About the team
Annie Silverstein (Writer, Director) is an award winning filmmaker and youth worker based in Austin, Texas. Her films have screened at international festivals including Cannes, SXSW, Silverdocs and on PBS Independent Lens. Her latest film, Skunk, won the jury award at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival-Cinéfondation. Before attending film school, Annie spent ten years as a youth worker and media educator, collaborating on community film based projects with Native American youth on reservations across Washington State. She co-founded and served as Artistic Director at Longhouse Media, an indigenous film organization based in Seattle. For her work there, Annie received the National Association for Media Literacy Award for outstanding contributions made in the field of media education. Annie is currently a lecturer at the University of Texas-Austin, where she earned her MFA in Film Production. She’s been named one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker Magazine (2014), Annie is a recipient of the San Francisco Film Society/Kenneth Rainin Foundation Grant. She was selected for the Sundance Screenwriters and Directors Labs, and received the Time Warner Fellowship.
Johnny McAllister (Co-Writer, Executive Producer) is a filmmaker and writer from Donegal, Ireland. He has written and produced films that have screened at international festivals including Cannes, Sundance and SXSW. Raised in the Middle East and North Africa, McAllister pulls from a wide cultural spectrum to inspire his work. His writing credits include Olympia, for Austin-based director Robert Byington, and the short film Be Quiet for Palestinian director Sameh Zoabi. In 2010, he co-wrote and produced Whaling City, an indie feature which received the Alfred P. Sloan Award. Johnny cofounded Transterra Media in 2009, a news and documentary startup in Beirut, Lebanon, whose mission is to empower filmmakers and journalists throughout North Africa and the Middle East. In 2013 he produced and co-wrote Booger Red, a hybrid doc/narrative based on a serious miscarriage of justice in East Texas. Johnny received his MFA from Columbia University in 2004. He was selected for the Sundance 2016 Screenwriters Lab with his upcoming feature Bull.
Monique Walton (Producer) is an Austin-based filmmaker hailing from Long Island, NY. She received a BA from Yale University and an MFA in Film from the University of Texas – Austin. Monique produced the short film Skunk (written & directed by Annie Silverstein), which won first prize at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival – Cinéfondation section and has continued to win awards and screen at festivals internationally. Her work includes original web videos and interstitials for Nickelodeon, short documentaries for Doing Innovation, an interactive ethnographic website commissioned by the Macarthur Foundation, and a web series for The Fit Cycle and the American Heart Association. Monique leads youth media workshops for students of color in Austin and has received support from the Texas Filmmaker Production Fund and the Dina Sherzer Documentary Fund. She was selected for the 2016 Sundance Creative Producing Lab and was named the Mark Silverman Honoree for Bull.
Heather Rae (Producer) has worked as a producer and executive for more than twenty years. She has been named one of Variety‘s Ten Producers to Watch and produced Frozen River, for which she won the Piaget Producer Award. Frozen River won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, was nominated for two Academy Awards, won two Gotham Awards and was nominated for seven Spirit Awards, winning two. Rae produced and directed the acclaimed documentary Trudell. Her films also include The Dry Land, Magic Valley, and Ass Backwards. Rae produced festival darling I Believe in Unicorns from writer/director Leah Meyerhoff, and Netflix Original Tallulah, written and directed by Sian Heder, which premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. She recently wrapped on Olivia Milch’s Blacklist script, Dude, and is currently in production on Akicita, the only Native-made documentary feature that tells the story of Standing Rock. Rae ran the Native Program at the Sundance Institute for six years and has sat on their Board of Trustees, advising organizations including: The Rockefeller Foundation, IFP, Film Independent, The Ford Foundation, The Tribeca Institute, and First Americans in the Arts. Rae is working with both her settler and indigenous heritage to deepen the dialogue of reconciliation and responsibility in the Americas.
Ryan Zacarias’ (Producer) films include Michael Tully’s Septien and Ping Pong Summer, Matt Boyd’s documentary A Rubberband Is An Unlikely Instrument, Matt Porterfield’s I Used To Be Darker, Rick Alverson’s Entertainment, which premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film festival and Mediterranea, by Jonas Carpignano, which premiered in the 2015 Semaine de la Critique at the Cannes Film Festival. He executive produced Tim Sutton’s Dark Night, which premiered in the NEXT Section at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. Zacarias produced Carpignano’s new film A Ciambra, which premiered in Directors Fortnight at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival and Matt Porterfield’s Sollers Point which is set to premiere in the fall of 2017. Zacarias’ films have been supported by Cinereach, the Sundance Institute, Cannes Next Step and Cinefondation, San Francisco Film Society, Doha Film Institute, Cinemart, and the Berlinale Co-Production Market. His films have been distributed by IFC Films, Magnolia, Haut et Court (France), Paramount UK, Strand Releasing, Oscilloscope, Gravitas Ventures, and Factory 25. Zacarias also produced Harmony Korine’s short films, Umshini starring South African rap sensation Die Antwoord and Snowballs.