SHORTS JURY 2026
DILCIA BARRERA is a global cinema advocate and arts org executive. Barrera’s film curation experience spans close to two decades and includes tenures as a Programmer for the Sundance Film Festival, programming director for Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival (LALIFF) and senior programmer at American Film Institute’s AFI FEST in addition to working with programming teams at OUTFEST and New York Film Festival. She was the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)’s film curator overseeing film programming and screenings in conjunction with the museum’s exhibitions.
Most recently, as Senior Vice President at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, she spearheaded international engagement strategy and upgrades to the International Feature Film Award rules. Barrera was featured in IndieWire’s “20 Latin Americans Making a Difference for American Independent Film Today” in 2016 and Screen International’s “Future Leaders 2019: programmers and curators” watchlist. Currently serves on an advisory panel appointed by the state of California State to advise on the vision, design, and governance of the future SELA Cultural Center.
ELISABETH BENTLEY is a writer-producer whose work spans narrative and documentary film. She produced A HIDDEN LIFE (Dir. Terence Malick) which premiered in competition at Cannes in 2019, was awarded the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and was released by Searchlight. Her other films focussing on war and conscience include writing NANKING (2007) about the Japanese invasion of Nanjing, China in 1937. NANKING was short-listed for an Academy Award and premiered at Sundance. Bentley was nominated for a Writers Guild of American award for the script.
Recently she completed a screenplay based on the memoir of Kyoshi Tanimoto (HIROSHIMA 8:15) commissioned by NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation). The upcoming film tells the story of the atomic bomb falling on Hiroshima from a Japanese point of view. Bentley’s other credits include producing BEAUTIFUL DARLING, a documentary about Candy Darling, the Andy Warhol Superstar and transgender pioneer which premiered at the Berlinale (2010) and OBSTRUCTED VIEW, forthcoming German/Austrian co-production about the survival of a Jewish girl in Leopoldstadt, Vienna during WW2. Bentley’s writing has been supported by the Michael C. Rockefeller Fellowship and the Yaddo Foundation to whom she is grateful.
NAOMI FONER has spent her career as a screenwriter exploring the exquisite complications of family. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and received the PEN West and Golden Globe Awards for her screenplay Running on Empty, starring River Phoenix and directed by Sidney Lumet. She also wrote and produced A Dangerous Woman, Losing Isaiah, and Bee Season. Very Good Girls, which she wrote and directed, stars Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen, and premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, and was distributed by Tribeca Films.
She began her career as a producer for the Children’s Television Workshop, and was involved with the development of both Sesame Street and The Electric Company, as well as the drama series The Best of Families, during her years in public television. She currently serves on the Writers Executive Committee of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and has been an advisor of the Sundance Screenwriting Lab for the last twenty years. She has taught screenwriting at Columbia, NYU, UCLA and USC film schools.
