Christopher Rakas is an award-winning director, producer, writer, and composer based in El Paso, Texas. His short film Dada Noise 2 has had a successful film festival run worldwide. He is currently co-writing and scoring several episodes for the TV series On Bloody Paths with Mary S. Applegate and Ingmar Koch. He is also a member of the Liquid Sky Artist Collective in Portugal. He is also currently producing a documentary film featuring his brother’s local El Paso-based metal punk band, Uglor. You can listen to songs by Uglor on YouTube.

Christopher and I met through this podcast and The Experimental Film Fest in 2022. His film Dada Noise 2 was screened at the festival. Since that time, he has judged films for The Experimental Film Fest. He is a thoughtful experimental film advocate who has dedicated hundreds of hours to the festival, and we appreciate him for his time and insights.

In this podcast, we pick up where we left off in 2022 from his first guest appearance on the show on Episode 6 of Season 3.

Nolan Stolz is a composer, scholar, drummer, and music professor living in Spartanburg, SC. Born in Milwaukee, WI, Stolz grew up in Las Vegas, NV, where he worked as a freelance jazz drummer for several years. Today, he is a Professor of Music at the University of South Carolina Upstate, where he teaches composition, music theory, and popular music studies.

Although firmly rooted in the contemporary classical tradition, his compositions are influenced by his performance background in jazz and rock. Fanfare Magazine called his Lincoln Highway Suite for orchestra a “brilliant piece of Americana. . .a piece of inspiration and skill,” saying that the “orchestration is brilliantly managed” and “Stolz has a fine repository of [melodies] in his back pocket.” The Brno Philharmonic’s recording of that work (on Orchestral Masters, Vol. 5) was awarded second place in the American Prize in 2020. Other studio recordings include Princess Ka‘iulani for flute on SCI’s Modes album, Catharsis II for piano quartet on Millennial Masters Vol. 3, Lullaby for Sam for guitar on Aaron Larget-Caplan’s New Lullaby, and several others.

Océane Buxton is a visual artist specializing in video, sound design, textiles, digital imaging, and performance art. She grew up in Québec City and has lived in Montréal since 2017. After studying at RMIT School of Art (Melbourne, Australia) in 2019, she received a bachelor’s degree in Intermedia/Cyberarts from Concordia University in 2021. She began the master’s program in visual arts at UQAM in 2023. She participated in the 6th edition of Artch, and her work has been exhibited by the Ada X Artist Center, La Bande Vidéo, Struts Gallery (Sackville, New Brunswick), and the web art platform Galerie Galerie. She is currently working as a freelance cultural mediator.

Award winning filmmaker, Michael Lies, is recognized by film organizations in New York, Pittsburgh and Florence, Italy. In 2012, his screenplay for The Tenth Door was awarded 1st Prize in Short Film Scripts at the Harlem International Film Festival and named a finalist in the Moondance International Film Festival. In 2023 The Tenth Door was completed by Michael and a couple of dozen people from the Pittsburgh area.

In 2009 Michael’s short film EXPERYMENT6 was awarded the Dante Award of Excellence at the Florence International Film Festival. The US premiere was held at the Andy Warhol Theater in Pittsburgh.

Cathy Tuttle is a writer, producer, and actor and is also featured in the podcast.

Cassidy Civiero is a transgender filmmaker who uses experimental techniques to make movies that align with his values and identity. His films ask just as many questions as they answer and allow room for audience participation in crafting the narrative. His latest film, Return to Nature, was funded by the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund and premiered at the Penticton Art Gallery for two months before playing at the Open Vault Film Fest and winning Critic's Choice at the Experimental Film Fest. His previous film, Ethical Consumption, was funded by the Mental Health Commission of California via the Voices With Impact production grant. Cassidy is a writer and co-executive producer for Season 2 of You're My Hero for CBC Gem, which is currently in post-production. He is a co-creator and writer for Sweet as Sugar, which is developing for Out TV. He is in the development of five feature films, breaking into long-form content with steady passion and determination.

Gillian Harrill's films⁠ have been featured at various festivals, ranging from the Oscar-qualifying ⁠AmDocs Film Festival⁠⁠ ⁠to the esteemed ⁠Sidewalk Film Festival⁠ and the ⁠LA Independent Women Film Awards⁠. ⁠Her⁠ ability to craft compelling narratives and capture the essence of her subjects has earned her a reputation as a filmmaker with an eccentric sense of humor and unwavering dedication to her craft. She started as the lead assistant editor on⁠ Beyond the Straight and Narrow⁠, streaming on Kanopy. In 2022, Gillian embarked on a fellowship in documentary filmmaking at ⁠Southern Exposure,⁠ where she spent 6 weeks fully immersed in directing ⁠Taxing the Sun⁠,⁠ ⁠which exposed legislation that decreased access to renewable energy in Alabama. Currently, Gillian is actively engaged in curating and associate producing two archival films that will be showcased as permanent exhibits in a Presidential Center opening in 2025. Her involvement in this endeavor reflects her dedication to preserving and sharing pivotal moments in collective history. She has also been a researcher for PBS programs like ⁠Native America 2.0⁠ and ⁠Confluence⁠⁠ ⁠and a production assistant and costume designer for ⁠Realm of Satan,⁠ premiering at Sundance 2024. Gillian holds a Bachelor of Science in Communication from Cornell University, where she minored in Film, Anthropology, and Media Studies. 

A non-binary punk-rock poet with style an exec once described as “Aaron Sorkin on acid,” Frankie specializes in writing dark comedies about deeply flawed losers struggling to reinvent themselves in stories packed with punchlines taking bold swings towards silly and surreal. A New Jersey native raised in the Bible Belt, Frankie Campisano now calls Los Angeles their home.

A non-binary punk-rock poet with a style an exec once described as “Aaron Sorkin on acid”, Frankie specializes in writing dark comedies about deeply flawed losers struggling to reinvent themselves in stories packed with punchlines taking bold swings towards silly and surreal.

Frankie has worked in the entertainment industry for over ten years, including at NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures Classics, and Fox Broadcasting Company. They are freelance script development analysts, covering comedy pilots and features for production companies, contests, and film festivals, including the Austin Film Festival and the Boston Film Festival.

Frankie graduated from Elon University (…no relation) in Elon, North Carolina (…again, no relation), where they studied screenwriting and poetry. As one of Elon’s inaugural Alumni Production Fund winners, Frankie partnered with students and alumni to produce an experimental comedy/horror short, SECRET MENU BEAUTY PAGEANT, currently on the festival circuit.

Vasco Diogo was born in 1970 in Lisbon. Diogo is now an Experimental Director, Performer, Video Artist, and New Media and Cinema Assistant Professor at the University of Beira Interior (Covilhã-Portugal).
Arts and Communication Researcher at Communication Sciences PhD by Universidade Nova de Lisboa: "Video: Specificity, Hybridity and Experimentation" (scholarship of Foundation for Science and Technology - FCT), 2008.

Vasco Diogo has won more than 50 awards in experimental cinema at international festivals.

Drawing, photography, poetry, electro-acoustic music, and mixed media are other work areas.

Amanda Besl is a painter and experimental filmmaker living in Buffalo, NY. She has shown widely in New York State, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Russia. Besl holds an MFA in Painting from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI, and a BFA from SUNY Oswego. Her paintings are part of several notable private and public collections, including the Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo; Nichido Contemporary, Tokyo, Japan; the Burger Collection, Hong Kong; and the Tullman Collection, Chicago. Besl uses natural history as a platform to explore social issues. She was awarded a 2024 NYSCA grant for Temple of Hortus, a botanically inspired installation of 2-D, 3-D, and video work questioning curated and commercial approaches to nature, hybridization, mutation, and collection. Resource Art represents Besl, and her 2022 solo exhibition “Blue Mythologies” at The Raft of Sanity gallery began her foray into experimental filmmaking.

Born in Venezuela but raised in New York, where he currently lives, Martin Del Carpio is an artist marked by experimentation, the search of new concepts, sounds and melodies, by a fascination with lyrics and the journey that music takes us on.