Meet the Makers Brunch
An Intimate Event with Visiting Documentary Filmmakers
Free with purchase of brunch
A Houston Cinema Arts Festival tradition: Meet the Makers Brunch is an opportunity to enjoy a casual setting with our visiting documentary filmmakers. Artistic Director Richard Herskowitz hosts a dialogue followed by a Q&A session with attendees.
Enjoy the spectacular view of the Houston skyline and savor a delicious brunch at Poitín Restaurant in Sawyer Yards.
This is a free event (with purchase of brunch) and open to the public. No reservation or RSVP necessary.
After the event - stop by 360 Cinema - a short walk away at Silver Street Studios across the street.
Special Guests
Giorgio Angelini
After touring in bands including The Rosebuds and Bishop Allen for much of his 20s, Angelini enrolled in the Masters of Architecture program at Rice University during the depths of the 2008 real estate collapse. It was in this tumultuous time that the seeds for his documentary debut, Owned, began to take shape. Following graduate school, Angelini began working with Shaum Shich Architects, where he designed a wide array of projects, including the White Oak Music Hall in Houston, Texas, which received an AIA design award in 2017. While directing Owned, he helped to produce the indie break-out hit My Friend Dahmer (2017) and directed a documentary short for celebrated performance artist Mary Ellen Carroll entitled, My Death is Pending…Because (2017). Angelini is currently producing his second feature documentary, Feel Good Man, a story about Pepe the Frog, memetics, and the rise of far-right youth culture in America.
Nadia Shihab
Trained as an urban planner and raised in west Texas by an Iraqi mother and a Yemini father, Nadia Shihab began making films in order to explore her connections to the places she calls home. Her films are marked by their intimacy, and often explore the act of forging roots despite internal landscapes of dislocation. Her half-hour film Amal’s Garden (2012) was filmed in northern Iraq and screened in festivals and galleries internationally, including at Cinéma du Réel at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, the Dubai International Film Festival, the Walker Art Center, and the Arab American National Museum. She has also composed music for films and her soundscapes often build from meditative rhythmic cycles into dense atmospheres streaked with melodic phrasing. Shihab’s work has been supported by the Sundance Documentary Fund, Tribeca Film Institute, the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, Firelight Media, ENJAAZ, and the Center for Asian American Media. She was a Fulbright Scholar to Turkey and a Flaherty Fellow. She lives and works in Oakland, California.
Nathaniel Kahn
Growing up In a family of creative people, Nathaniel Kahn saw firsthand how difficult it is to live life as an artist. An award-winning filmmaker in his own right, Kahn is perhaps best known for his documentary My Architect, about his father, Louis I. Kahn, which was nominated for an Academy Award© in 2003 as well as being nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards and an Emmy. Kahn also won the 2004 Directors Guild of America award for outstanding direction of a documentary. His short films include the Oscar and Emmy nominated Two Hands (2006), about the internationally celebrated pianist Leon Fleisher. Kahn has also made several films on science including Telescope (2015) and Dark Side of the Sun (2016) for Discovery. He is currently working on a film about NASA’s new Webb Telescope and the search for life in the universe, as well as a feature screenplay, which he will direct.
Daniel Miller
Daniel Miller teaches classes on documentary film history and production in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon. Miller founded and currently directs the Oregon Documentary Project, which has supported the production of over 60 award-winning student documentary films for public and commercial broadcast. His own film work includes Dream to Fly on Howard Hughes’ aviation achievements, Making Pictures on the Eugene Register-Guard’s influential photojournalism staff, and Fire in the Heartland on the student movements as well as the shootings that took place at Kent State and at Jackson State universities in May 1970. This film was an official selection at the 2010 Cleveland International Film Festival and the opening event at the 40th Anniversary Commemoration of the shootings at Kent and Jackson from May 1-May 4, 2010.
Ivete Lucas & Patrick Bresnan
Born in Brazil, Ivete Lucas started her career in Mexico and now lives in the United States. Her short documentary, The Send Off, co-directed with her partner Patrick Bresnan, premiered at Sundance in 2016 and won jury awards at SXSW, AFI Fest, and the San Francisco International Film Festival. Skip Day, which she directed and produced, premiered at Quinzaine des Réalisasteurs in May 2018. The duo was named among Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film in 2016.
Patrick Bresnan is a visual artist and filmmaker. After a formative period working for prominent Mission School artists Barry McGee (aka Twist) and Clare Rojas, he co-directed the short documentary The Send Off (2016) with his partner Ivete Lucas. Their short The Rabbit Hunt premiered at Sundance in 2017 prior to competing at the Berlinale and has won over 20 awards including The Cinema Eye Honor. In 2017, he and Lucas directed the short Roadside Attraction which premiered at Toronto International Film Festival.
Fred Barney Taylor
Fred Barney Taylor has received international recognition at festivals and screenings for his work in film and television, including his 2013 feature The Polymath, or the Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany. He directed the Travel Channel series Great Writers/Great Cities, which showcased cities as seen through the eyes of contemporary writers including, “Paco Taibo’s Mexico City” (narrated by Edward James Olmos); “Iain Sinclair’s London;” “Carl Hiaasen: From Miami to Key West” with music and narration by Warren Zevon, and “New York Underground,” with Luc Sante´, Samuel R. Delany, David Rieff, and Fran Lebowitz. Taylor was a Senior Faculty member at the School of Visual Arts, New York City for ten years and an annual visiting professor at Michigan State University in East Lansing (1993-1999).
Michelle Memran
Michelle Memran is a journalist, illustrator, and filmmaker. For nearly twenty years she’s worked as a reporter, researcher, and editor in New York City. She’s also written for numerous publications, including Newsweek, The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, Vanity Fair and American Theatre magazine. Her oil pastel portraits have been commissioned by The New York Times Book Review, as well as by various theatrical and film productions. As part of Brown’s Fitt Artist Residency in 2016, Michelle collaborated with theater director Katie Pearl on a new performance and film project that juxtaposed characters and scenes from the plays of María Irene Fornés with outtakes from the film’s footage.