Eight Judges Announced for Tryon International Film Festival 2021
The judges for Tryon International Film Festival 2021 have been selected: Producer and Director Frank Calo, Director Gregg Jamback, Human Rights Activist Homayra Sellier, Producer Jamie Huss, Producer and Director Johnathan Brownlee, Screenwriter Kevin Bernhardt, Actor Patti D’Arbanville, and Filmmaker Steven Esteb. (pictured from left to right)
“These are some of the most-noted movers and shakers in the film industry,” Festival Co-Founder Beau Menetre said. “Over the years, the Festival has developed lasting relationships with each of these people. They know the Tryon International Film Festival well, and we know them. We all stay in touch throughout the year and have become friends. Yet, when it comes to actually viewing the films and making critical judgements, they are solid professionals with experience and different world views. Personally, I greatly appreciate the time, talent, and insight each of them give the festival.”
The judges will view about 75 curated films and will make awards in seven categories: Best Student Film, Best Short Documentary, Best Short Documentary, Best Short Dramatic Film, Best Full Feature Film, Best Human Rights & Dignity Film, and Best Overall Film.
At this time, the seventh annual Tryon International Film Festival is scheduled to be live Friday-Sunday, Oct. 8-10. However, if the COVID-19 pandemic surges, the Festival will pivot to be a virtual festival, which it was last year, 2020. “We’ll make the final decision on July 31,” Menetre said. “That should give everyone enough time to make or change plans. However, as a result of our experience last year with showing online films, we will do that again this year to a limited extent. We will either be live with some online films or totally virtual. It depends on the pandemic, but we have high hopes for an in-person Festival. At this time, North Carolina has pretty much rescinded all restrictions. Everyone who has ever come to our Festival has been enchanted with Tryon and its hospitality.”
If the Festival is live in Tryon, there will be for the first time, a film-industry trade show, where various vendors, such as film schools, other film festivals, technical and creative services, actors, and producers, will gather under tents to showcase their services and programs. “This will be something new and exciting for us,” Menetre said. “And it is something much needed for people who work in the industry. Networking is so important when it comes to producing films.”
The most pending Festival event is a fundraiser -- A Cajun Occasion -- scheduled for Sunday, June 6. The dinner and dance will be at Mountain Brook Vineyards in Tryon and will feature a gumbo cook off between Menetre and regional celebrity chef Sarah McClure, who has been a contestant on the FoodNetwork and was the 2018 South Carolina Ambassador Chef for the Upstate. Tickets are $50 per adult and available on the Festival’s website: TryonInternationalFilmFestival.com.
The first deadline for filmmakers to submit their films for consideration to be in this year’s Festival is Aug. 2.
The judges’ information for this year’s Festival follows:
Calo is an independent producer and director whose film THE BELIEVER, starring Ryan Gosling and Billy Zane, won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2001 Sundance Festival. That film won at many of the festivals that year, including The Berlin Film Festival. It was shown nationwide and had a great box office run. His film HERE & THERE with Cyndi Lauper and David Thornton won the BEST NY NARRATIVE IN WORLD COMPETITION 2009 at Robert DeNiro’s Tribeca Film Festival in NYC and had its official News York premier played to wide audiences domestically and overseas. Calo has worked with DeNiro (GODSEND) Demi Moore, Mike Myers, Shelly Winters, Marlon Brando, and many more. His film THE COOKOUT with Queen Latifah also had a great box office run, distributed by LionsGate Films. He also worked for two years with The Motion Picture Bond Company under Robert Bordiga, as a producer working on films throughout the tri-state area. He was one of the few directors who studied privately under the late Mr. Elia Kazan.
Bernhardt has worked on more than 30 very different screenplays which resulted in produced films. They range from commercial action to critically and spiritually acclaimed. As a writer, he has had four films with budgets up to $30 million shoot - in just the last five years, with casts including Michael Caine, Orlando Bloom, Michael Shannon, Alex Pettyfer, Patti LuPone, Christopher Plummer, and Ben Foster. Bernhardt has worked on films that have included Academy Award winners and nominees Donald Sutherland, John Lithgow, Nick Nolte, Djimon Hounsou, Sylvester Stallone, and Dennis Hopper. Other prestigious notables include Kevin Bacon, Patrick Swayze, Chris Rock, Charlie Sheen, Dolph Lundgren, Peter Weller, Jennifer Beals, Tom Berenger, Daryl Hannah, Amy Smart, Matthew Goode, and Wesley Snipes. While building a career as a writer, Bernhardt supported himself as an actor, with multi-year contract roles on GENERAL HOSPITAL and DYNASTY, followed by numerous lead roles in films such as Clive Barker’s HELLRAISER. He returned to acting with a lead role opposite Amy Redford in HATE CRIME, which won awards at 17 film festivals, including Tryon. He has followed that with a major supporting role opposite Michael Caine and Ben Foster in MEDIEVAL, to be released in 2022.
D’Arbanville acted in her first film in 1960 at eight years old. TUESDAY AND BLUE SILK was a New York University student film about a girl and her cat. Andy Warhol discovered her during a gig as a club disc jockey when she was 13, and three years later he casted her in his film FLESH (1968). After FLESH, D’Arbanville performed in Warhol’s L’AMOUR (1973), and as the title character in David Hamilton’s film BILITIS (1977). Since her unabashedly risqué performances in her youth, D’Arbanville has worked steadily in film and on television series in the United States and France. In 1987, D’Arbanville won a Drama-Logue Award as Best Actress for her stage performance in ITALIAN AMERICAN RECONCILIATION (1987). She was well known for her role as Lt. Virginia Cooper on the FOX series NEW YORK UNDERCOVER.
Brownlee is an award-winning Canadian-American director, producer, writer, and actor with a diverse international body of work spanning more than 20 years. His feature films, documentaries, and scripted and unscripted broadcast television and digital content have been viewed in theaters and on television in more than 100 countries in 14 languages and appeared on every major network and many specialty channels in the United States and Canada. Brownlee has produced in 20-plus countries and worked with Academy Award-, Golden Globe-, and Emmy Award-winning talent including Helen Hunt, Angelina Jolie, Jerry Seinfeld, Luciano Pavarotti, Michael Douglas, Annette Bening, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Rashida Jones, Dan Aykroyd, Richard Gere, Aaron Paul, and William H. Macy. He has produced, written or co-written, and directed award-winning films, including THE STANDOFF AT SPARROW CREEK and DECODING ANNIE PARKER with Helen Hunt, and THREE DAYS IN AUGUST with Barry Bostwick, Meg Foster, and Mariette Hartley. Brownlee has several feature-length films in development or in production, including THE EYES OF JEFFERSON, THE ONLY JEWELS I NEED, and THE DEVIL’S COUNTRY. Brownlee owns and operates two production companies, Torfoot Films and Ubiquimedia. He currently serves as CEO and President of Dallas Film, which produces the internationally recognized Dallas International Film Festival and the new North Texas Film Festival. He recently created The Veterans Institute for Film & Media (VIFM), a training program for military veterans.
Jamback is a film and video professional. For more than 30 years his work has been seen on broadcast outlets, NatGeo, Animal Planet, ESPN, public television, and others. His clients have included corporations such as IBM, Amex, Pitney Bowes, Deloitte & Touche, and many others. Institutional clients include numerous foundations, such as the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, the Winston-Salem Foundation, Save the Children, and nonprofits. As a filmmaker, Jamback has produced independent projects including, DISCOVER YOURSELF WITH THE ENNEAGRAM, THE LITTLE AMERICA’S CUP CHALLENGE, PEELERS, BUSTERS, SOFT SHELL CRABS, THE REAL COST OF COAL, and GREG TAYLOR–GHOST. His awards include “Best of the Fest” (Down East Flick Fest), “Judge’s Choice” (Eastern North Carolina Film Festival), and “Best Documentary” (Rugged Phoenix Underground Film Festival).
Huss has worked as a producing partner at Swiftwater Media on three independent productions: DISCOVER YOURSELF WITH THE ENNEAGRAM (2001), THE REAL COST OF COAL (2010), and GREG TAYLOR-GHOST (2014). With 11 years of experience in a Fortune 500 corporate position involving communications, presentations, and training sessions spanning all levels of employees and executives, she is comfortable with organizing materials for comprehension and meeting new people. With 30 years experience in being a partner or a sole-proprietor of healthcare-related practices, she is able to oversee every aspect of a project. A longstanding commitment to social justice issues led her to devote four years to a local foundation where she focused her energies on donor development, rebranding, and creating marketing materials, including three annual fundraising testimonial videos. Huss has been intimately involved with social justice and the film IN PURSUIT OF JUSTICE.
Esteb is a versatile filmmaker who has worked as an actor, a Hollywood screenwriter, and director of commercials, music videos, documentaries and features. His film HATE CRIME won both Best Feature and Human Right & Dignity categories in the 2016 Tryon International Film Festival. Other films include DIRTY POLITICS, a dark comedy starring Judd Nelson, Beau Bridges, and Howard Hesseman. BALLER BLOCKIN, a rap film for Universal starring Lil Wayne, hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts in DVD and video sales eventually going quadruple platinum. He has been represented by top agencies, like ICM and Paradigm, as a screenwriter and worked as a script doctor, coach, and screenwriting teacher. Esteb is currently teaching film and screenwriting at Loyola University in New Orleans. He worked at an AIDS hospice for two years while making the feature length documentary LIVING WITH… A FILM ABOUT LOVE AND AIDS. It premiered at the Santa Barbara Film Festival and traveled the world, contributing to the opening of new AIDS Hospices. Esteb studied film production in the graduate program at Boston University and also has a degree in political science. He now lives in rural Louisiana with his wife and two kids.
Sellier is the founder of Innocence In Danger (IID), an international child protection organization, operating in nine countries (France, United Kingdom, Colombia, Germany, Switzerland, United States of America, Austria, Iran and Morocco). Sellier, who lives in Europe, has spoken remotely to the TRIFF audience about the relevance and importance of the category. She was instrumental in arranging for Cecilia Peck’s inclusion of BRAVE MISS WORLD to the 2016 programming schedule. Since Sellier is multilingual, fluent in Spanish, French, English and Farsi, she has helped in selecting films submitted to TRIFF’s Human Rights and Dignity category. Over the years, Sellier’s organization has utilized television documentaries, billboard campaigns, and other media to help raise awareness on human abuse. A number of the French, Swiss, and German films and visual works that Sellier and her offices have been involved with have been nominated for the Prix Debouzy, one of France's most prestigious awards, and short films/spots at Cannes film competition categories. Sellier was also the primary inspiration for “Illegitimate Advantage,” a 2016 novel written by Kirk Gollwitzer, the co-founder of TRIFF. Sellier and Gollwitzer are actively working together to adapt the novel to a major motion picture.
For more information about the Tryon International Film Festival 2021, please visit online: TryonInternationalFilmFestival.com.
