GREG NEWKIRK
Greg is the founder and Editor-In-Chief of the Week in Weird, an online magazine dedicated to all things out of the ordinary. Greg’s writing is regularly featured both in print and online in publications like Yahoo! News, Gizmodo, and Coast to Coast AM, as well as in local and national news networks across the country. Greg has appeared on numerous hit television series including Animal Planet’s Finding Bigfoot, TLC’s Kindred Spirits, Travel Channel’s Mysteries at the Museum, and served as a paranormal consultant on projects that have aired on A&E, Destination America, the Discovery Channel, and more. In 2011, Greg directed the award-winning documentary The Bigfoot Hunter: Still Searching. Greg can be found lecturing on the topic of the paranormal across the country, acting as the director of the Traveling Museum of the Paranormal.
DANA NEWKIRK
When she was a teen, Dana founded the world’s first all-female paranormal investigation team. Dana is currently the Head Writer for the Week in Weird, flexing her journalistic muscle by hunting down and highlighting the world’s weirdest news stories. Her writing has been featured in national news outlets like Nerdist, io9, Jezebel, Mary Sue, Dread Central, Kotaku, and other great publications both in print and online.Dana’s paranormal expertise has been featured in appearances on hit television series like TLC’s Kindred Spirits and Animal Planet’s Finding Bigfoot, and if you’re Canadian, you might even recognize Dana as the lead investigator on SPACE’s internationally syndicated series The Girly Ghosthunters. She travels the country as the curator for the Traveling Museum of the Paranormal & the Occult, the world’s first mobile museum filled with haunted objects.
KARL PFEIFFER
Considering himself a bit of a one-man army, Karl specializes in independent, often run-and-gun projects that demand a filmic, cinematic quality too often impossible to find in the amateur or independent market. Karl focuses his pursuits on documentary work, particularly in the paranormal space, which he's most passionate about, but also in music videos, commercial work, and promotional videos. Karl's clients have included The Stanley Hotel, the Queen Mary, Master Illusionist Aiden Sinclair, Professor Phelyx, and the musical artist Raven Quinn. Karl's most widely known work are the first two seasons of the award-winning documentary series, Hellier, which was filmed on a shoestring budget about the occult and strange goings-on in the wider Kentucky and Appalachian Mountain region, under his Sticks River imprint..
LINDA GODFREY
Author, investigator and artist Linda Godfrey is the author of 18 published books on strange creatures, phenomena and people. She’s a frequent guest on national TV and radio shows, including the Wall Street Journal Books page (Aug. 2019), Chicago Tribune, Small Town Monsters, Legend Seeker TV Show, Dead Files, The Unexplained (Travel Ch.), In Search of Monsters (TRVL Ch.) Monsterquest (Seasons 1 and 4), Fox News Red Eye, Lost Tapes, Monsters and Mysteries, Sean Hannity’s America, Inside Edition, Coast to Coast AM, Wis. Public Radio, the Jenny McCarthy Show and many more. She lives in the Kettle Moraine area of SE Wisconsin with her husband and monster dog, Grendel.
NATHAN GODFREY
Nate has a degree from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. On graduating, he used an Odyssey Travel Grant award to fund an 11-month study in film and painting in Prague, Czech Republic. He continued building his technical skills in Chicago by coordinating an interdepartmental, state media-sharing program for the ECFMG Clinical Skills Evaluation Center. He has recently created free-lance illustrations and camera work for History Channel and other producers, while concentrating on his own animated shorts and vignettes. He was the sole videographer, art stylist, editor, musical scorer, narrator, animator and more in the making of Return to Wildcat Mountain, his first documentary. He currently lives in Milwaukee where he continues his work in experimental film.
JOSHUA LAND AND VICTOR FRANK
Joshua and Victor are a directing and cinematography team who began working together while undergraduates at Johns Hopkins University. They have since worked on several projects together, including the feature film “Lotus Eyes” (2013). Most recently, they completed “I Like Me" (2019), a feature that Joshua directed and Victor shot. It has screened in festivals across the country, picked up various awards, and was been picked up by Gravitas Ventures to be released in July through numerous VOD outlets. The duo co-founded the production company MindInMotion, which provides full service production and post-production for commercial and film projects. They are passionate about telling stories about individuals trying to find their place within a society filled with uncertainty.
ERIC SILVERA AND SEAN KENEALY
Eric and Sean are filmmakers and friends who met at an MFA program in New York City. Bonding over a mutual appreciation of genre films, they began writing together, completing several screenplays. In 2014, Sean pitched a new idea: a two-person action movie. Eric loved the concept and the two embarked on a 5 year process to write, fund, and film the movie. Sean's also an actor/writer whose plays have been staged across New York and Chicago at 13th Street Repertory, Gorilla Tango Theater, Brooklyn’s Impact Festival, and with The 52nd Street Project, while Eric's writing has been published in numerous journals, shortlisted for PopMotreal's LitPop award, and won Slice Magazine's "Bridging the Gap" non-fiction prize.
DANE MAINELLA
Dane Mainella is a farmer, filmmaker, and writer. He has ridden his bicycle across the United States. He is passionate about ecology, permaculture, and trees. Mainella has made various short and feature-length films, including Americus, Men, Vagrant, and Driving Not Knowing. He has written two novels, Coyote and Suicide Heaven; as well as a collection of poetry, Driving. Mainella was born in Providence, schooled in Philadelphia, and is based in Brooklyn.
JAY JADICK
Jay Jadick is a farmer and poet based in Kansas City, Missouri. SQUATCHMORE is his fourth feature film in collaboration with Dane Mainella and Benjamin R. Davis.
STEVE CHAPPEL
Steve Chappell, an artist from Madison, Wisconsin, is the author of the infamous and celebrated graphic novel, STARK PLUG BOOK (google it!). He uses a variety of mediums to express his creative ideas. Primarily drawing comics, making films, and playing music. TRILOGY OF TEAR! features all three. Chappell’s film, HOW TO TALK TO YOUR KIDS ABOUT ED GEIN was shown and well-received at The Midwest Weird Fest in 2018. There were some people in the audience who clapped, and others responded with a standing ovation! Or they were just standing to leave... it was hard to tell. The original, poseable, animation figure used in part 2 of TRILOGY OF TEAR!, thought for a long time to be lost but now recovered, will be on display at this festival for all people to see.
ZESHAAN YOUNUS
Zeshaan Younus is an award winning writer, director, and producer based in Orange County, CA.He aims to work collaboratively with cast and crew to create visceral, esoteric, and thought-provoking narratives.Zeshaan prioritizes strong visual framing as a main driving force of exposition. His passion for science fiction, the paranormal, and cosmic horror is made evident through his artistic choices.
Outside of his creative work, Zeshaan has an established career in government relations. He is also the Strategic Director of the Horrible Imaginings Film Festival and serves in multiple leadership roles for select local non-profit organizations.
PAUL VON STOETZEL
CARNAGE THE EXECUTIONER - EAT TO LIVE
Paul von Stoetzel has directed over 30 short films/music videos and as many plays in the Twin Cities area including his feature documentary, SNUFF: A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT KILLING ON CAMERA won numerous awards while also receiving major North American distribution as did his second documentary SCRAP.
His company, Killing Joke Films, is now producing the adaptation of acclaimed writer Ed Kurtz's horror novel BLEED into an episodic series while also producing numerous shorts and music videos.
MAXWELL FREY AND DOMINIC RENO
Maxwell Frey and Dominic Reno grew up in Ohio, in the same town (Huron), both on cul-de-sacs in the same neighborhood (Beachwood Cove). Passersthough en route to Cedar Point or Put-in-Bay regard the vultures circling in the sky, the sheephead rotting on the beach and the muffleheads everywhere. The fishy smell of Lake Erie in the morning! To Maxwell and Dominic, it is the smell of home.
They went to different film schools (RIT and NYU), but reunited in NYC, making hot content for HBO (SESAME STREET trailers, retweeted GAME OF THRONES promos and award-winning WESTWORLD recaps). Maxwell produced an acclaimed feature-length Brooklyn-set slasher film
MAC CUSHING
Writing and Directing weird, funny and interesting shorts since 2012, Mac Cushing brings a unique voice to the projects he creates. Starting in Nashville, TN writing for and eventually producing the live sketch comedy show Luxury Prestige III, he moved on to write, direct and produce the award winning semi-live serial comedy series The Agents of Fortune.
Recently he's moved into horror comedy with The Visit and anthology dark comedy with The Basement. Cushing currently lives in Syracuse, NY.
SALLY STEINBACH ROBBINS
Sally was a student of Eugene O'Neil Theater Institute and a BFA Graduate of Drake University, now working at The University of Iowa. She gets jazzed about working with creative teams to tell a good story; and happy to jump into all aspects of production, including costumes, sets construction/painting, lights, and acting.
Working on her son Steve's film, on location in Lone Tree, Iowa drew on all of her active and latent skills. Her sheer passion for the project, and perhaps the force of her nature propelled her through the unforgettable, rewarding experience of making The Green Sea.