Anna Margarita Albelo is an out, Cuban-American writer, director, and 2020 Spirit Awards nominee who’s spent the past 20 years creating stories for both the US and France specializing in indie films with a majority of women, POC, and diverse crews and stories. This year, she is set to direct a dark comedy, Clare at 16 starring Madelaine Petsch from Riverdale and developing her coming of age film set in 1984 Miami, The Papaya Factory, produced by Issa Rae, Deniese Davis, and Wise Entertainment. Her 2014 award winning feature, Who’s Afraid of Vagina Wolf?, was released theatrically in France and her 2008 short film The Turkey screened at the Cannes Film Festival where Anna also served as a juror for the “Queer Palm” in 2014 and an ambassador in 2019. Anna spent the first 15 years of her career in Paris, working as a filmmaker and regular collaborator for French network, Canal Plus, writing and directing broadcast documentaries and shorts. As a producer, she works in film and documentary, producing work for Guinevere Turner, Amy Adler, Michelle Mower, and most notably, Madeleine Olnek’s Wild Nights with Emily starring Molly Shannon as Emily Dickinson, which earned Anna a John Cassavetes’ 2020 Spirit Award nomination. Her body of work, screened in over 150 international festivals, blends narrative, documentary, and comedic elements into a unique story-telling style that has become her trademark. LA Weekly calls her work, “riveting” and IndieWire spotlighted her as a “filmmaker to watch!” Anna is an alumnus of the Tribeca Film Festival’s All Access program, IFP’s Project Involve, and the Miami International Film Festival’s Encuentros Program, and is a longstanding member of Film Fatales, Women in Film, Queer Producers Collective, Glass Elevator, Women in Motion Pictures, and Brown Girl Doc Mafia.

Award-winning Sundance filmmaker Geeta V. Patel is known for her emotional, form-pushing, and nontraditional style in both comedy and drama. Geeta and her brother, Ravi V. Patel, were nominated for an Emmy for their film Meet The Patels. The film premiered theatrically in 2015 and was Executive Produced by Academy Award Winner Geralyn Dreyfous. Geeta made her directorial debut with the award-winning Sundance/ITVS film, Project Kashmir, a war thriller which led to directing fellowships at both the Sundance and Tribeca Institutes. In television, Geeta directed second-unit on the Wachowski‘s Netflix series Sense 8, and then went on to direct both comedy and drama, including Dead to Me, Superstore, Atypical, The Magicians, and Marvel‘s The Runaways. Geeta began her career as an Associate Screenwriter on big-budget studio films in all stages, ranging from original work to production re-writes. She has worked with Disney, Universal Pictures, ABC, NBC, and Twentieth Century Fox on a range of films including The Fast and the Furious and Blue Crush. A graduate in Comparative Area Studies at Duke University, Geeta‘s background in languages and global human geography, along with her interest in action/dance choreography, inform her work. While studying in Berlin, filmmaker Anthony Minghella inspired her to pursue a career in storytelling. Agent: Rena Ronson, United Talent Agency (UTA).

Kimberly McCullough is a true utility director who is known for directing multi-cam sitcoms, single cam comedies, as well as episodic dramas. Her credits include One Day At A Time, The Conners, The Bold Type and It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. She recently directed the two premiere episodes of High School Musical for D+. Kimberly grew up as an actress on the soap opera General Hospital, crying on cue for more than 30 years. It’s no wonder, as a director she just wants to make people laugh.

Maureen Bharoocha is a Los Angeles based writer/director. She recently directed her third feature film, the arm wrestling comedy, Golden Arm. It was set to premiere at SXSW 2020. Maureen has been a segment director on Jimmy Kimmel Live! for the past three seasons and is currently writing a new feature and comedy pilot. Maureen started her career with her short film, Abajee (shot on the streets of Karachi) which premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Maureen was then commissioned by Sprinkles Cupcakes to create a film series in which she wrote and directed 10 shorts based on their cupcake flavors. Maureen is half Irish Catholic and half Indian/Pakstani Muslim and because of her mixed background, she enjoys telling stories about complicated characters and mixing genres. Maureen was named one of Indie Wire’s rising female directors of 2020, she was named on HBO’s 2018 Director’s list, and nominated for the SXSW 2020 Adam Yauch Hörnblowér Visionary directing Award.

Amy French is an actress, writer, and director of average height from Los Angeles, California. After graduating from Emerson College, Amy spent a decade writing, directing, and performing theater and sketch comedy while enjoying her recurring role as That Girl In Those Commercials. After directing the LA cult play 7 Redneck Cheerleaders, Amy began to shift her focus toward filmmaking, and in 2008, she wrote and directed the musical comedy El Superstar: The Unlikely Rise Of Juan Frances, an ultra-low budget feature film executive produced by Norman Lear and George Lopez, distributed by Cinema Libre Studio. Amy went on from there to the AFI Directing Workshop for Women program, where her short film Hold for Laughs won the DWW/Jean Picker Firstenberg Award. Since then, Amy has written and directed branded web content for Umami Burger, Aetna Insurance, NickMom, and the Santa Monica Museum of Art. She directed half the episodes in the first season of the tween sitcom Hyperlinked, a Youtube Original, and the indie dramedy pilot The High Life, which is currently playing tv festivals. Most recently, Amy wrote and directed the short film Swim To Steven, which will screen at festivals later this year. Amy and her writing partner, Kerry Carney, with whom she created and starred in the web series Ladies in Waiting, have had deals at Lionsgate, Nickelodeon, Warner Brothers, and Sony, and are currently writing a Christmas movie.