2024 JUDGES
DON PRESTON CATO
Don Preston Cato earned a BS from Michigan State and attended The Orson Welles Film School in Cambridge, MA, where he participated in workshops with Directors Nicholas Ray, Paul Morrissey & Jan Kadar. He started working as an independent filmmaker in 1975; his many documentaries include Skinners’ Beaut and China Dawning, Behind Silk Curtains. His first feature, Dixie Lanes, with Karen Black, Hoyt Axton, Moses Gunn, Tina Louise and Nina Foch, was released in 1987 to over 40 countries & was twice the CBS movie of the week. His 2006 feature Be My Oswald appeared in several international festivals, winning four Best Feature awards. Don’s eclectic work in film includes an Animation Award at ReelHeART International Film Festival in Toronto for PRESTO, a 3-minute hand painted 16mm film. His film Dead Man Rides Subway won the Grand Prize at the 2018 ROXY UNDERGROUND Film Festival. He was also DP/Editor/Co-Producer on the narrative short My Day by Paul M. Kelly, starring Judith Roberts (Eraserhead, Orange is the New Black). Don is Co-Founder & Artistic Director of the Queens World Film Festival.
SHALINI KANTAYYA
Two-time Emmy-nominated filmmaker Shalini Kantayya directs fiction and nonfiction films that artfully marry the future of science with the future of story. TikTok, Boom, was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and was official selection at SXSW. Her critically-acclaimed 2020 Sundance film, Coded Bias, was broadcast nationally on PBS’s Independent Lens and globally on Netflix in April 2021. The film has been nominated for a Critics’ Choice, and an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Documentary. The film won Best Director at the Social Impact Media Awards, and the Visionary Filmmaker Award at GlobeDocs. Both TikTok, Boom and Coded Bias received Emmy nominations. Shalini’s debut feature, Catching the Sun, released globally on Netflix on Earth Day 2016 with Executive Producer Leonardo DiCaprio and was named a New York Times Critics’ Pick.
Shalini directed for National Geographic television series Breakthrough, Executive Produced by Ron Howard, and episodes for NOVA and YouTube Originals. Shalini is a TED Fellow, a William J. Fulbright Scholar, and Concordia Studios Artist Fellow.
DIANE
VARGAS
Diana Vargas is a New York based film programmer and TV producer. She has been part of Havana Film Festival New York’s team since 2001 and its artistic director / programmer since 2003. Her tireless dedication to Latin American cinema includes programming multiple showcases taking place in New York throughout the year, such as CortoCircuito Latino ShortFest of New York, that since 2014 has another home in Cali, Colombia and The Americas Film Festival NY (TAFFNY). She has curated the Ibero American program for HBO NY Latino Film Festival, the North American Indie program for the Lima Film Festival in Peru and, the Ibero-American program at IndieBo, the Bogota Independent Film Festival in Colombia as well as Icaro Central American Film Fest. Diana is the U.S. representative of the International School of Film and TV in San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba (EICTV.) She has also worked in several award-winning documentaries and written for different publications. She is the Senior Producer of the CUNY-TV series Nueva York for which she has received fourteen Emmys. She is also the co-creator of the show LATiNAS, that highlights the accomplishment of Latino women in U.S. Diana also works as media consultant for several cultural events in New York City spanning film, music and theater.