Our Jury
Meet The Team
Michael Graf
Emmy Award winning filmmaker, Michael Graf, is the co-founder of the WI Screenwriting Symposium and the inaugural writer in residence at the University of Wisconsin Institute For Discovery. He’s previously won the Cannes Script Awards, been shortlisted for the Nicholl Fellowship and won top screenwriting honors at film festivals in Paris, LA, Tokyo, Nassau, Chicago and Park City and The International Screenwriters Association named him one of their “Top 25 Screenwriters To Watch.” Michael’s a member of the Director’s Guild of America, was named “Director of the Year” by Screen magazine and directed two Super Bowl TV campaigns. Graf recently wrote GREEN AND GOLD starring Craig T. Nelson and Brandon Sklenar, winner of the audience award at both the Heartland and Austin Film Festivals.
Soda Persi
Soda is an award winning choreographer and started writing plays in 2018. Before that she had performed with the grassroots Asian American theatre company Here ‘n’ Now and was a member of the New York based and north American touring company of STOMP. She took a 17 year hiatus to raise her family of five kids. And in 2017 jumped back into performing and has r looked back since !
CR Sherman
Sherman is a writer based in Southern Nevada, specializing in action-adventure stories about characters who live with risk. In 2020, he enrolled in the College of Fine Arts at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, focusing on screenwriting in both the Graduate and Undergraduate Programs. Sherman also freelances in Location Sound and BTS Photography to gain on-set production experience.
