ELA THIER Ela Thier wrote and directed A SUMMER RAIN, winning numerous "Best Short" awards and screening at over 200 venues and festivals. This year, Thier wrote and directed FOREIGN LETTERS, a feature film currently in post-production, sponsored by B&H Photo and Arri CSC. Most recently, Thier wrote and directed JUDO GIRL, produced by FluidFilm. She has also directed GENTLE CYCLE ONLY, a film written by Mrinalini Kamath. Thier's writing credits include PUNCTURE, starring Chris Evans, to be released 2011, and THE WEDDING COW, a feature that won over twenty international awards including nine "Best Feature", and five "Audience Choice" awards. A prolific writer, Thier's feature scripts have been selected four times by the Independent Film Week (formerly IFP Market). Among numerous recognitions, Thier was awarded a fellowship grant in screenwriting from the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), and was nominated for the White House Project Emerging Artist Award. Thier studied filmmaking at NYU where she wrote and directed over a dozen short films. In 2006 she began teaching screenwriting, starting with a class of eight participants. As word spread, over two thousand filmmakers attended her variety of workshops. She now teaches screenwriting, producing and film directing, under the banner of The Independent Film School. This year she'll also be teaching a writing-directing seminar at the School of Visual Arts. As part of her teaching, Thier has played a variety of roles in the production of numerous films created by her students. A partial list of credits is listed on IMDB.

EVAN GLUCK Evan Gluck grew up visiting the film sets of his father, Stephen Gluck, a multi Clio-Award-winning director of television commercials. His father's film, A Film, is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art film archive. At the age of thirteen, Gluck became a working musician, and has since played bass with hundreds of bands including his own jazz quartet. Currently the owner of New York Guitar Repair, a bustling musical instrument repair shop, Gluck has sponsored the production of Thier's films and continues to function as the primary source of support for her work as an independent filmmaker. The two were married in 2004.