STAFF
Artistic Director
Barton Weiss, is an award-winning independent film and video producer, director, editor, and educator who has lived in Dallas since 1981. Mr. Weiss has taught film and video production at Texas A&M’s Visualization Lab, Southern Methodist University, the University of Texas at Austin and Arlington, Dallas Community College District and West Virginia State College. He currently serves as President of the Board of Directors of the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers, serves on the Board of Directors of the University Film and Video Association, is a past Vice President of the Texas Association of Film and Tape Professionals, founder and past president of the West Virginia Filmmakers’ Guild, and co-founder of VideoFest and the Video Association of Dallas. He has been a video columnist for The Dallas Morning News, The Dallas Times Herald, United Features Syndicate and KERA 90.1 FM Radio in Dallas. Mr. Weiss received an MFA in Film Directing from Columbia University in 1978 and a B.A. from Temple University in 1975. In 2012 he was named a finalist in the Annual Art Awards by the Dallas Observer. Bart can be reached at bart(at)videofest.org
Managing Director
Raquel Chapa, recently completed Open Season, her first short made possible by the Southwest Alternate Media Project. She is currently in her 8th year of programming a short film program for Association of American Indian Affairs and write reviews for Native Foodways magazine. She was associate producer for the 3rd episode of the We Shall Remain series on PBS, and has worked on documentaries for National Geographic, the Discovery Channel, and the History Channel. She was accepted in to NALIP Latino Producers Academy the summer of 2010 and to the PBS Production Lab in 2011. Raquel got her B.A. from the University of Houston in Literature and her M.A. for Texas Tech University in Museum Studies. Raquel can be reached at raquel(at)videofest.org.
Fall Intern
Linda Nguyen is Vietnamese Asian- American, born and raised in Texas. She has one older sister, mother and father, and a chihuahua. She adore animals and interacting with children. She currently work at an after school learning center named Eye Level as a math instructor. She is a senior at University of North Texas majoring in Radio/ Television/ Film. She has always been interested in films, television, music, photography, and art. She also enjoy cooking new recipes she finds online and shares with friends. Linda cna be reached at LindaNguyen3(at)my.unt.edu
PROGRAMMERS
Daniel Laabs, In the last few years Daniel has directed a number of short films that have toured around the national festival circuit, including the award winning films, “sleet/snow” and “Start a Band”. He studied film at the University of Texas at Arlington where he met Julie Gould with whom he co-directed “8”, SXSW Texas Short Grand Jury Award Winner. He is also a film festival correspondent for Cinemalogue.com and was hired last year as the Programer/Technical Director for the Dallas Videofest. He is currently in pre-production for his first feature and is one of the recipients of the 2011 Texas Filmmakers’ Production Fund grants. Daniel can be reached at daniel(at)videofest.org.
Cameron Bruce Nelson (Writer/Director) has written, directed, edited, and produced several short fiction films and documentaries that have played both locally and nationally on the festival circuit. His film, IN KIND, premiered at the Northside Film Festival in Brooklyn as well as screening locally at the Lone Star International Film Festival and Videofest 24. Called a “filmmaker on the verge” by the Fort Worth weekly, his music videos for Fungi Girls and Eternal Summers have premiered on pitchfork.com, Chicago’s Seen and Heard Music Video Festival, and all over the blogosphere. He currently serves as the Technical Supervisor for Videofest 25 in Dallas and works for the Oak Cliff Film Festival. Most recently, Cameron has finished a short documentary chronicling an organic grass-fed beef ranch in East Texas during the 2011-2012 drought. He lives in Dallas, TX. Cameron can be reached at cameronnelson(at)att.net.
Experimental Programmers
Michael A. Morris is a film/video artist and educator from Dallas, Texas. His short essay videos have been shown at festivals and alternative art spaces including the Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival, Milwaukee Underground Film Festival, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago’s Nightingale Theatre, Bronx Art Space, and more. He programs Contemplative Cinema, a local screening series of experimental film and video. He teaches in the New Media program at University of North Texas, as well as at the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University. Michael can be reached at m_alex_morri(at)yahoo.com.
Carolyn Sortor is a media-based artist with a B.F.A. purchased from her then-boyfriend (he didn’t really need it anymore). Her work has been exhibited in Dallas, New York, San Francisco, Austin, Marfa, and elsewhere and broadcast on Current TV. In 2004, she began assisting with curating for the VideoFest, and in 2008 co-curated the first The Program, comprising recent video and other media-based works by nearly fifty internationally-recognized artists. In 1996-98 she was the first Chair of the Video Association Board who wasn’t Bart. Before coming out as an artist, she had a twenty-year career as a transactional lawyer. Her main website is c-cyte.com, and she blogs at c-Blog, on the subjects of art, politics, and trash. Carolyn can be reached at carolyn(at)c-cyte.com.
Horror Programmer
Charles Dee Mitchell is a freelance writer on the arts based in Dallas. Over the past thirty years he has contributed to The Dallas Observer, The Dallas Morning News, Artforum, Art in America, and PhotoEye. He has also written essays for exhibitions at both public and private galleries. His curatorial projects have been hosted by The Video Association of Dallas, the University of Texas at Arlington, the Oak Cliff Cultural Center, the McKinney Avue Contemporary, as well as many private galleries. He blogs at www.potatoweather.blogspot.com. Dee can be reached at charlesdeemitchell(at)gmail.com.
Documentary Programmers
Dan Anderson has been a film programmer for the past ten years. He founded the Bearded Child Film Festival, an alternative/underground traveling festival, while still a high school student in Northern Minnesota. Since then, he has organized well over 100 film screenings and cinema events all across the United States and Canada. Currently, Anderson is in his second year as program/festival director for the Hot Springs Documentary Film Institute in Arkansas. He is the chief programmer for the renowned Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival and also the Arkansas Underground Film Festival. He has taught film workshops and courses for all ages, and has shown his own work internationally as a filmmaker. Dan can be reached at dan.hsdf(at)gmail.com.
Joshua Butler is the Founder and Director of Thin Line Film Fest, Texas’ only documentary film festival held each year in February. Joshua spends a good part of the year watching hundreds of documentary films of all types to showcase to North Texas’ audiences. Thin Line is a program of Texas Filmmakers, a non-profit corporation founded by Joshua as a support organization for emerging media makers. This summer, Joshua & his wife Denise welcomed their first daughter, Quinn, into this world… by far their biggest achievement yet. Joshua can be reached at joshuabutler(at)texasfilmmakers.org.