Goddard Riverside, festival partner/host
www.goddard.org
Goddard Riverside Community Center serves some 22,000 people each year through our 26+ programs on the Upper West Side and throughout Manhattan. We work every day for a fair and just society where all people have the opportunity to make choices that lead to better lives for themselves and their families.
FESTIVAL TEAM
Caytha Jentis, festival co-director
Caytha began making movies while driving carpools in suburban New Jersey. Four features later, her most recent film is Pooling to Paradise that was released in August and stars Jonathan Lipnicki, Lynn Chen, Dreama Walker, Jordan Carlos and Taryn Manning.
Her other features include Bad Parents whose cast includes Janeane Garofalo, Cheri Oteri, Christopher Titus and Kristen Johnston, And Then Came Love that stars Vanessa Williams, Eartha Kitt, Anna Camp and Ben Vereen, and The One whose cast includes Jon Prescott.
Her other major credits include: The Other F Word, a short form series featuring Steve Guttenberg, Judy Gold, Alysia Reiner and Gilbert Gottfried, and April Showers, a short film that stars Bill Sage and Lorraine Farris.
Caytha has produced three WHAM events for Goddard Riverside – a comedy night and two storytelling events.
She began her career as a literary agent in New York. Caytha was profiled by the Writers Guild as well as Screenwriter Magazine. She is a member of the Writers Guild, Film Fatales, NYWIFT and the Producers Guild.
Eileen Katz, festival co-director
Eileen Katz had her start in television at Late Night With David Letterman as a researcher. She went on to MTV where as Vice President of Development, launched The Real World franchise, including Road Rules and The State and the original Jon Stewart Show. Eileen was then brought over to Comedy Central as Executive Vice President of Programming where she was part of the team that re-vamped the network by launching a slate of distinctive programming including: South Park and The Daily Show and tent pole events, The Roast and Indecision Political programming.
As an independent Producer, Eileen has most recently created and consulted on programming for Bravo, E, Comedy Central and Amazon Prime.
Additionally, Eileen has been Alzheimer’s Ambassador to Congressman Jerry Nadler for the city of New York’s 10th district working to get key legislation passed to support those diagnosed, research and care givers.
ADVISORY BOARD
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Michele Ganeless
Michele Ganeless is best known for her tenure as President of Comedy Central, a position she held from 2004-2016. Under her leadership, the network grew to be the number one brand in comedy across all platforms. Prior to her role as President at Comedy Central, Michele held programming and leadership roles at USA Network, Comedy Central and MTV. During her multiple terms at Comedy Central, Michele oversaw the growth of the Comedy Central brand as franchises including the Emmy® and Peabody® Award-winning "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart", "The Colbert Report", “South Park,” “Inside Amy Schumer" and “Key & Peele”, dominated the cultural landscape.
Since leaving Comedy Central, Ganeless has focused her energy and expertise on producing and consulting. Her first feature film, Egg, starring Christina Hendricks, Alysia Reiner and Anna Camp, premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival. She is also a co-producer on Irreplaceable You, which can be seen on Netflix. Both films were written and directed by women, and were produced with a clear mandate: hire more women behind the camera, thus helping to level the playing field for women in entertainment, an issue at the heart of Ganeless' decision to continue creating content as an independent producer. Ganeless is Chair of the Board of Directors for Comic Relief, Inc, dedicated to ending child poverty around the world, and on the advisory board of Northwestern University’s School of Communications, where she earned her bachelor’s degree.
Jill Brooke
Veteran journalist Jill Brooke is the founder and editorial director of “Flowerpowerdaily” which looks at how flowers intersect in news stories, art, design, decor, wellness and science. A former CNN correspondent and Post columnist, she was an editor in chief of Avenue and Travel Savvy as well as the editorial director of firstwivesworld.com. An author of two books - with a third on the way - she is also the playwright of “What’s Eating You?” and host of “The Songs of Flowers” and is a contributing editor to Florists Review and Aspire Design and Home Magazine.
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Flo Anthony
Busy is the only word to describe Flo Anthony. A multi-award winning journalist, Flo is a bestselling author of three novels, Keeping Secrets Telling Lies, Deadly Stuff Players and One Last Deadly Play.
Flo currently hosts a daily radio show Gossip On The Go With Flo, which is syndicated by Superadio and heard in 20 markets. In addition, she is the Publisher of blacknoir.nyc, pens a weekly column Go With The Flo, which appears in the NY Amsterdam News, Philadelphia Sunday Sun and Columbus Times. In addition Flo is a contractual freelance reporter for the NY Daily News.
A veteran newspaper woman, Flo was the first African American woman to work in the Sports Department of the NY Post, and went on to become the first African American in the Post's Entertainment and the world renowned Page Six Departments. She also made history as the first African American woman to write a column in a supermarket tabloid with her Eye on the Stars column in the National Examiner.
Getting her start on the Emmy award-winning Joan Rivers Show, Flo's career includes an extensive television reporting stint where Flo appeared on over 25 talk and news programs including Geraldo, E! Entertainment TV, Joan Lunden, Ricki Lake, Sally Jesse Raphael, Fox News Channel, Entertainment Tonight, etc. She revolutionized tabloid TV by bringing Michael Jackson on Inside Edition with her. Flo also appeared on TV One's Life After and Hollywood Unsung.
Aside from her work as a journalist, Flo also represents 1976 Olympic Gold Medalist and Two-Division Boxing Champion Michael Spinks. She resides in the historic Sugar Hill District of Harlem in New York City. Flo is a member of Delta Sigma Theta, Inc.
Sarah Condon
Sarah Condon, Executive Producer and head of Fair Harbor Productions, has a first look deal at HBO and two drama pilots waiting on a greenlight, “Sugar” at Hulu about a Stanford Sugar Baby ring based on writer Kimi Howl Lee’s college experience and “Actually” at HBOmax based on Anna Ziegler’s acclaimed play about the aftermath of a sexual misconduct case at Princeton. Condon also has projects set up at Amazon, Apple, AMC, Sky TV and Fox. Over the past decade, she has sold shows to almost every streamer and cable network.
Her most recent series were Megan Abbott and Gina Fattore’s young adult thriller “Dare Me” on USA now airing on Netflix and Tom Perotta’s “Mrs. Fletcher” starting Kathryn Hahn on HBO. She also served as Executive Producer on the HBO series ‘Looking’ written by Andrew Haigh and Michael Lannan starring Jonathan Groff, and 'Bored To Death' written by Jonathan Ames starring Jason Schwartzman, Ted Danson and Zach Galifianakis. She was also EP for ‘The Red Road’ on Sundance written by Aaron Guzikowski starring Jason Momoa, Julianne Nicholson and Martin Henderson.
Prior to her overall deal, she was Senior Vice President of Original Programming for HBO for 10 years where she was responsible for developing and supervising 'Sex and the City', 'Entourage', 'Curb Your Enthusiasm', ‘Mr.Show’’,’The Comeback’’, ‘Tracy Takes On’, ‘Flight of the Conchords', “Tenacious D’ and ‘Extras’ among other series. She also supervised ‘The Dennis Miller Show’, ‘Da Ali G Show’, ‘Project Greenlight’, ‘K Street’, ‘Unscripted’ and comedy specials for Damon Wayans, David Spade, Janeane Garofalo, Dave Chapelle, Ricky Gervais, David Cross, Kathy Griffin and many others.
Prior to that she was Director of Development at MTV where she developed and supervised The Jon Stewart Show and The State sketch comedy show, Condon also produced one of Nickelodeon’s first sitcoms, ‘Clarissa Explains it All’ and consulted on their early animation ‘Ren and Stimpy’ and ‘Doug’. She began her career producing Rockumentaries for VH1 and finding VJ talent for MTV Europe.
Marc Johnson
A proud member of the WGA and DGA, Marc Henry Johnson (MHJ) has written, directed, produced, or executive produced TV and films for Spike Lee, Michel Moore, Danny Glover, David Simon, and George Pelecanos.
After completing his ten-year role as a Writer/Producer of HBO’s THE DEUCE, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, MHJ is developing and producing TV series for Barry Levinson, Mark Williams’, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson’s, Terry Bradshaw’s companies.
MHJ is an Executive Producer for the concert film/documentary entitled SOUNDTRACK FOR A REVOLUTION, with music by The Roots, Wyclef Jean, and John Legend. This film-- an Official Selection for the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival and the 2009 Cannes International Film Festival-- was nominated for WGA Award and short-listed for an Oscar for Best Feature Documentary.
Additional film credits include MHJ as a Co-Producer on BROTHER TO BROTHER which won the Dramatic Special Jury Award at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival; a Producer of HUNG UP which won awards at the 2020 Prague International, WorldFest Houston, and Wild Bunch Film Festivals; and a Producer of NIGHTDRIVER which premiered internationally at the 2014 Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival and domestically at the 2015 Martha’s Vineyard African- American Film Festival.
Additional TV credits include MHJ as a Producer for Spike Lee’s Peabody Award winning A HUEY P. NEWTON STORY; a Writer/Producer on Emmy Award nominated THE AWFUL TRUTH WITH MICHAEL MOORE; and Director/Executive Producer of the multi-cultural magazine PBS series, COLORVISION.
Nancy Collet
Nancy Collet’s experience in the film industry spans 24 years. She founded Cinema Collet in 2007 and offers strategic consulting services to conferences, film festivals, educators, independent filmmakers, distributors, and art house theaters around the world.
Collet has launched numerous film festivals around the world including the online events The ShortList Film Festival in partnership with The Wrap News, and the Audience Awards Film Festival. She conceived and launched
a national televised showcase for emerging Latino filmmakers for NUVOtv. Cinema Collet also launched the Cabo Film Festival, the Abu Dhabi Film Festival the Infinity Film Festival, Beverly Hills and the La Costa Film Festival.
Collet has covered the major film festivals and markets around the world since 1997, and also served as a juror and panelist for numerous events, including the AFM, the Palm Springs International Film Festival, Woodstock Film Festival, Guadalajara International Film Festival, Panama Film Festival, Napa Valley Film Festival, HBO Aspen Comedy Arts Festival, Palm Springs Shorts Fest, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, Bahamas Film Festival, Cleveland International Film Festival, Kansas City Film Festival, Sonoma Film Festival and Ashland Independent Film Festival.
Nancy is a 1989 Magna Cum Laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School and has a dual degree in Marketing and Psychology. She grew up in New York City and started her career in the mailroom at the William Morris Agency.
Ruth Zamoyta
Ruth Zamoyta is a fundraising and communications strategist for higher-ed and the arts, as well as an award-winning playwright. She is a member of Dramatists Guild, International Centre for Women Playwrights, The Cove, and HonorRoll!. ruthzamoyta.com