2025 FLC Artists and Critics Academy Programs Participants Announced
September 9, 2025
Film at Lincoln Center (FLC) announces the participants for its 2025 FLC Artists and Critics Academy programs, taking place during the 63rd New York Film Festival. The mission of the FLC Academies is to support the next generation of film artists and critics and to foster a film culture that embraces diverse storytelling and points of view. Presented by FLC in partnership with Rolex, the 63rd New York Film Festival will take place from September 26 through October 13.
The FLC Artists Academy, led by award-winning filmmaker Stacey Marbrey, taps into the rich New York film community to offer an immersive experience for early-career filmmakers, with an emphasis on creating opportunities for a wide range of voices and perspectives. Over the course of a three-day workshop during NYFF63, participants will meet with established filmmakers and industry leaders to discuss their work, sharpen their creative and professional development, gain insight into the collaborative process, and learn strategies for sustaining long-term careers in film. Past mentors and speakers have included Steve McQueen, Liz Nord, Matt Wolf, Joanna Arnow, Rebeca Huntt, Rashaad Ernesto Green, Allison Carter, and Jon Read. Notable alumni of the Artists Academy have gone on to premiere their work at film festivals such as Cannes, Venice, Sundance, Tribeca, Berlin, Locarno, Rotterdam, DOC NYC, and the New York Film Festival, and have received recognition from the Academy Awards, Independent Spirit Awards, Gotham Awards, Black Reel Awards, and UNESCO.
The participants for this year’s FLC Artists Academy are Sultan Ali Jr., Leonora Anzaldua, Emma Doxiadi, Daisy Friedman, Justin Knoepfel, Samuel Laine, Alan Williams Mckenzie, Luna Sofia Miranda, Kiandra Parks, Ankit Poudel, Fanny Texier, and Adesola Thomas.
The FLC Critics Academy program, led by the editors of Film Comment, supports the next generation of film writers by offering invaluable experience in both the craft and business of film criticism. Early-career critics will participate in a two-day workshop leading up to NYFF63, where established members of the industry will cover topics including pitching and freelancing, the editorial process, genres and modes of criticism, interviewing, social media for critics, and more. Participants will also receive full press access to NYFF and opportunities to cover the festival for leading film publications under close mentorship of their editors. Past FLC Critics Academy participants have gone on to write for publications such as The Atlantic, Brooklyn Magazine, The Guardian, Huffington Post, L.A. Weekly, The Los Angeles Times, National Review, New Republic, New York Review of Books, Paper, The Paris Review, Remezcla, Reverse Shot, Vice, The Village Voice, Vulture, and more.
This year’s FLC Critics Academy participants are Fatoumata Bah, Chris Cassingham, Koel Chu, Abirami Logendran, AJ Morris, Jadie Stillwell, Juan Camilo Velásquez, and Daniel Zheng.
More information on the 2025 FLC Academy Programs participants can be found below.
2025 FLC Artists Academy
SULTAN ALI JR.
Sultan Ali Jr. is a filmmaker from New York City whose work blends surrealism, genre, and social impact to tell stories rooted in marginalized communities. He launched his directing journey with My Future & Me, a sci-fi comedy about voter rights that was a finalist in the 2018 NAACP Short Film Competition. He developed The Other Talk, a family drama on police brutality, while training at the Manhattan Film Institute. In 2023, he directed The Next Stop, a hip-hop time-travel short made during the Red Bull x Ghetto Film School fellowship. It won “Best Sci-Fi” at the Summer in the South Film Festival. His latest short, Waves, is an experimental poetry film exploring Black masculinity and healing, earning “Best Sound Mix” at the Astoria Film Festival. Sultan is the founder of 1995 Pictures, a creative storytelling agency crafting purpose-driven campaigns. He holds a B.A. in film production from Brooklyn College.
Instagram: @sultan_thaprince
LEONORA ANZALDUA
Leonora Anzaldua is a Chicana filmmaker whose passion lies in making art for social change and amplifying the stories of underrepresented peoples. She is currently developing FLASHBANG, a digital docuseries and blueprint for social action; Por tí (For You) a magical realist kids adventure movie about two girls who are thrown into an ICE detention facility and must outwit the guards to escape; and Huaraches y chanclas, a darkly comedic series about working-class Latino students who start their own secret society at an elite university. Leonora trained in photography as an undergraduate at Yale and earned her MFA in directing at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. Her films have been recognized with nominations for a Student Emmy, a Student Academy Award, and an Imagen Award. Leonora has also been honored with a SUN Cinematography Award and the ASC Vision Award for her body of cinematography work.
Instagram: @leonoramakesmovies
EMMA DOXIADI
Emma Doxiadi is a Greek and Australian filmmaker. Raised between languages and landscapes, she studied philosophy at Bryn Mawr and later filmmaking at NYU Tisch Graduate Film. Her short films have screened at festivals including NYFF, Palm Springs, Encounters, and Vimeo Staff Picks, while she co-wrote, produced, and starred in Squirrel (SXSW, Berlinale). She co-produced New Worlds (Cannes) and formerly led development at Faliro House. Emma is the founder of everybodies, a climate-focused production company, and co-founder of filmsos, Greece’s first audiovisual sustainability initiative. She is working on her first feature, a horror film about bodily autonomy, bad boyfriends, and the haunting power of unresolved family trauma (in utero).
Instagram: @doxem
DAISY FRIEDMAN
Daisy Friedman is a writer and director based in New York City. As a multi-organ transplant recipient, she creates work that explores the intersections of tradition, intimacy, embodiment, and disability. Her short film Unholy (2024) premiered at Sundance 2025 before screening at SXSW. Her previous short, As You Are (2023), screened at prestigious film festivals such as Frameline, Inside Out, Outfest, the Chicago International Film Festival, and the National Film Festival For Talented Youth. The film won multiple awards, including the U.S. Narrative Short Grand Jury Prize Special Mention at Outfest 2023 and the NewFest35 Emerging Filmmaker Award. Daisy’s work has been featured in Deadline, Variety, The Advocate, and Out Magazine. She was a winter/spring resident at the Woodward Artist Residency and is currently a 2025–2026 UFO Filmmaker Lab participant. Daisy received the 2023 Colin Higgins Youth Foundation Grant. She is a graduate of the Barnard College Film Studies program.
Instagram: @daisyfriedman_
JUSTIN KNOEPFEL
Justin Knoepfel is a first-generation Arab-American filmmaker currently based in New York City. He was raised in a small rural town in Northeast Pennsylvania and earned a B.A. from Pace University, where he now gives guest lectures on filmmaking. Having carved out opportunities across all areas of the film and television industry—from on-set work to entertainment talent agencies and production companies—he brings with him a breadth of knowledge alongside his creative ambitions. His directed work, along with being distributed by Gunpowder & Sky and CryptTV, has had support from grant programs by ARRI and the American Society of Cinematographers. He seeks to examine the dark corners of human nature, highlighting stories of the taboo and the often underrepresented emotional challenges faced in daily life.
Instagram: @justinknoepfel
SAMUEL LAINE
Samuel Laine is an Eritrean director based in Atlanta, Georgia. As the lead of the antidisciplinary storytelling home, François & Friends, Samuel has directed a series of interconnected narrative shorts and a feature documentary known as Brockett Cinematic Universe, a body of work exploring the black diaspora experience, on Exit 3. Instead of reducing them to stereotypes/statistics, the BCM reveals the quiet complexities that survive below the surface of those discarded by society. These projects have been featured at film festivals such as the Chicago International and Atlanta Film Festival. Samuel is currently developing a three-chapter series centered on themes of repatriation and alienation with Breakfast with Mukasa (docufiction short) and How to Discipline Your Child (narrative feature).
Instagram: @sam.laine
ALAN WILLIAMS MCKENZIE
Alan Williams Mckenzie (Alan Da Griot) is an East New York, Brooklyn-born writer and filmmaker whose work aims to push the boundaries of what people of color have historically been able to achieve in the art form, telling stories that are unapologetically authentic, radically human, deeply empathetic, and culturally rich. He aspires to create an original, singular Black aesthetic within cinema that harnesses other forms of Black artistic expression such as dance, literature/poetry, theater, art/photography, and in particular music to create a truly emotionally transformative cinematic experience. Cultivating new styles, genres, and visual languages within the medium to make Black cinema, as filmmaker Arthur Jafa stated, “as culturally significant, innovative, and creatively dominant in the 21st century as Black music has been since the 20th century.”
Instagram: @alan_da_griot
LUNA SOFIA MIRANDA
Luna Sofia Miranda is an actress, writer, and producer who gained prominence for her role as Lulu in Sean Baker’s Anora. Luna began her career as a stripper to support her college education, paying her way through a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and film at the CUNY B.A. program. She used her strip club income to produce 16 live cabaret shows, arthouse film, and the upcoming horror movie FILMGIRL. She is an advocate for sex workers’ rights and makes it her mission to destigmatize sex work in the film industry. You can see her in the upcoming comedy Youthful Pleasures.
Instagram: @luna_sofia_miranda
KIANDRA PARKS
Kiandra Parks is an award-winning filmmaker dedicated to telling bold, thought-provoking stories that resonate with audiences worldwide. In 2015, she earned her master’s degree in film production from New York University’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts, where she honed her craft in storytelling and cinematic artistry. Her thesis film, Black Girl in Paris, was a finalist at the American Black Film Festival and later acquired by HBO, marking a significant milestone in her career. While at NYU, Kiandra was awarded the highly coveted Spike Lee Production Fellowship, a testament to her vision and talent as a filmmaker. Her thesis film is currently available on Amazon Prime. Kiandra is currently developing her feature film debut.
Instagram: @kiandraparks
ANKIT POUDEL
Ankit Poudel is a Nepali filmmaker based in New York City. He earned his MFA in cinematic arts from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he received the Chancellor’s Award in 2019 and 2020. He is also a recipient of the Adoor Gopalakrishnan Fellowship (2020) and the Infinite Scholarship, Singapore (2017). His films have screened internationally, including at the Sundance Film Festival, Festival du nouveau cinéma, and Raindance Film Festival, and have won numerous awards such as Best Art Film at Asolo Art Film Festival, Best Narrative at Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival, and the Grand Prix at Split Film Festival, among others. Ankit’s works closely examine the human condition through everyday life. His lens gazes in an impressionistic style, with simple, minimal stories. Delving into the roots of Nepali culture, traditions, and folklore, his work blurs the line between the real and the surreal. He is currently developing his debut feature film.
Instagram: @ankeet.chhetri
FANNY TEXIER
Fanny Texier is an award-winning documentary filmmaker born in Paris and based in Brooklyn. Fanny is drawn to intimate and unusual stories, particularly those of women and individuals underrepresented in traditional media. Specializing in vérité filmmaking, her experience as an editor deeply informs how she frames her cinematography and approaches camera work—it’s her superpower. Fanny has worked for outlets including The New Yorker, BBC, VICE News, the New York Post, AJ+, and Business Insider. She has filmed and edited projects for platforms and partners including HBO, Netflix, VICE on Showtime, BET, Adobe, Adidas Originals, Google. She has a journalism degree from the University of Montreal and is a lead community organizer for The Video Consortium.
Instagram: @fanny.texier
ADESOLA THOMAS
Adesola Thomas is a queer Nigerian-American filmmaker and the Atlanta Film Society’s incoming Filmmaker in Residence (September 2025–March 2027). She makes narratives about the American South and Black diasporic domestic life to create, proliferate, and archive visuals of community interdependence. Adesola was a 2024 Directing Fellow at the Visionary Justice Lab. There, she wrote and directed Sister Salad Days, her magical realist family drama which won Best Georgia Short at the 2025 Atlanta Film Festival. Adesola’s work has been programmed at Film at Lincoln Center (32nd New York African Film Festival) and Millenium Film, and distributed by No Budge. She is an East Coast Reporter at Letterboxd, a producer’s assistant at Kashif Film, and programmer at Kino Film Collective. Adesola is developing her Southern rave film Marigold Leaves Her Body, which won Best Short Script at the 2025 Atlanta Film Festival and 2024 Out on Film Festival, and was a 2024 South Pitch Narrative finalist.
Instagram: @adesola_thomas
2025 FLC Critics Academy
FATOUMATA BAH
Fatoumata (Djelo) Bah is a Brooklyn-based writer and interdisciplinary artist exploring power, identity, and cultural memory through criticism, theory, and storytelling. Born to West African parents in New York City, her perspective is shaped by diasporic experience and a commitment to amplifying voices from the global south. Her writing spans film, art, and literature, often centering Black and postcolonial feminist frameworks. She has been published in Africa Is a Country and is pursuing a master’s in publishing and writing at The New School. With a background in design and community education, Fatoumata brings a reflective, incisive lens to stories that challenge dominant narratives, resist categorization, and imagine otherwise.
Instagram: @itsfatoumata
CHRIS CASSINGHAM
Chris Cassingham is a Brooklyn-based writer and programmer. His writing has appeared in InReview Online, Reverse Shot, Little White Lies, and Documentary Magazine, and his programming at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London. He received his B.A. in political science from the University of Mary Washington and his M.A. in film studies, programming, and curation from the National Film and Television School in the U.K. His writing and programming often focuses on contemporary American cinema from the margins of the industry, much of which is infrequently programmed in its country of origin. His substack, Dark Optimism, is a periodically maintained home for long-form interviews with filmmakers whose films broach the thorny subjects of paranoia and conspiracy from a progressive angle.
Instagram: @chris.cassingham
KOEL CHU
Koel Chu is a writer and translator from Hong Kong. Her critical essays and translation work have appeared in MUBI Notebook, M+ Magazine, Cicada, MingPao, and more. She completed a bachelor’s degree in journalism and fine arts at the University of Hong Kong and will begin pursuing a master’s in moving image archiving and preservation at NYU. Previously, she was Associate Editor at Asia Art Archive and held curatorial roles at M+ Museum and the 11th Gwangju Biennale. She was the editor of the long-form comic NIGHT NIGHT, which was shortlisted for the D&AD Awards 2023 and received a special mention at the BolognaRagazzi Awards.
Instagram: @koel.chu
ABIRAMI LOGENDRAN
Abirami Logendran is a critic, programmer, and artist based in Oslo, Norway. She currently works as a film curator at Kunstnernes Hus, where she has programmed thematic series and artist retrospectives for its in-house art cinema. Logendran is also a film critic for the Norwegian daily newspaper Klassekampen and a regular contributor to various journals, both Norwegian and international. This fall, she is a fellow at the International Studio & Curatorial Program in Brooklyn.
Instagram: @abilogix
AJ MORRIS
AJ Morris is a writer and critic from Toronto whose work centers on exploring culture, including film, music, and style, through a critical lens. Her areas of interest include diasporic Black histories and storytelling, specifically the investigation of social and political movements and the role of culture in advancing them. Her film writing aims to spotlight decolonial and Third Cinema, Black indie, surrealist, feminist, animated, and documentary filmmaking to investigate the power of a subversive visual language in imagining, building and sharing liberatory narratives, histories, and futures. She holds an M.A. in creative publishing and critical journalism from The New School’s School of Social Research and an Honours BSc in psychology and sociology from the University of Toronto, where she specialized in critical race theory and the psychology of prejudice. Her writing can be found in the print and digital pages of Screen Slate, Pitchfork, Teen Vogue, Wax Poetics, Essence, and more.
Instagram: @ashleeey.png
JADIE STILLWELL
Jadie Stillwell is a writer, editor, and film programmer based in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in Screen Slate, Public Books, Little White Lies, LitHub, Interview, Bright Wall/Dark Room, and the Brooklyn Rail. She’s interested in the materiality of work both on and behind the screen, with a particular investment in how cinematic technologies engage or obscure human labor power. In 2024, she received her M.A. in English with an emphasis in film and media from U.C. Berkeley, and in 2025 she held a programming fellowship with the Athena Film Festival. She is the co-host of “normal about it,” a Q&A-based newsletter that invites guests to get weird about their favorite fascinations—hers was Tom Cruise.
Instagram: @jadiestills
JUAN CAMILO VELÁSQUEZ
Juan Camilo Velásquez is a PhD candidate in cinema studies at New York University, researching theories and techniques of simultaneity in 20th-century philosophy, cinema, and computer-generated visual media. His writing has appeared in Mubi Notebook, Screen Slate, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and Qui Parle, among other publications.
Instagram: @juanvelasquez.jpg
DANIEL ZHENG
Daniel Zheng is a writer, critic, and filmmaker broadly interested in experimental cinema, critical theory, and cultural studies. His writing can be found in Orion Magazine and The College Hill Independent. He grew up in Hong Kong and holds a degree from Brown University in modern culture and media and English literature, where he wrote a thesis on unexpected recurrences of totality in Sergei Eisenstein, Jean-François Lyotard, Straub-Huillet, and Gilles Deleuze. He has also previously worked at film festivals, film archives, and in publishing. You can find him embarking on far-too-complicated cooking projects or enjoying long (long) dissolves.
Instagram: @danielwzheng
FILM AT LINCOLN CENTER
Film at Lincoln Center (FLC) is a nonprofit organization that celebrates cinema as an essential art form and fosters a vibrant home for film culture to thrive. FLC presents premier film festivals, retrospectives, new releases, and restorations year-round in state-of-the-art theaters at New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. FLC offers audiences the opportunity to discover works from established and emerging directors from around the world with a passionate community of film lovers at marquee events including the New York Film Festival and New Directors/New Films.
Founded in 1969, FLC is committed to preserving the excitement of the theatrical experience for all audiences, advancing high-quality film journalism through the publication of Film Comment, cultivating the next generation of film industry professionals through our FLC Academies, and enriching the lives of all who engage with our programs.
Rolex is the Official Partner and Exclusive Timepiece of Film at Lincoln Center.
Film at Lincoln Center receives generous, year-round support from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. American Airlines is the Official Airline of Film at Lincoln Center. For more information, visit filmlinc.org and follow @filmlinc on X, Instagram, and Bluesky.
Support for Film at Lincoln Center’s Academy Programs is generously provided by Dolby Creator Lab and, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. The FLC Critics Academy is supported in part by Molly Haskell.
FILM COMMENT
Since 1962, Film Comment has been the home of independent film journalism, publishing in-depth interviews, critical analysis, and feature coverage of mainstream, art-house, and avant-garde filmmaking from around the world. Published by Film at Lincoln Center, Film Comment is a nonprofit publication; its activities supporting film culture include The Film Comment Podcast, the weekly Film Comment Letter, and events and talks at Film at Lincoln Center and elsewhere. The magazine was founded under the editorship of Gordon Hitchens, who was followed by Richard Corliss, Harlan Jacobson, Richard T. Jameson, Gavin Smith, and Nicolas Rapold, and is currently co-edited by Clinton Krute and Devika Girish. Past and present contributing writers include Ashley Clark, Manohla Dargis, Raymond Durgnat, Roger Ebert, Manny Farber, Scott Foundas, Molly Haskell, J. Hoberman, Eric Hynes, Kent Jones, Dave Kehr, Nathan Lee, Kathleen Murphy, Sheila O’Malley, Brooks Riley, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Andrew Sarris, Amy Taubin, David Thomson, Amos Vogel, Robin Wood, and many more.
For press inquiries regarding Film at Lincoln Center, please contact:
John Kwiatkowski, Film at Lincoln Center, [email protected]
Eva Tooley, Film at Lincoln Center, [email protected]