Sonia K. Hadad is an Iranian writer and director. In 2010, she completed her bachelor’s in theatre and dramatic literature from Azad University in Tehran. She studied film and media arts (MFA) at Emerson College, Boston (2010–2017). She moved to the U.S. in 2013 to continue her education and began making short films, producing for the film industry and also editing TV series and shorts. Here she talks to us on how she took funding her film into her own hands due to the restraints in Tehran and how she feels Sundance is working to decrease the male director domination.

Bridget Moloney is a 2020 AFI Directing Workshop for Women fellow. Her independent pilot, I Was a Teenage Pillow Queen, premiered at the 2018 Tribeca TV Festival. She is also an actress, qualifying for great health insurance one national commercial at a time. She earned her bachelor’s degree in theatre and creative writing for media at Northwestern, and her master’s in clinical psychology from Pepperdine. Moloney lives in LA with her husband and two children. Here she talks to us about her glamorous moment of finding out she had been selected for the festival in the bathroom, her camera man crouching in her shower for that perfect shot and the female directors she looks up to.

Jessie’s films have amassed millions of views and been featured everywhere from the New York Times to TMZ. Jessie wrote, directed, and starred in a dark comedy about bulimia, The Skinny, which was produced by Jill Soloway, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and won a Webby for best dramatic series. Jessie has developed series for Hulu, ABC, CW, and wrote on SKAM Austin for Facebook Watch. She lives in LA with her plants. Here she talks to us about how her script was originally found to be too provocative, why investing in yourself is sometimes the best bet and how making a film is just like looking after her nieces….

Born in 1992, Élodie Dermange is a Swiss animation director. She obtained an illustration degree in 2012 in Geneva. In 2017 she directed her first animated short movie, Intimity, which won Grand Prix at the Tampere International Short Film Festival. In 2019, she completed her course at La Poudrière, where she directed her graduation film, Inès. Her she talks to us on how she made her first animated film with limited experience and how her own personal experience with pregnancy and consideration of abortion brought her to make this film.