CLS Vol. 5 Filmmakers

Jiayi Chen & Cameron Worden
Sheebop! Shebopp! Sheebopp!

Jiayi Chen was born in Chongqing, China and is currently based in Chicago, IL. She makes hand-processed films, video and installation. She is interested in language, instructions, as well as correspondence and she speaks with an accent.

Website: https://vimeo.com/chenjiayi

Cameron Worden is a filmmaker, projectionist, and programmer residing in Chicago. He loves to laugh and tell jokes.

Website: https://vimeo.com/cameronworden


Marisa Tolomeo
Smart Nightmares

Marisa Tolomeo is an avid animator and illustrator who has an obsession with horror films. She truly believes that we learn through our nightmares and tries to recreate fear in whimsical landscapes that will immerse the viewer through moral-based narrative.

Website:  www.marisatolomeo.com

Jennifer Boles
Hall of Fishes

Jennifer Boles is a documentary filmmaker and editor based in Chicago. She runs a fellowship program and teaches film courses at the University of Illinois-Chicago and is currently completing her MFA in Documentary Media at Northwestern University.

Website: http://jenboles.net

Meredith Leich
Scaling Quelccaya

Meredith Leich is a painter, animator, and video-maker, whose work explores the psychology of place, historical narratives, and climate change.  Her work has screened at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the Athens International Film and Video Festival, and the Colorado Environmental Film Festival, among others, and won 2nd Prize in the Deutsche Bank Macht Kunst Contest in 2017.  She and her glaciologist collaborator Dr. Andrew Malone received a Art Science and Culture Initiative Grant from the University of Chicago, and she has an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she now teaches animation.

Website: meredithleich.com

Ashley Thompson
I Miss Jamie When She’s Gone

A photographer turned filmmaker, Ashley Thompson is a curious person whose work focuses on people's capacity for intimacy. She aims to explore the varying definitions of love and what it means to have responsibility for another's growth. The push/pull of relationships, the bend before the break. She likes flowers and when strangers exchange words through their eyes. She wants to show the ways in which vulnerability is a strength. Her work has been exhibited on a number of press outlets including the Chicago Reader, Billboard, Paper Magazine, Indiewire, OUT, Elle, Apple Music, Pitchfork, and Teen Vogue.

Website: http://smilefart.com/

Lonnie Edwards
Exodus: Sounds of the Great Migration

With his first two films, Parietal Guidance and A Ferguson Story, Chicago director Lonnie Edwards quickly earned a reputation for documenting and dramatizing lives in oppressed and marginalized communities. He was featured on the Film 50 list for 50 most influential people in film, and chosen as Newcity magazine’s 2016 “Filmmaker of the Year.” His short documentary Exodus: Sounds of the Great Migration screened at CIMMfest’s “Spring Fling Thing” and the Pan African International Film Festival in Cannes, where it won awards for best experimental short film and best new director. With over 20 awards on his resume, Lonnie Edwards strives to continue creating content that not only raises awareness but also pushes the film industry towards new creative heights.

Website: https://www.facebook.com/Neo.revivalist/

Sebastián Pinzón Silva
Palenque

Sebastián Pinzón Silva is a Colombian nonfiction filmmaker. His work has screened at various festivals including Locarno, True/False, Festival dei Popoli, Camden, FICCI, SFFILM, Rencontres de Toulouse, and New Directors/New Films. He holds a degree in Film and Television from the Savannah College of Art and Design and a master’s degree in Documentary Media from Northwestern University. Sebastián is a Sundance Documentary Fellow and one of Filmmaker Magazine's "25 New Faces of Independent Film.”

Website: https://sebastianpinzonsilva.com/