Who do we have in store? Check out all the info below, and we’ll see you at the Flyover Film Festival (July 24-28)!
Here’s an overview of our guests: (you can dig into their bios below)
- Married To Comics – director John Kinhart and artist Carol Tyler
- All Illusions Must Be Broken – producer-directors Laura Dunn & Jef Sewell
- American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders – director Zachary Treitz, photojournalist Christian Hansen, Ryan Daly (moderated by Nathan Viner)
- No One Asked You – writer-director Ruth Leitman and producer Rachel Rozycki (moderated by Women In Film KY cofounder Lauren Fulwiler)
- Shift – writer-director Max Neace and actor Sean O’Bryan
- Under the Southern Cross: The Life and Legacy of Henry L. Faulkner – director Jean Donohue
- Chaperone – actress Mitzi Akaha
- Shorts Block – director Donna Lawrence, director-producer Ashlee Mello, director of photography Micah Simms, actress Mitzi Akaha
Married to Comics
Directed by John Kinhart
Thursday, July 25 | 7 p.m.
Director Biography – John Kinhart
Renowned for his captivating documentaries, John Kinhart is an accomplished director with four feature films to his credit. Notably, he served as an editor on the critically acclaimed “8: The Mormon Proposition” (2010), which premiered at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival. His latest documentary, “Married to Comics” (2023), reflects his fascination with autobiographical cartooning and offers an intimate and gripping portrayal of the art and marriage of pioneering autobiographical comics couple Justin Green and Carol Tyler.
Kinhart’s journey into documentary filmmaking began with the award-winning “Blood, Boobs & Beast” (2007), an intimate portrait of Baltimore B-movie auteur Don Dohler. This early success paved the way for opportunities, including a role as a camera operator for the MTV docu-series “Ke$ha: My Crazy Beautiful Life” (2013), providing a behind-the-scenes look into the life of the celebrated pop star. Additionally, he edited “On Your Mark, Get Set, MOW!” (2012), a captivating glimpse of the offbeat yet fiercely competitive world of lawnmower racing. Among his directing credits is “Pigheaded” (2016), a in-depth exploration of the life and art of underground cartoonist Skip Williamson. In 2021, Kinhart collaborated with legendary filmmaker Jeff Krulik on “Punk & Tomatoes” (2021), a compelling web series documenting the unwavering passion of Washington, DC punk enthusiast Bill MacKenzie. Throughout his documentary career Kinhart has interviewed such notable people as J.J. Abrams, George Stephanopoulos, Art Spiegelman, Arianna Huffington, Robert Crumb, Tom Savini, and Phoebe Gloeckner.
In addition to his filmmaking pursuits, Kinhart finds fulfillment in painting, cartooning, and photography. He resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his wife and two children. (Source: John Kinhart)
Artist / Subject Biography – Carol Tyler
Carol Tyler is an influential pioneer of American Comics, known for her beautifully written and drawn by hand autobiographical stories.
Carol was born and raised in Chicago, received her Masters from Syracuse in 1983. After some years in NYC, she moved to San Francisco and began getting her comics published in R. Crumb’s Weirdo. In 1988, Carol received the Dori Seda Memorial Award for Best New Female Cartoonist.
Carol has many books, including the graphic masterpiece “Soldier’s Heart: The Campaign to Understand my WWII Veteran Father, A Daughter’s Memoir” (2015) which began as the “You’ll Never Know” trilogy. “Soldier’s Heart” describes the author’s damaged relationship with her Dad, and how his untreated PTSD shaped her childhood and affected her relationships into adulthood. “Soldier’s Heart” received the Gold Medal of Excellence from the Society of Illustrators and received the slate.com Cartoonist Studio Prize for Best Print Comic of 2015. It also received rave reviews from many prestigious magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times. “Soldier’s Heart” was named on Time Magazine’s Top Ten Comics of the year list, and Rolling Stone Magazine placed it on the list of Top 50 Graphic Novels of all time. It earned eleven Eisner Awards nominations, 2 LA Book Prize nominations, and an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council. Her brilliant “The Hannah Story” was named on the list of the Top 100 Comic Works of the 20th Century.
Her current book is called Fab4 Mania. Inspired by a series of keepsake booklets Miss Tyler made when she was 13, Fab4 Mania is a first-hand account of seeing the Beatles in 1965.
Carol teaches comics, graphic novels, and sequential art at the University of Cincinnati DAAP School of Art and has been supported by artist in residence grants from the Ohio Arts Council. (Source: Ohio Arts Council)
All Illusions Must Be Broken
Directed and Produced by Laura Dunn & Jef Sewell
Friday, July 26 | 7 p.m.
Director Biography – Laura Dunn & Jef Sewell
Laura Dunn and Jef Sewell’s work has screened at Sundance, Berlinale, and MoMA. Awards include a Rockefeller Fellowship, IDA Pare Lorentz Grant, SXSW Jury Prize for Visual Design, and the Independent Spirit “Truer than Fiction” Award. They live in Tennessee where they are raising seven sons.
Director Statement
ILLUSIONS marks the third film in a trilogy – all executive produced by Terrence Malick and Robert Redford – that explore the eclipse of nature by culture. Each film stands independently, but together, they form an impressionistic Möbius loop. In this way, the films serve as both prequels and sequels to each other. (Source: Laura Dunn)
American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders
Directed by Zachary Treitz
Saturday, July 27 | 1 p.m.
Director Biography – Zachary Treitz
Zachary Treitz was raised in Louisville, Kentucky. He later moved to New York City where he produced The Pleasure of Being Robbed and co-produced Daddy Longlegs, both of which premiered at the Directors’ Fortnight section of Cannes. Zachary directed the short film We’re Leaving, which premiered at Sundance and is available on the Criterion Channel, and the feature film Men Go to Battle, which won the Best New Director prize at the Tribeca Film Festival and was distributed by Film Movement.
After years of hearing his childhood friend Christian Hansen talk about his research into Danny Casolaro’s Octopus conspiracy, Zachary and Christian began filming and investigating the story together. This began a years-long odyssey around the United States to discover the connections between Danny Casolaro’s death and his unfinished book about a complex web of interconnected political conspiracies. With Zachary directing and Christian as lead researcher, they partnered with Stardust Frames and Duplass Brothers Productions to create the four-part documentary series American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders, released by Netflix in February 2024. (Source: Coast to Coast AM)
Researcher / Photojournalist Biography – Christian Hansen
Christian Hansen grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, where he developed an interest in photography and journalism. In his third year of journalism school, he dropped out of college to move to New York City, and began working as a photojournalist for the New York Times. He covered national politics, sports, and local news. His photographs have appeared in New York Magazine, Time Magazine, Der Spiegel, and the Wall Street Journal.
While returning to college to complete his degree, his research into the private prison industry led him to The Octopus, an unfinished book by Danny Casolaro, who died under mysterious circumstances while writing about the ties between a stolen software program, a series of unsolved murders, and some of the biggest political scandals of the 20th century. For the next several years, while working as a local reporter in rural Wyoming, he continued his investigation of the Octopus story independently, until he teamed up with his childhood friend, director Zachary Treitz, to turn a decade’s worth of research into a documentary, which would eventually become American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders. (Source: Coast to Coast AM)
No One Asked You
Directed by Ruth Leitman
Saturday, July 27 | 3:30 p.m.
Director Biography – Ruth Leitman
Leitman is an award-winning filmmaker recognized for highlighting social justice issues in feature documentaries over the past 20 years, with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation, Paul Robeson Fund, TribeCa Film Institute, Fledgling Fund and Illinois Humanities Council.
In 2016 she was named in British Film Institute, Sight and Sound Magazine’s The Female Gaze: 100 Overlooked Films Directed by Women. In 2015, she directed for Kartemquin Films’ Al Jazeera America documentary series Hard Earned, which was nominated for an International Documentary Association Award (2015) and won an Alfred I. duPont Columbia University Journalism Award (2016).
Her early photography work is part of the current major exhibition, Underexposed: 100 years of Women Photographers at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. No One Asked You follows Lizz Winstead (co-creator of The Daily Show), using comedy and outrage at the center of the fight to protect abortion access in the US. She is developing The Pin-Down Girl, a fiction feature film based on her documentary Lipstick & Dynamite about the pioneers of women’s wrestling.
Producer Biography – Rachel Rozycki
Rachel Rozycki teaches in the CTVA Producing Program at Columbia.
She has worked as a producer on a range of films from documentary to fiction to experimental, which have aired on PBS, HBO, and are available on Netflix and Amazon.
She Co-Produced the Kartemquin, and Ten Trees film Keep Talking and was the Chicago/Midwest field producer for the documentary Student Athlete by award-winning filmmaker Trish Dalton and two-time Oscar winner Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.
She has also contributed to several Kartemquin films, including The Trials of Muhammad Ali (dir. Bill Siegel), the multi-award-winning Life Itself (dir. Steve James), and the six-part series Hard Earned, which aired on Al Jazeera America in 2015.
She is currently working on the documentary No One Asked You, following activist/political comedian Lizz Winstead (co-creator, The Daily Show) and her crew as they advocate for reproductive rights by engaging people through laughter.
Rachel received her M.F.A. in Independent Film and Digital Imaging from Governors State University and is a member of the Documentary Producers Alliance. (Source: Columbia College Chicago)
Director Statement – Ruth Leitman
I saw this coming; the sea of misogyny that permeates our culture and conspires to take away healthcare and bodily autonomy from women. With the election of Donald Trump, I was devastated. Once the dust settled, I asked myself: What can I do? Among many issues, I was deeply concerned about what a Trump presidency would mean for reproductive rights, which have been chiseled away since 1973. It was clear, things were about to get much worse.
I had been following Lizz Winstead’s work for years. Her groundbreaking political satire work as The Daily Show co-creator was unparalleled. After much success, Lizz gave up her dream job for true calling to fight for abortion rights. Lizz was the one with the megaphone and the new lens exposing the mounting hypocrisy. I met Lizz at Netroots Nation in 2012 on her book tour for Lizz Free or Die. Soon after, she founded Lady Parts Justice (now named the more gender inclusive Abortion Access Front) her audacious group of repro rights activists who use humor to battle misogyny and fight for repro rights.
When I saw Lizz on MSNBC on this particular day in late 2016, I realized: this was my story, my way of fighting back to defend repro rights through the lens of what Abortion Access Front were doing to help defend clinics and the people who work there to provide healthcare for women, often risking their own lives. This has been an invigorating film for me as an artist, a story that needed to be told about an issue that has been politicized beyond measure. One that I needed to make and so fortunate to be armed with the layered storytelling of political satire, multiple formats and mediums to help move a very complacent pro-choice population.
Through Lizz, we capture the story that so many Americans thought was impossible with all of the comedy and outrage that it deserves. The timing for No One Asked You is clearly now. (Source: Ruth Leitman)
Shift
Written and Directed by Max Neace
Saturday, July 27 | 6:00 p.m.
Director Statement – Max Neace
SHIFT started over beers. While a lot of the conversation surrounding it’s genesis is murky, the initial idea has always been as clear to me as a watery Coors light: a REAR WINDOW inspired, offbeat noir encapsulated in the goofy image of Hitchcock wearing skinny jeans. It’s a voyuerism film, largely placed in a single room, with a curious character watching mundane events evolve into something extraordinary. Our hero replaces binoculars with CCTV cameras, and neighboring windows with hoarding storage units. He’s bored like Jimmy Stewart, and restless like him, too, but is without the emotional connection to Grace Kelly. He needs to connect, but late at night there’s few out there one can connect to.
It’s a patient, offbeat, tragedy that is inspired by older films, but connects its subjects through screens—like how so many of us find connection today. And while those connections might sometimes feel real; can be capable of providing solace in times of loneliness; they can never amount to the physical touch of those we love. So sit back, if you please, and cram into your skinny jeans as you turn on those CCTV cameras: there’s hours of footage to comb through to uncover the truth that lies within Your Storage. I hope you connect with it. (Source: Max Neace)
Actor Biography – Sean O’Bryan
Originally from Kentucky, Sean O’Bryan moved to Los Angeles over ten years ago and has worked extensively in film and TV. Some major key TV guest appearances include Chicago Hope, Beverly Hills 90210, and Felicity. Sean has done several major films including, Olympus Has Fallen (2013), Raising Helen (2004), Vantage Point (2008), Phenomenon (1996), Exit to Eden (1994), The Princess Diaries (2001), and Frankie and Johnny (1991). Not only has he focused on working in front of the camera, he’s also done several theatrical performances, including: The Lisbon Traviata, It’s Only a Play, Money and Friends et al.
In 1995, Sean married Samantha Follows (sister to Megan Follows – star of Anne of Green Gables) and they currently have two children. In 2001, Sean joined the entire Follows family to perform in Noel Coward’s “Hay Fever” at the Gravenhurst Opera House in Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada. As all the Follows are Canadian, Sean was the only American on stage in this British play; however, his character was the only American character so he had it made! (Source: IMDb Mini Biography).
Under the Southern Cross: The Life and Legacy of Henry L. Faulkner
Directed and Produced by Jean Donohue
Sunday, July 28 | 12:30 p.m.
Director Biography – Jean Donohue
Jean is a documentary maker, writer, and traveler. Much of her work is about people whose lives, situations, and thinking illuminate a path through the challenges of living in the 21st century. Her work has been seen on The Learning and Discovery Channels, public television stations throughout the U.S., BBC 2 and BBC World Service. Her recently completed film The Last Gospel of the Pagan Babies won Best Feature at the Sydney TransGender International Film Festival and is being screened in film festivals around the world.
Director Statement
In 2007, I embarked on a film project called The Last Gospel of the Pagan Babies, a documentary on the history of gay culture in Lexington. Working with artist Robert Morgan as my principal interlocutor, I began a ten year journey of research, gathering oral history, sifting through personal photo collections and artifacts. The section on Henry in the film focused mostly on his relationships with Tennessee Williams and the young artist Robert Morgan, and his art.
After completing a fine rough cut and presenting it to Henry Faulkner’s hometown audience in Lexington, Kentucky, I met historian Dr. Jonathan Coleman who had just begun cataloguing and archiving Morgan’s vast photo collection. We began exchanging information and photos from each of our research efforts. Coleman’s passion began to center on the photos, letters and possessions of Henry Faulkner. As a result, the Faulkner-Morgan Pagan Babies Archive came into being. Since the completion of the film Coleman has continued to research, conduct interviews, gather letters and materials about Henry Faulkner’s life…with stunning effect.
Recently, at the Henry Faulkner Symposium held in Lexington, I saw a portion of Dr. Coleman’s research come to fruition. I was stunned. Coleman’s presentation of his initial research convincingly placed Faulkner as an important, international figure in gay history. Henry was living as an out young man in New York City in the 1940s.
His roommates, fellow Kentuckians, and out gay men and artists, Edward Melcarth and Thomas Painter became renowned artists in the New York and international gay scene of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. Melcarth, named by Life Magazine as one of 19 young artists to watch, is perhaps most remembered by his sculpture Burning Man. Thomas Painter, a photographer was also Henry’s roommate, his work depicted homosexual life in New York. The three of them came of age as artists together, perhaps defining a new aesthetic of homosexual eroticism. Painter was in correspondence with Alfred Kinsey of the Kinsey Institute writing about Henry’s sexual encounters. After learning his friend was writing to Kinsey, Henry himself began documenting his sexual experiences both visually and in letters to Kinsey. Around 500 photographs and letters are still housed at the Institute. Henry was aware this documentation would be helpful in some way for future generations. Until Dr. Coleman uncovered some of Henry’s correspondence, no one seemed to be aware of the magnitude of Faulkner’s life. This is the moment I realized that I should take my own work (interviews, photo preparation, images of paintings) about Henry, move forward, and tell his story in full.
Working in cooperation with the Faulkner-Morgan Pagan Babies Archive, archivist Dr. Jonathan Coleman, and long time friend of Henry’s, Robert Morgan, Under the Southern Cross will give expression to the life and art of Henry Faulkner. (Source: Jean Donohue)
Chaperone
Written and Directed by Zoë Eisenberg
Sunday, July 28 | 5:30 p.m.
Actress Biography – Mitzi Akaha
Mitzi Akaha is a bilingual (English and Japanese) actress who started her career in Tokyo, acting in commercials alongside Pharrell Williams, Kei Nishikori and Barbara Palvin, and on television with comedians Koyabu Kazutoyo and Maeda Maeda for NHK’s Terebi de Kiso Eigo.
When I was 29, a 17-year-old boy mistook me for a teenager and asked me out to a party. While I declined, I couldn’t help but wonder: what kind of woman would have gone to that party? From there, the questions grew. What happens when a woman chooses not to pursue career or motherhood, the two narrow avenues society has opened for women to hold space in? And how do you respond if your aspirations consistently disappoint those around you? Prior to my creative career, I spent a decade working in a corporate setting where I didn’t identify with my career-driven, family-focused colleagues. Was I succeeding as an adult if I didn’t resemble any of the adults around me? And who do you surround yourself with when you feel alienated from your peers? Are adults like Misha flawed? Or is it society’s metrics for measuring adulthood that are broken, and if so, what are the consequences? Who will suffer them? (Source: Zoë Eisenberg)
Shorts Block
Various Directors
Sunday, July 28 | 3:15 p.m.
And Then They Came For Me…
Directed by Donna L. Lawrence
Director Biography – Donna L. Lawrence
Donna Lawrence is founder and creative director of Donna Lawrence Productions, based in Louisville, Kentucky. She has directed numerous highly acclaimed productions including signature films, immersive experiences, 4D theater productions, and an extensive range of state-of-the-art special format installations. Among these are film productions for the Museum of African American Music in Nashville, the Statue of Liberty Museum, Walt Disney Imagineering, the Museum of the American Revolution, the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, and the 360-degree “Greatest Race” for the Kentucky Derby Museum.
DLP’s work is consistently recognized for its memorable storytelling qualities, engaging and insightful treatment of complex subjects, innovative use of environmental media, and high-impact soundtrack design. Lawrence leads a creative team of first-rank professionals, directing the work to creative solutions that best serve the project—from story points to the physical environment. This strong and richly talented team has created a long string of award-winning projects noted for innovative use of environmental media and stunning visual and sound design, in service of authentic, deeply engaging storytelling with lasting impact.
Achieving remarkable artistic and entertainment goals, the effect of many DLP productions on audiences at all levels of interest and knowledge is striking. While holding school groups at rapt attention, many of the experiences created by DLP are also referenced by scholars and experts as exploring their subject with more clarity and audience engagement than they have seen before in a media production.
The overarching hallmark of the work Donna and her team produce is a consistent track record of getting to the heart of the story—with insight and deep emotional connection—across subjects as diverse as world religions, Motown, the science of future energy, and the U.S. Constitution’s role in the life of every citizen, to New York City’s rise from a distant outpost to its place at the center of the world.
The firm’s films have been honored in almost every national and international festival dedicated to special format or documentary productions, including the Sundance Film Festival, The New York Festivals, International Documentary Association, Cine Golden Eagle Awards, THEA Awards, Telly Awards, Chicago International Film Festival, American Association of Museums Muse Awards, and others.
Much of Donna’s work is informed and inspired by experience in theatrical as well as non-fiction storytelling; an extensive background in American, European, and world musical traditions; and early experience in documentary radio production. Donna has Bachelor and Masters degrees in music with special studies in ethnomusicology and extensive on-going experience with soundtrack production and application of acoustic principles in environmental media design. She has been a guest speaker and panelist at SEGD, AAM, and many other professional organizations and most recently was a guest speaker at Walt Disney Imagineering, as part of a workshop series on inclusivity in storytelling in museums and public attractions. Along with creative direction, she is co-story developer and music supervisor for DLP projects.
Director Statement
This brief film experience was a treasured opportunity to bring to life the “voice” of a young girl whose personal perspective was profoundly unique to her life, yet reflective of millions who lived day-to-day with the terror, fear, and eventual experience of being captured, removed, and killed by Nazis during WWII. Anne Frank’s words are supported by an immersive soundtrack and environment that that evokes the space where Anne and her family hid and evaded capture for two years. (Source: Donna L. Lawrence)
Homecoming
Directed, Written and Produced by Ashlee Mello
Director Statement
Homecoming follows recording artist Michael McArthur on the final 24 hours of tour as he returns for an intimate show in his hometown. With McArthur as a vessel, viewers are invited to reflect on their own connection to home. More than a reflecting or revisiting of roots and relationships, home is also a settling within ourselves, an alignment with creation that offers freedom. Home is finding that you were always there from the beginning, born to do the whisper that grew into a shout; and if you can tend to it in the consistency of the ordinary, nurture it against all adversity, that settling might bloom into the extraordinary.
Home is a collection of moments carried through our everyday.
As Florida natives, both McArthur and Director Ashlee Mello, wanted Homecoming to also feel like a love letter to the creative magic of their hometown, Lakeland, FL. Though no longer a Florida resident residing in the Greater Cincinnati metro , Mello visits home often and is always inspired by the bustle and creativity brewing there. “As an artist, sometimes we often want to hide our past, so I really wanted to create a piece that encouraged the multi faceted significance of home – good or bad – and how it shapes the art we make, and our perspective on life itself.”
This is Ashlee Mello’s directorial debut, and she could not have made this possible without the generosity and support of her crew. (Source: Ashlee Mello)
