2023 Festival Judge: Jon Adler

I've been hosting the morning show at FM 102.1 for the last 16 years. My interviews tend to lean towards comedians, authors, musicians and actors. In addition to radio, I've also worked in TV news and worked for Avid Technology as a software trainer (instructing newsroom software and video editing). 

As far as indie films, I've appeared (voice only) in 2009's New Day and 2022's Cactus Jack as a radio host (voice only). I'm very excited and honored to be a judge this year.

2023 Festival Judge: Krystal Hardy

Krystal Hardy is a Milwaukee native, freelance writer and film enthusiast. After graduating from Marquette University, she continued to write and work in marketing. As a native Milwaukeean, Krystal focused on telling the powerful, inspiring stories of our BIPOC communities in hopes of bridging gaps. In 2018 she created KDH_Creative LLC, a digital marketing solutions company to help small businesses and non-profits with writing, marketing and public relations needs. Her hobbies include playing in makeup, gardening, blogging, endlessly scrolling on Pinterest and Tik Tok or taking romantic strolls through our public libraries. Krystal most recently began a position with the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club as Manager of Multicultural Marketing.

For more visit www.kdhcreative.net
or follow Krystal on social media.

Twitter and Instagram: KDH_Creative

2023 Film: Burger Snap

Burger Snap by Shun Powell

Milwaukee, WI (Milwaukee Premiere)

Running Time: 11 minutes
Block 5, September 9th. 9:15PM
Comedy

For tickets click HERE.

In a world where art degrees can't guarantee a job, a college art student takes a gig at "Burger Snap," a fast-food joint, hoping to pay off their tuition. But on their first day, when a swarm of aliens descends on the planet, the student must muster all their creativity to save humanity from being served up as the next meal. Will they use their brush strokes to fend off the extraterrestrial threat, or will they be reduced to a mere greasy patty in the cosmic order of things? "Burger Snap" is a quirky sci-fi comedy that proves art school can teach you more than just how to paint pretty pictures.

2023 Festival Judge: Carey Borth

This Wisconsin-born Entertainment Attorney and Los Angeles writer, ghostwriter, and hands-on producer, makes for a varied career in the entertainment field. As an indie producer, Carey has a hands-on approach participating in hiring crews, casting, location scouting, publicity and obtaining budgets and sales estimates. She has packaged a multitude of projects, ghostwritten or been a script-doctor on over 60 films and thirty film business plans and executive summaries, some of which have been optioned and she herself has optioned a number of scripts over the years. 

Having been both in front of the camera as a stand-in for Cameron Diaz on a commercial and model since the age of five, she also works behind the camera. In addition to completing some camera work for the feature film "Scare Me" which she produces with writer and director hometown favorite Mark Borchardt, she also cherishes her time working alongside Hollywood stars such as Jason Alexander. Carey worked on the "The Whitey Show" with him at the Radford studio where the TV show synonymous for "sitcom" aka "Seinfeld" was shot in front of a live audience for a number of years. 

Carey acquired a variety of educational qualifications with three business degrees from UW-Madison (Real Estate, Finance and Marketing), and obtained her Juris Doctor from Pepperdine Law School (Malibu, CA) where she studied for one semester at the Imperial College in Knightsbridge and one summer at UW-Madison Law School. She also attended Art Center College of Design Night Program for three years in Pasadena, California, studying Art History, Photography and Life Drawing. Perhaps her greatest scholastic achievement is her MFA in Film & TV from UCLA, earned from 1994 to 2002. 

During her tenure at UCLA she worked as a crew member, doing sound and/or acting in a plethora of shorts and student films. She was the Student Government Representative for the Film School at UCLA and hosted weekly gatherings in the sound stage so the Master of Film students could mingle and form alliances for future work upon graduation. In addition to working on other student's projects, she wrote, shot and edited her own 16mm live-action films, a number of animations and won a Five Thousand Dollar award from Lew Wasserman for a film she made called, "Saving the Rainforest". She shot the images used in the animation in Brazil and did sound in Santa Monica. She went on to direct and produce five-camera shoots at the House of Blues in Hollywood and managed a stable of screenwriters for a number of years before moving back to Milwaukee. Since that time, Carey worked for six years with Mark Borchardt of Northwest Productions, of "American Movie" and "Coven" fame and they produced and worked together on a number of music video's and indie projects in the midwest, In addition to helping Frankie Latina with a few locations for his film, "Modus Operandi" she also worked with Mr. Borchardt on the cable show "Made" and the feature film, by Jon Springer, "The Hagstone Demon". A highlight of her film career was filming "The Mark and Mike Show," whereby Jeff Stilson, executive producer of "The Osbournes," followed Carey and Mark Borchardt's crew around as the subjects of a reality Comedy Central show during the filming of "Scare Me". She learned being on a reality show was a lot more difficult and intrusive than one would first imagine. She also obtained cast and performed as a zombie one below freezing night for G4's "Mark and Mike's Halloween Special". 

As an artist and photographer, Carey has gathered acclaim and sold her works in galleries, via private commissions and at numerous festivals and plein-air events. She has judged both the IFP in Los Angeles and Scriptapalooza screenwriting contests and is truly honored to be a judge at the Milwaukee Short Film Festival for the third time.

2023 Festival Judge: Lynda Reiss

Lynda Reiss is an award-winning director whose character driven films explore the darker parts of the human condition, with a levity from the humor in her voice. Born in New York and raised in the UK, she has travelled the world, been a nanny for the super-rich, a Prop House owner, as well as having had a successful career as a Property Master on projects such as American Beauty, True Detective and Stranger Things. When this work could no longer satisfy her creative soul, she decided to follow her dream and directed her first film. This short, Ready to Go won 27 awards on the festival circuit, and was Oscar qualified for 2020. Lynda is a fellow of the Sony Diverse Directors Program. She is in development on two feature films, and a limited series, which she has written. 

Irrepressible and hilarious, Lynda is who you want to be working alongside when you are shooting in some alley at three in the morning, completing the day and having fun doing it.

2023 Voices Heard Judge: Benjamin Emil Soto

Ben Soto is a writer, filmmaker, fight choreographer, stunt actor, and content creator who loves the art of storytelling. For Ben, stories are a mirror that helps us learn about ourselves and each other and allow us to escape to fantastic worlds while doing so. 

Multitalented nominated storyteller for film and books. 2020 Readers Choice Awards by TCK Publishing for Casino City: A Cooler's Conspiracy, special selection for Paris Short Film Festival 2022 for Halcyon Days, and videographer for the Chicago Blackhawks Land Acknowledgement video. 

Ben resides in Milwaukee, WI, with his better half, two energetic wheaten terriers, and maintains his credentials as a certified personal trainer and martial artist.

2023 Voices Heard Judge: Paulina Lule

Paulina Lule is an American actor and filmmaker. They were born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Their acting training began at the Joanne Baron/DW Brown Studio in Santa Monica where they completed a 2-year Meisner Technique Conservatory program. They then auditioned for and were accepted into the inaugural class of the Los Angeles branch of the award-winning Identity School of Acting. Since then, they have appeared in several television shows including recurring roles on Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and ABC's General Hospital. They also studied film directing and screenwriting at the Academy for Creative Media at University of Hawaii-Manoa and received a Master of Fine arts from Chapman University in Orange County. Their films have played at several festivals and won awards including at the BronzeLens Festival in Atlanta and the Pan African Film festival in Los Angeles.

2023 Voices Heard Judge: Immanuel Baldwin

Immanuel Baldwin is an award-winning storyteller, coffee lover and tech enthusiast whose always had a proclivity to create things for people to experience. He’s held many roles on various production teams and has a deep-rooted love for the art of filmmaking. Currently Immanuel resides in Milwaukee and is a digital content creator for an advertising agency. He is very excited to be a part of this year's film festival.

2023 Legacy Film: Moviebonics

Moviebonics by Lance Miller & Donald P. Unverrich
Milwaukee

Running Time: 8 minutes
Block 4, September 9th. 6:30PM
Comedy

For tickets click HERE.

Moviebonics concerns a couple so enamored with cinema that they only speak in famous film quotations. Into their "world" enter two evangelists forbidden by religion to see movies, leading to a humorous language barrier, impossible to overcome. What we've got here is...failure to communicate.

Moviebonics won Best Film in 2007