May 2026 in Arezzo
Christine Vartoughian
Christine Vartoughian is an award-winning, Armenian-American writer and filmmaker. Her work has shown at the Museum of the Moving Image, Lincoln Center, and her feature film about love and suicide, Living with the Dead: A Love Story, is available on Apple TV and Amazon. Christine is a founder of (Screen)Play Press, a publishing company for unproduced film scripts. Her short fiction and poetry has been published in The Bookends Review, Quibble Lit, Parley Lit, Meniscus, Monograph, Samfiftyfour, Audience Askew, Rock Salt Journal and others. Christine is a member of Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, Film Fatales, The Book Fairies, and SAG-AFTRA. Her debut collection of short stories, The Only Way Out Is Through the Window, is available from Rebel Satori. She lives in New York City.
%20Kopie%20-%20Kat%20Rohrer.jpeg)
Kat Rohrer
After graduating with a BFA in Film from the SVA-School of Visual arts Kat Rohrer has produced, written and directed both narrative films and documentaries, as well as a wide variety of industrial films and commercials. Her short film, The Search, won Best Short at the 2005, LA Femme Film Festival. Her 2011 short film, Wantless, was selected for the 2011 Hamptons International Film Festival. Kat has also been the Director of Photography on several feature-length documentaries. Her first feature documentary, Fatal Promises, an in-depth probe of human trafficking, has been show across the US and Europe in multiple film festivals. Kat’s feature length documentary, Back to the Fatherland, was screened in festivals world wide and has been theatrically released in Austria, German, and the United States and aired on TV in Austria, Sweden, Finnland, Germany and Israel. Kat’s 2022 short film “Roads Not Taken” traveled the festival circuit, winning several awards. Her debut feature film What a Feeling had its world premiere at BFI Flare in March of 2024 and screened at over 30 festivals around the globe. She is currently developing two TV series with which she has attended the 2023 Torino Next Series Lab as well as the 2023 HerArts Film Lab.
Kristopher Saint George
Kristopher Saint George is an aspiring screenwriter based in New York City. Having spent much of his working life in blue collar jobs, his writing draws on lived experience exploring character, identity , and the unseen worlds that exist parallel to everyday life. While often grounded in realism, his interests range widely across genre, united by a fascination with flawed people searching for connection and purpose.
Marc Martínez Jordán
Marc Martínez Jordán is a Barcelona-based film director, screenwriter, and editor. Co-founder of Night Drive, his work spans narrative fiction, commercial production, and episodic storytelling. His films have screened at Palm Springs ShortFest (Oscar-qualifying, Best Short winner), Sitges, AFI Fest, Fantasia, Fantastic Fest, and BIFAN, among others, and have been acquired by Canal+, Movistar+, ShortsTV. His short Your Last Day on Earth was praised by Joyce Carol Oates and selected by Cahiers du Cinéma and the ICAA as one of the most notable Spanish shorts of 2019. He is a recipient of the Cine365 Award for feature film development and has been supported by the EU MEDIA Programme.
Marco Coppola
Marco Coppola, a.k.a. Kito, writes, directs, and produces films. His many short films were screened and awarded at major film festivals. He earned his MFA in Film at NYU - Tisch School of the Arts. In New York, he wrote and directed his feature film debut, The Nearest Human Being, starring Natalia Dyer.
Shanee Edwards
Shanee Edwards is an L.A.-based journalist and host of the podcast Write On from Final Draft. Shanee recently won The Next MacGyver television writing competition to create a TV show about a female engineer and was honored to be mentored by actress/producer America Ferrera. Shanee's first novel, Ada Lovelace: The Countess Who Dreamed in Numbers was published by Conrad Press in 2019. Currently, she is working on a biopic of controversial nurse Florence Nightingale. Shanee’s ultimate goal is to tell stories about strong, spirited women whose passion, humor and courage inspire us all.
Theresa Cardiello
Theresa Cardiello moved from the flatlands to Montana’s mountains, where she built a life rooted in art and community. After retiring from her work as a professional counselor, she deepened her involvement in the arts—teaching art and music classes in the Cardiello Art Garage and discovering a new passion for creative writing. Her work now spans screenplays, plays, and poetry, each piece a reflection of a life steeped in story and soul.
Tuixén Benet
Tuixén Benet is a choreographer, dance-film director, and educator working between Barcelona and Los Angeles. Her practice moves fluidly across stage, screen, and pedagogy, approaching choreography as a cinematic, social, and spatial language in which bodies, cameras, and collectives act as co-authors of meaning. She holds a BA in Choreography and Interpretation from the Institut del Teatre (Barcelona) and an MFA in Film Directing from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), where she developed a cross-disciplinary approach bridging dance, film, and visual storytelling.