Our Jury

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.

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Kelly Cochran-Yzquierdo is a screenwriter and Associate Professor of English and Screenwriting based in Alexandria, Virginia. She holds an MFA in Writing for Film and Television from Emerson College.

Her award-winning screenplay Red Dirt Rainbow is a LGBTQ+ drama set in 1994 Oklahoma City about a disgraced country singer who must defend her nightclub and chosen family amid rising political tension.

Kelly is a Stowe Story Labs participant, a New York Script Award winner for Best TV Pilot, and an Austin Film Festival Second Rounder. She writes stories focused on identity, social conflict, and underrepresented voices.

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Crystal Diane Stevens is a US-based screenwriter and story analyst who studied film and literature at Marymount Manhattan College. She began her career working with Academy Award-winning filmmaker Lee Grant and later developed scripts and evaluated screenplays for producers in New York and Los Angeles, including Raw Films and Harvey Keitel’s production company.

Her TV pilot Kill List: Ticket to Hell is a political thriller centered on a high-level government conspiracy involving the US Secretary of State and his MI6-agent son.

Crystal has received over 40 international awards and selections, including recognition from the Nicholl Fellowship, Cannes Screenwriting Competition, and multiple wins across major screenplay festivals such as Cannes, Prague, and Los Angeles.

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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 ! Read the biographyShow less

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. Read the biographyShow less

Bill Osinski is an award-winning journalist, author, and screenwriter whose investigative reporting has exposed corruption, challenged wrongful convictions, and influenced major criminal cases. A Pulitzer Prize finalist, he is the author of the acclaimed nonfiction books Ungodly and Guilty By Popular Demand.

Osinski has written thirteen feature screenplays across multiple genres, including Victoria The First, a Quarterfinalist in the Academy Nicholl Fellowships competition. Drawing on decades of experience uncovering extraordinary true stories, he brings a unique perspective on powerful and meaningful storytelling to the jury.

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