ScreenHeatMiami

Sandra Avila

Sandra Avila is a partner-manager at Inclusion in Los Angeles where she is oversees a roster of talented, diverse film & TV screenwriters and directors. A priority of which is creating content for the U.S. Latino Market. Prior to joining Inclusion, she had her own production company, Avila Entertainment for six years. She also did a four-year stint at Maya Entertainment where she oversaw all TV and film projects for the company. These include the indie comedy, TACO SHOP starring Tyler Posey (Teen Wolf), the completion of the features, HARLEM HOSTEL starring Ramon Rodriguez (TRANSFORMERS: Revenge of the Fallen), VALE TODO and in 2009, Maya’s first TV production, ONE HOT SUMMER starring Vanessa Marcil and Jon Seda, in collaboration with the Lifetime Movie Network. Under her own banner, Avila produced ENDGAME starring Rico Rodriguez (Modern Family) and Justina Machado (One Day at a Time) released by (Cinemark Theatres/ HBO in July 2016) and the 1⁄2 hr. scripted dramedy, TABLE MANNERS starring Monica Barbaro (Top Gun, Chicago Justice) and directed by Angel Gracia (From Prada to Nada).

Prior to her tenure at Maya, Avila worked in TV development at Showtime Networks for seven years, where she worked on such notable shows as QUEER AS FOLK, DEXTER, RESURRECTION BLVD., and BARBERSHOP. In addition, she oversaw the LATINO FILMMAKER SHOWCASE, highlighting Latino filmmakers from around the world.

Avila received her BA from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, TX and her JD from Loyola Law School in New Orleans, LA. She was nominated in 2018 as a “Latina of Influence” by Hispanic Lifestyle and by NALIP as “TV Producers on the Rise” at MIP Cancun, 2016.

Screen Heat Miami

Screen Heat Miami (SHM) is hosted by veteran Miami based producers Kevin Sharpley and JL Martinez and each week covers the latest trends in the film, tv, and entertainment industry, including interviews with global and local industry leaders, all told from a "Miami" point of view.

Adriana Barraza

Golden Globe and Academy Award nominee Adriana Barraza is considered one of the most accomplished and respected Latina film and television actresses in the entertainment industry. In 2018 Forbes Magazine Latin America named Adriana the most influential Latina film actress and one of the 100 most powerful Latin American actors of all time. Her big breakthrough role was in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s (The Revenant, Birdman) film Amores Perros, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. She re-collaborated with Iñárritu in Babel opposite Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett and became one of only 6 Mexican actresses to ever receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Some of Barraza's most notable credits include Cake opposite Jennifer Aniston, The 33 directed by Patricia Riggen, the worldwide hit Dora and the Lost City of Gold and the upcoming feature film We Can Be Heroes directed by Robert Rodriguez. She can also currently be seen in the successful short film Bibi opposite JM Longoria and directed by Víctor Dueñas. Barraza has also had an incredible career in television and has starred in successful series that include Capadocia, The Strain, Al Otro Lado Del Muro, Snowfall and most recently is one of the lead characters in the Showtime critically acclaimed original series Penny Dreadful: City of Angels written and created by Academy Award nominee John Logan.

Screen Heat Miami

Screen Heat Miami (SHM) is hosted by veteran Miami based producers Kevin Sharpley and JL Martinez and each week covers the latest trends in the film, tv, and entertainment industry, including interviews with global and local industry leaders, all told from a "Miami" point of view.

Dudley Alexis

An independent filmmaker and visual artist. Dudley Alexis is both a cultural anthropologist and historian who sees his world through unique multicultural eyes. His mission as a Creative is to mine the wealth of hidden details that provide meaning to the lives of those often written off by the mainstream, finding in their stories, real treasure. His gift is in gaining the trust of others who then poignantly share their personal stories, often filled with tragedy and triumph. Alexis vividly portrays their drive to thrive and to live with dignity and equality in a world that would too often attempt to keep them marginalized.

Born in Haiti, Alexis immigrated to the United States in his teens, attending high school and college in Miami where he began studying fine art. His body of work includes a vast number of short documentaries including stories about the First Nation Micousukee Tribe of Florida, made while employed by Micousukee Magazine. He went on to write, film, direct and edit his first full length documentary, ‘Liberty in a Soup’ completed in 2016. ‘Liberty in a Soup’ tells the historical significance of Soup Joumou, the national dish of Haiti, which commemorates the island nation’s triumphant independence from France, making it the first independent Black Republic in the Western Hemisphere. His work on the Arthur McDuffie story began almost immediately after, but not at the exclusion of creating and exhibiting his fine art, and was most recently was selected and featured in the exhibition ‘Kingdom of This World, Reimagined’, curated by noted artist Edouard Duval Carrié , during Miami’s 2019 Art Week as part of the prestigious Art Basel festivities.

Definitely a contemporary ‘Renaissance Man’, Alexis is not just creative but is also a risk taker possessing focused perseverance, self-discipline and a thirst for knowledge and new experiences. Alexis continues to develop his mastery of multiple mediums. His gift of seemingly endless curiosity and keen insight brings us all closer to confronting global issues as part of his ongoing effort to facilitate public awareness and bring societal parity and change wherever needed .

Screen Heat Miami

Screen Heat Miami (SHM) is hosted by veteran Miami based producers Kevin Sharpley and JL Martinez and each week covers the latest trends in the film, tv, and entertainment industry, including interviews with global and local industry leaders, all told from a "Miami" point of view.

Gloria Fan works at Fox21 Television Studios as the Head of the Current Department. Some of the shows she covers include HOMELAND (series finale this Sunday April 26), GENIUS: EINSTEIN, PICASSO, USA’S QUEEN OF THE SOUTH, and MAYANS, the spin-off to FX’s SONS OF ANARCHY (along with FX Productions). In addition, she is developing several new shows including PROMISED NEVERLAND (based on the popular Japanese manga/anime) with Rodney Rothman and Meghan Malloy (INTO THE SPIDERVERSE) and THE DRESDEN FILES with Evan Spiliotopolos.

Her roots began as a feature producer at Mosaic Productions and Atlas Entertainment, where she produced a number of films such as Tom Tykwer’s INTERNATIONAL starring Clive Owen and Naomi Watts, along with several genre movies including SHUTTER, SEASON OF THE WITCH, and IN THE TALL GRASS.

Gloria has a uniquely global perspective, having travelled around the world in search of stories, artists, and cultural experiences. She seeks to incorporate these findings into her daily work. She is thrilled that her career path has taken her from producer to studio executive in both television and film, and is grateful to work on such inspiring projects.

Screen Heat Miami

Screen Heat Miami (SHM) is hosted by veteran Miami based producers Kevin Sharpley and JL Martinez and each week covers the latest trends in the film, tv, and entertainment industry, including interviews with global and local industry leaders, all told from a "Miami" point of view.

Shane Perez

Shane's Puerto Rican-Irish background has always provided a rich palette of inspiration to fuel the creative streak he displayed from a young age. He landed his first writing job at age twelve after approaching a local newspaper about a weekly kid-centric current events column. A born and bred New Yorker, Shane went on to study Film & English at Hunter College/CUNY.

To date, Shane has had one feature screenplay produced and numerous other projects sold or optioned. Shane eventually decided to experience new horizons in Ireland, his mother’s homeland. In Dublin, he worked as a film/entertainment reviewer and feature writer for a national newspaper before heading back to school and attaining his MA in Screenwriting from the National University of Ireland.

Shane has worked as a screenwriter, journalist, script editor and reader on both sides of the Atlantic, including extensive project evaluation work with the Irish Film Board as well as many of the then NY based production companies such as Miramax and New Line. Shane has received further development training from the EU MEDIA funded Sources 2 and the UCLA Professional Writers Program, and was also chosen for the prestigious eQuinoxe Germany screenwriting workshop

Recently, Shane has written several episodes of the Sony/ BRB Internacional children’s cartoon Invizimals, and Aurora World’s forthcoming animated series CubyZoo, as well as an episode of MyTeeVee.tv/Colaborator.com’s anthology series Match. Shane is currently overseeing the bible/script development of Aurora World’s forthcoming reboot of the animated YooHoo & Friends.

As if life wasn’t busy enough, Shane teaches screenwriting part-time at the National University of Ireland, at both the MA and BA level, and mentors the MA students on their thesis projects.

Screen Heat Miami

Screen Heat Miami (SHM) is hosted by veteran Miami based producers Kevin Sharpley and JL Martinez and each week covers the latest trends in the film, tv, and entertainment industry, including interviews with global and local industry leaders, all told from a "Miami" point of view.

Kareem Tabsch

Kareem Tabsch is the co-founder and co-director of Miami's largest art house cinema, an Award winning documentary filmmaker and an Arts Advocate who strongly believes in the power of the arts, particularly film, to enrich lives and revitalize communities.

FILMMAKER

As a documentary filmmaker, Kareem's works has been included in several prestigious film festivals including Slamdance, AFI Docs, DocNYC, Rooftop Films, LA Film Fest where his film won the Best Short Documentary Prize, and Miami Jewish Film Festival where his film won Audience Favorite Documentary among several other festivals. His films have garnered international press attention from outlets like Comedy Central, Vice, The NY Post, Cosmopolitan, Jezebel, Bravo and from celebrities including Andy Cohen, Rush Limbaugh, and Howard Stern.

In 2019, Kareem was named a ‘40 under 40’ filmmaker by DOCNYC, America’s largest documentary film festival.

FILM PROGRAMMER

Kareem is the co-founder and co-director of O Cinema, Miami's largest art house cinema with three locations throughout the area including the Wynwood Arts District, the North Beach neighborhood of Miami Beach and the Village of Miami Shores.

He has served on the First Feature Jury for Frameline San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival, lectured about the history of queer cinema at Florida International University, and has served as a Program Consultant for the Key West Film Festival.

Screen Heat Miami

Screen Heat Miami (SHM) is hosted by veteran Miami based producers Kevin Sharpley and JL Martinez and each week covers the latest trends in the film, tv, and entertainment industry, including interviews with global and local industry leaders, all told from a "Miami" point of view.

Jesus Ramon aka "J. R." Poli is a graduate of Miami Dade College. Marcus (18), his second feature film, is based on his homonymous short film which screened last year at the Miami Film Festival. The short received numerous awards including "Best Actor" at the LA Shorts International Film Festival and "Best of Show" at IndieFest.

Alex Pereira – Bio

I am the Founder and CEO of PMI Americas, a leading company in Latin America for payment solutions, online processing, digital wallets, and B2B payment logistics.

But my career started very differently. For many years, my main focus was in management and media business, mostly packaging movies, and television deals, supervising sales across the globe, and managing multiple productions around the world. My shows won multiple international awards, including several Emmy Award nominations, and I also created and was the Executive Producer of the widely successful TV docu-series “Drug Wars” (Fusion, Discovery, Univision) , which took me to some very exotic and remote locations around the world as we followed police units in real counter-narcotics operations.

As I oversaw productions with dozens of people in several countries, I started to run into a major stumbling block; how can I pay local crews, ac tors, and locations, from my US-based company, and how can I send per diems and cash to my crews working abroad? All options were expensive and unreliable. This led me to develop my own internal payment system, where I could create an account for all my TV crews, and fund these remotely as needed. As I started to further enhance and perfect my system, I soon found myself helping other businesses solve their payment needs by offering my service. Soon, I was servicing more clients in the payment business than in my TV production deals! I decided to pivot and dive into Fintech, and founded PMI Americas in 2018. Today, I help several European and US-based companies, by consulting and providing payment solutions to thousands of people in Latin America and around the globe.

Screen heat Miami

Screen Heat Miami (SHM) is hosted by veteran Miami based producers Kevin Sharpley and JL Martinez and each week covers the latest trends in the film, tv, and entertainment industry, including interviews with global and local industry leaders, all told from a "Miami" point of view.

Jim Hammond

Executive Producer/Puppet Master

Jim has been a puppeteer and producer since his first job at 17 working for an amusement park in the Adirondacks in Upstate New York. Jim is a puppeteer, live entertainment consultant, and character driven brand designer. Carrying a Masters degree in puppet arts design alongside credits as a puppet master for National Tour of Broadway’s The Lion King, he has over 25 years experience in the field designing and fabricating hundreds of productions. Jim specializes in producing international festivals, theatrical productions and NOW viral web/mobile content. As Founder of Puppet Network, his puppetry work has been showcased on PBS, MTV Latin America, ABC, Travel Channel, Huffington Post, AP, New York Post and dozens of media outlets in North and South America.

Jim’s Florida Day of the Dead Celebration is a South Florida signature event attracting nearly 29,000 participants annually and was just named one of the “Top 10 Day of the Dead” Events in North America by The USA Today and Top 3 for The List/ABC Television.

His design and performance work has been seen for the national Talking Wallets ad campaign for Allegiant Airlines and for Tobacco Free Florida campaign among other media projects. He has won South Florida's 2017 Outstanding Contributions in the Arts Award, 2016 Urban Design Award and 2014 Chamber of Commerce Workforce & Education Excellence Award and partnered in over $3M in Community Arts Engagement Grants and Sponsorships among many others.

Screen Heat Miami

Screen Heat Miami (SHM) is hosted by veteran Miami based producers Kevin Sharpley and JL Martinez and each week covers the latest trends in the film, tv, and entertainment industry, including interviews with global and local industry leaders, all told from a "Miami" point of view.

Screen Heat Miami

Screen Heat Miami (SHM) is hosted by veteran Miami based producers Kevin Sharpley and JL Martinez and each week covers the latest trends in the film, tv, and entertainment industry, including interviews with global and local industry leaders, all told from a "Miami" point of view.

Sandy Lighterman

Sandy Lighterman is the Film and Entertainment Commissioner for Miami-Dade County. Under her purview is County’s Office of Film & Entertainment. Ms. Lighterman is responsible for the growth and development of the film, television, music, digital media, commercial advertising and still photography industry in Miami-Dade County. In 2017, she created and helped shepherd through the County Commission, one of the first Countywide inducement programs in the wake of the State’s canceled film & entertainment industry tax incentive program.

Ms. Lighterman is the Chief advocate for entertainment production for Miami-Dade County. She markets Miami-Dade County as a premiere filming location, as well as, attracts ancillary businesses and film and television conferences. She is the chief advocate for production-friendly policies on both the local and state level. Her passion lies in fostering the growth of indigenous content creators, as well as, educating and nurturing future generations of filmmakers.

Ms. Lighterman is the Chairperson of the Miami Dade College School of Entertainment and Design Technology Advisory Board Ms. Lighterman serves on other Advisory Boards: Miami Media and Film Market, Florida International University School of Journalism and Slamdance Miami Film festival. Ms. Lighterman is also a participant in the Big Brothers, Big Sisters program.

And She has received several advocacy awards for her work supporting the industry.

In 2019, she voted in as Vice President of Film Florida, the not-for–profit entertainment production trade association that represents Florida’s film, TV & digital media production industry.

Ms. Lighterman joined the Miami-Dade County Office of Film & Entertainment in 2008, enjoying an extensive and successful 25+ year career as a film and Television producer. Ms. Lighterman brings a wealth of industry experience to her position from producing 200+ music videos and TV commercials, as well as, television series and independent films. In 2007, she retired from her production career in order to stay closer to home and her now grown children. Ms. Lighterman holds a bachelor's degree in Communications from the University of Miami.