Independent Filmmaker Interviews
This archive series of audio interviews were recorded for the Ink & Cinema podcast between 2013-2014.
Producer Stephanie Allain
Listen to the interview on YouTube.
Stephanie Allain is an accomplished film producer and former studio executive who has been an advocate for visionary filmmakers for more than two decades. She is the former Director of the Los Angeles Film Festival, board member of Film Independent and Women In Film, and runs her own production company, Homegrown Films.
Stephanie is known for her work on Dear White People, Black Snake Moan, Hustle & Flow (which garnered Golden Globe and Oscar nominations), Blackbird, Boyz N The Hood, El Mariachi, and Desperado, among many other films. Connect with Stephanie on X | Facebook.
Producer Judi Levine
Listen to the interview on YouTube.
Judi Levine began her producing career in Australia after graduating with a degree in film and drama, and then working her way up the production ladder.
Her most recent feature film The Sessions starring John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, and William H. Macy, won numerous international awards including Audience Awards at the 2012 Sundance, San Sebastian, and Mill Valley Film Festivals, and garnered two Independent Spirit Awards as well as two Golden Globe nominations, and one Academy Award nomination.
Connect with Judi: Such Much Films | X | Facebook
Writer/Director Gren Wells
Listen to the interview on YouTube.
Gren Wells is an established writer and producer who has sold more than 20 projects, and was recently named one of 10 Directors to Watch by Variety.
Her directorial debut, the road-trip dramedy, The Road Within, starring Robert Sheehan, Zoe Kravitz, Dev Patel, Kyra Sedgwick, and Robert Patrick, premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival to a sold-out audience and rave reviews from critics.
Her other projects include A Little Bit Of Heaven starring Kate Hudson, and the upcoming films Cover Girl and Spy vs Stu.
Documentary Director Katrina Parks
Listen to the interview on YouTube.
Katrina Parks is the writer, director, and executive producer of The Harvey Girls: Opportunity Bound, a new historical documentary film that explores how, starting in the 1880s, over 100,000 brave young women made an unusual decision to leave home and travel west to work as waitresses along the transcontinental railroad opening the doors of both the West and the workplace to women.
The Harvey Girls: Opportunity Bound is Katrina’s full-length directorial debut. The film premiered at the National Archives in June 2013, was nominated for a prestigious James Beard Foundation Award, and will be broadcast by over a dozen PBS stations nationally.
Katrina’s short film Wrappings, which she also wrote and directed, won a SASA Award from the United Nations. Her next directing project is Route 66: The Untold Story of Women on the Mother Road.
In addition to directing, Katrina works as a television producer in Los Angeles. She has written and produced programs for networks including Fox, A&E, Discovery Channel, History, and Lifetime. Katrina has a BFA from the University of New Mexico in painting and drawing, and an MFA from San Francisco State University in Film Production. She is a member of the Producers Guild of America.
Visit The Harvey Girls: Opportunity Bound Facebook page
Connect with Katrina: Assertion Films Website
Documentary Director Walter Dominguez
Listen to the interview on YouTube.
Director Walter Dominguez, a native of California, was only the second Latino to have graduated from the Director’s Guild Producer program and to become a DGA member.
He has worked on numerous television series, movies for television, and major studio feature films as an Assistant Director, including Robert Wise’s The Andromeda Strain, Stanley Kramer’s Oklahoma Crude, and Frank Perry’s Play It As It Lays.
In 2002, Walter established his own independent production company, Chasing Light Pictures to produce the feature-length documentary project, Weaving the Past: Journey of Discovery.
He is currently in development on Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles, a history documentary series for public television.
Weaving the Past: Journey of Discovery: Twitter | Facebook | Trailer
Stunt Coordinator Deven MacNair
Listen to the interview on YouTube.
Deven MacNair is a professional stunt performer and stunt coordinator. Her credits include the films Now You See Me, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Green Lantern, 22 Jump Street, and The Crazies. Deven was also recently featured on the MTV show “Made”, where she coached a woman on how to successfully become a stuntwoman.
She started her professional stunt career in 1998 in Japan working in live shows. After two years she came back to the USA and started her wrestling career with Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (G.L.O.W.). Along with the U.S.O, she worked, trained and, lived in Mexico studying Lucha (Mexican Wrestling), and performs to this day with both G.L.O.W. and Lucha Vavoom.
One of her most recent accomplishments is working alongside the Screen Actors Guild to include Female Stunt Coordinators in the Diversity in Casting Incentive, which Deven hopes will lead to more Female Stunt Coordinators garnering representation, recognition, and work in this field.
Connect with Deven on Facebook
