2025 Screening Committee & Jury

Laura Iancu

Iancu is a filmmaker working primarily in experimental video forms and immersive 3D animation & gaming. Originally from Romania, she has been learning, teaching, and making images in the US for more than a decade. Laura is an assistant professor of film production at Virginia Tech, School of Performing Arts.

Her films and games have been showcased at venues across the world including Trinidad+Tobago Film Festival, Mimesis Documentary Festival, London Experimental Film Festival, Indie Grits, Bogotá Experimental Film Festival, Antimatter, Montreal Underground Film Festival, Seattle Transmedia & Independent Film Festival, Festival ECRÃ, Front International Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, South Carolina Underground Film Festival, Iowa City International Documentary Film Festival, CÓDEC Festival of Experimental Film and Video, Istanbul International Experimental Film Festival, 10'th International Video Poetry Festival Athens, International Film Guanajuato.

Dana Coester

Dana Coester is a Professor and Creative Director of the West Virginia University Media Innovation Center, and editor in chief of the Edward R. Murrow award winning outlet 100 Days Days in Appalachia.

Coester is part of a research team examining internet and technology studies, online and offline extremism, media manipulation, and disinformation campaigns with a trauma-informed approach. Coester’s community engaged scholarship has long focused on the intersection of technology, media and communities, with an emphasis on susceptibility and resilience in rural community members.

Coester directed and co-produced the documentary film Raised By Wolves, which received a 2022 JustFilms award and is sponsored by the Center for Independent Documentary. Coester has been an invited speaker on these topics at the Aspen Festival of Ideas, Newsgeist North America, the Council on Foreign Relations, Our Body Politic, among others, and her work has been cited in testimonies before two congressional committees. Coester was named a 2021-2022 Benedum Distinguished Scholar, and her work has been supported by the Knight Foundation, the Democracy Fund Public Square and Just and Inclusive Society programs, the Mellon Foundation, and the Ford Foundation Creativity and Free Expression program. Coester received her Master’s degree from the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

Sylvia Toy

I am a middle-class Black American housewife who makes Arthouse movies in my livingroom. I spent 17 years as a solo performer and playwright. That provided me roots for developing script, character and production design using performance art and Method Acting techniques. My projects have 3 phases: 1) story and character development through acting improvisation; 2) scene rehearsal and production design; 3) production with continuity. As a dramatist and filmmaker I have been most influenced by Theatre of the Absurd, silent film, German Expressionism, the New Wave(s), dance theater, and Butoh.

Lulu Williamson

Lulu Williamson worked in the film industry for over twenty years. She worked with filmmaker John Waters and on the TV show “Homicide:Life on the Street.” She was based in Baltimore and was a member of IATSE 487–mostly working in the art department.

She currently teaches in the Design Studies program at WVU and has her PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies. She lives in Morgantown, WV.

Timothy R. Butcher

Timothy R. Butcher is a multidisciplinary artist based out of Morgantown, WV. He received his BFA in painting/drawing in 2022 at Shepherd University, and is currently an MFA Candidate in time-based art at West Virginia University. His work exhibits in a variety of regional galleries and online spaces.

Michael C. Schwab

Michael Schwab is an animator and educator based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His animation journey started back in 1973 at the Kansas City Art Institute producing the “Channel 19 Auction Spot” as a senior and winning first prize Public Service TV Spot at the Long Island Intl Film Festival, 1975. From there he was hired at The Animators, a Pittsburgh, PA based animation studio, and contributed as an animation stand operator and asst. animator, 1977-1979. He moved on to co-found Kensington Falls Animation as a producer, director, animator, and production artist, 1979-present. The studio produced many successful commercials and scoreboard animations with the help of many talented artists and continues with Mike as a solo producer. Past notable works include: “Meet Your Liver”, Internet Web Series, (Feb 2021); “The Cowbell Shuffle”, Animated Short, (Sept 2020); “The Childless Woman’s Guide to Raising Children”, Internet Web Series, (Feb 2020); “Tom’s Life”, Animation Pilot, Network Cartoon Series for the FOX Network, (Feb 2011); Pittsburgh Pirates Scoreboard 2D Animation (1985-2011), Awarded Golden Matrix Award (1991); “Timmy’s Journey to Understanding MS”, AIP Production Team Project, Awarded Community Service Project by the PA Association of Private School Administrators, (2005); “Lou and Costa’s Burglar Welcome Mat”, debuted on MTV Cartoon Sushi (June 2000), appeared at the Sundance Film Festival (Jan 2001), and Nicktoons Cartoon Festival (Nov 2004); Pittsburgh Penguins TV Commercials, (1984-1995), Telly Award for Best Animation(1988-1989). kensingtonfalls.com. Youtube: Kensington Falls Animation, Mikey Moose Schwab, and Killer Moose Entertainment.

Ron Hollingshead

Ron Hollingshead is a West Virginia born artist, curator, lecturer, and educator who has taught at Sam Houston State University in Texas and West VirginiaUniversity. He exhibits internationally in the US, Ireland, Mexico, and New Zealand. More at
www.ronhollingsheadart.com

Jason Zeh

Jason Zeh (born in 1980, Ohio, USA) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work blends influences from long-time involvement in the underground, experimental music scene with performance art and computer programming. Zeh’s work grapples with the scraps at the edge of meaning: the noise and errors that are in the margins of any message. Current performance works deal with intimacy, confession, and identity. These works employ self-designed software, machine learning algorithms, and streaming platforms to create technological systems that offer the promise of communication. However, the unpredictable behavior of these hacked tools makes communication impossible. Zeh holds an M.A. in English Literary and Textual Studies from Bowling Green State University, an M.F.A. in Expanded Media from The University of Kansas Visual Art Department and has toured extensively performing solo and collaborative works throughout the United States and abroad. www.jasonzeh.com

Kennedy Kacik

Kennedy Kacik is an MFA Candidate for Digital Art and Animation at WVU. Her work focuses on immersing the viewers in fantastical worlds that give them a refuge from the stresses, mundane, and pain from the world around them. Her work focuses on escapism, as well as letting the viewers go on a journey through the worlds she creates.
Kennedy Kacik

Gerald Habarth

Gerald Habarth is an artist and animator currently serving as Associate Professor of Art at West Virginia University where he heads the Digital Art and Animation program in the School of Art and Design. He holds an MFA degree from the University of South Florida and a BFA degree from Parsons School of Design. His works have screened at numerous national and international venues and festivals including the Tampa Museum of Art, the Huntington Museum of Art, the Festival Les Instants Vidéo and the Stuttgarter Filmwinter - Festival for Expanded Media. In 2010 he founded the West Virginia Mountaineer Short Film Festival. In 2009 he founded Space: Atacama Chile, an adventure art course that takes students to the northern desert region of Chile to create works that focus on perception, experience, and multi-media art.
www.ghabarth.com

Jury 2025