BendFilm’s Underrepresented Voices Grant will support a BIPOC women artist with $10,000 toward making their short or feature film. The grant supports storytellers who are working to tell creative and complex stories told from a point of view that is unique and authentic.

Producers Drea Bernardi (The Oxy Kingpins) and Liz Cardenas (7 Days and Burros), directors Seanna Winslow (The Falconer) and Therese Shechter (My So-Called Selfish Life) discuss the hard decisions they made as indie filmmakers: work with talented friends or invest in tested talent, fundraise to really give it a sheen or shoestring it through, or how to meet in the middle.

Brad Bischoff (Grasshoppers), hazart (A Hard Problem), Mylissa Fitzsimmons (Everything In the End), and Kaveh Nabatian (Sin La Habana) will talk about how they mustered the courage and assembled the resources to make their first feature film and what they plan to do next.

Moderated by this year's environmental/outdoor competition juror David Holbrooke (The Diplomat), Academy-nominated director Skye Fitzgerald (Hunger Ward), and competition documentary filmmakers Christi Cooper (Youth v. Gov) and Christina Antonakos-Wallace (From Here), this panel discusses what's at the heart of making documentaries that will have a social, political, and cultural impact.

The father and son directors of photography John J. Connor and John T. Connor represent two generations of working in film as camera operators and DPs. Their technical credits include Top Gun, E.T., Maverick, Flashdance, Her, and The Revenant among many others.

Over the course of two hours, Warren Etheredge will share the secrets of his Storyfinding technique. How do you come up with an idea that excites? You’ll learn how to develop a Nugget, Conflict and a seven-sentence fairy tale, in order to effectively pitch your idea, earn green-lights for projects, and accomplish your filmmaking goals.