Vanessa Ionta Wright
Vanessa Ionta Wright is an award winning filmmaker based in Atlanta. She has written & directed several short films including a fully authorized Stephen King adaptation. Her work has been featured in competitions such as the inaugural American Zoetrope Screenplay Contest judged by Francis Ford Coppola, ScreenCraft, Diverse Voices, Shriekfest, Hollyshorts, and Toronto Vanguard to name a few. Vanessa graduated from Ohio University with a degree in Video Production & Film before heading to Los Angeles where she got her start working on music videos as a production assistant. She eventually moved to Atlanta and worked for a commercial production company as an APOC. In 2002, she penned her second feature screenplay, a reimagining of Friday the 13th and landed herself a face to face meeting with New Line Cinema, reinforcing her belief that with enough hard work, anything is possible.
Vanessa is a lifelong fan of cinema, especially the horror genre. She grew up watching The Twilight Zone and films by Alfred Hitchcock, Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese, John Carpenter and Stephen Spielberg. But, it was a 1992 screening of Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs that inspired her to pursue filmmaking as a career.
Vanessa also runs the Renegade Film Festival, an event dedicated to showcasing marginalized voices in genre film. She lives in the heart of the thriving film industry in the Southeast with her husband, two children and a pug named Phil. She enjoys punctuality, scary movies, a quick wit, sandwiches, the music of Michael Jackson, Halloween & Bacon Jam. She does not enjoy bugs, clowns, perpetual lateness, mean people, oppression, laziness, running more than 3 miles or curved walls.
Stephen Irwin
Country: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandStephen Irwin is a British animation director and writer. His films have won multiple awards and been screened at over 100 international film festivals, including three times in competition at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2024, WORLD TO ROAM was one of six films longlisted in the British Short Animation category at the BAFTA Film Awards.
His films have been broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK and Canal+ Spain, and he has received commissions and grants from the BBC, UK Film Council/Film London, Animate Projects/Arts Council England, Channel 4, Rooftop Films, and the BFI. In 2018 he wrote his first feature length screenplay with support from Creative England and the BFI NET.WORK through their Emerging Talent Fund. He is an alumnus of Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design.
Awards include: the Grand Prize at the Ottawa International Animation Festival for MOXIE, and the Silver Dragon at the Krakow Film Festival for THE OBVIOUS CHILD (both Oscar qualifying). THE BLACK DOG'S PROGRESS was awarded Best Short Film at the British Animation Awards. WOOD CHILD & HIDDEN FOREST MOTHER won the Grand Prize at the New Chitose International Animation Festival, as well as both the Best of the Fest and Best UK Film at the London International Animation Festival.
