Panel of Cool Coolest Film Festivals 2024
Credit: C/O

We are grateful to the following filmmakers and film experts who created our 25 Coolest Film Festival of the World, 2024 edition.

Hadley Austin – Credit: C/O

Hadley Austin is a writer and documentarian whose work is rooted in historical research, social justice, and the natural world. Demon Mineral (2023), a film made to celebrate and amplify the voices of  those engaging in the multi-generational work of cleaning up contamination from uranium mining on the Navajo Nation, is her directorial debut. In 2024 the film won the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature at Slamdance. 

Katie and Ian Bignell – Credit: C/O

Ian and Katie Bignell front Festival Formula, a strategy company with 20-plus years experience behind it, providing strategy and submissions support to filmmakers worldwide. They’re active members of the Short Film Conference and the Film Festival Alliance. They spend their time watching films to consider for their slate, as well as traveling to festivals in all territories for industry events at festivals. Jury work and speaking engagements include: HollyShorts, Heartland Film Festival, BFI Flare, Flickers Rhode Island Film Festival, Sundance, SXSW, Cleveland International, St. Louis International, Palm Springs Shortsfest, Young Directors Awards, Raindance, Tallgrass Film Festival, PÖFF Shorts, Clermont Ferrand International Short Film Festival and more. Katie is also a key spokesperson on festival issues with coverage in The Hollywood Reporter and Screen Daily regarding suspect and fraudulent film festivals.

Ramone Menon – Credit: C/O

Born and raised in Bangalore, India, Ramone Menon makes films that address social issues through the lens of genre cinema. His most recent short, “My Scary Indian Wedding,” won awards at Panic Fest, FilmQuest, Nevermore and many other festivals. Previous works include the award-winning shorts “The Pey” and “Once Upon a Time in a Haunted House.” He is working on a feature version of “My Scary Indian Wedding.” He lives in Los Angeles, California. 

Michael Taylor Jackson – Credit: C/O

Michael Taylor Jackson is a filmmaker and a visual artist who attended art school in Buenos Aires before moving to New York City to complete an MFA in Film Directing in 2019. While he was in school, his series Harlemites screened at the Cinequest, Sarasota, and Sonoma film festivals. This year, his debut feature Underground Orange played at BAFICI, Frameline and Poppy Jasper, where it won Best Feature and the Social Justice Award.

Katherine Propper – Credit: C/O

Katherine Propper is a film director and screenwriter based in her hometown of Los Angeles. Her feature directorial debut, Lost Soulz, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and was theatrically released by Kino Lorber this year. Her short film “Birds” won awards at SXSW, AFI, and Clermont-Ferrand, before being picked up by The New Yorker, where it can currently be streamed. She called Austin, Texas home for most of the last decade, working on director Terrence Malick’s editing team and studying film craft in the University of Texas at Austin’s MFA program. 

Anike Tourse – Credit: C/O

Anike Tourse, an accomplished multimedia maker both in front of and behind the camera, is listed eighth on the IMDB Black Women + Behind the Camera: A Small Studies Guide. She wrote, directed and acted in the award-winning narrative feature America’s Family, available on all major VOD platforms, and the equally lauded short film “America; I Too,” in distribution with New Day Films and also available on Kanopy. She has written for shows including One Life to Live and Girlfriends, and projects in development include the animated short film “Sakari and the Salmon Shoal,” about the little salmon-that-could and her friendship with a young native fisherman. 

All images provided by the 2024 Coolest Film Festivals Panel of Cool.