The individuals listed here, as well as the filmmakers from the Advisory Council, will be designated as mentors for third-year students, providing them with guidance and counsel as they prepare, shoot, and edit their thesis films. Our mentor program is among the distinct components of the Feirstein experience—bringing professional experience and expertise from gifted filmmakers directly to our students.
Bobby Cohen is a film producer and entertainment industry executive. He began his career as an assistant, first at the Writers & Artists Agency and then at Miramax films where he became Senior VP of Production. During that time, he contributed to films such as Clerks, Scream and Beautiful Girls. He was also Executive Producer for 54, Rounders and The Cider House Rules before leaving in 2003 to form his own company Cohen Pictures.
Cohen then became president of Red Wagon Entertainment, the production company of Academy Award winning producers Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher, and then partnered with Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzmanat at their Production Company K/O Paper Products. He also served as a producer and an executive at Imagine Entertainment and LionsGate.
In addition, Cohen was a producer or executive producer of notable films such as Jarhead, Memoirs of a Geisha, Definitely, Maybe, Revolutionary Road, The Now You See Me trilogy, Cowboys and Aliens, and Don’t Let Go, among others.
Currently he is forming a new production and financing entity in partnership with Thomas Tull, founder of Legendary Pictures.
Stuart Dryburgh is a British born, Brooklyn based cinematographer.
His credits include ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’ directed by Ben Stiller, ‘The Great Wall’ directed by Zhang Yimou, Jane Campion’s ‘An Angel at My Table’, ‘Portrait of a Lady’ and The Piano’ (for which he was nominated for an Academy Award), ‘The Perez Family’, ‘Boardwalk Empire’ (pilot directed by Martin Scorsese), ‘Aeon Flux’, ‘The Painted Veil’, ‘Analyze This’ directed by Harold Ramis, ‘Once Were Warriors’, and ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’, among many others.
He served as the Filmmaker-in-Residence for the Feirstein School in Spring 2022 where he conducted several workshops, seminars, and mentored the students.
Coco Francini is an American television and film producer. Most recently, she was executive producer of the limited series Mrs. America for FX Networks, written by Mad Men alum Dahvi Waller and starring Cate Blanchett.
Francini is a frequent collaborator with Quentin Tarantino. She was an Associate Producer of The Hateful Eight and oversaw the global 70mm roadshow tour and the soundtrack/score that won an Academy Award for Ennio Morricone. She also spearheaded the groundbreaking Kickstarter campaign for Zach Braff's film Wish I Was Here, for which she was Co-Producer, garnering over three million toward the production budget and 50,000 loyal and engaged fans.
In addition to her independent producing, Francini recently led the creative development and production of film and television content for the world’s largest video game and interactive media company, Activision Blizzard, shepherding projects including films based on the iconic $15 billion Call of Duty game franchise. A graduate of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Francini earned her masters from the Peter Stark Producing Program at USC.
Adam Glass is a television producer, screenwriter, American comic book writer and Brooklyn College graduate. Glass is best known for his work as an Executive Producer and Screenwriter on numerous TV series including: Supernatural, Cold Case and Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders. As a screenwriter his most recent credits include episodes for the series The Chi, and 9-1-1.
As a comic writer, he wrote such titles as “Deadpool” and “Luke Cage” for Marvel Comics and "The New 52" phase of Suicide Squad in DC Comics. His work “Rough Riders” was published in 2016 by AfterShock.
Andrew Heckler is an actor and director. As an actor, he has appeared in Timecode, Law and Order, Armageddon, and Ally Mcbeal.
His debut film as a filmmaker was Burden, which he wrote and directed, starring Forest Whitaker, Garret Hedlund, and Andrea Riseborough. Burden was the winner of the audience award at both the Sundance Film Festival and Nantucket Film Festival.
Kelley Robins Hicks is a producer and actress. Her producing credits include HBO’s Peabody Award winning show Random Acts of Flyness, How to Tell You're a Douchebag, and Queen of Glory.
Ross Katz is a Producer, Content Creator and Filmmaker. As a Producer, he has twice been nominated for the Academy Award for producing In the Bedroom and Lost in Translation, winning a Golden Globe for the latter. He has also produced Marie Antionette, and was Executive Producer of Strange But True and The Laramie Project.
In 2009, Katz expanded into writing and directing withHBO Films Taking Chance, starring Kevin Bacon. He was the recipient of the DGA and WGA Awards, and Kevin Bacon won the Golden Globe for that film.
After producing 2019’s My Dinner With Hervé for HBO, Katz spent a year as Head of Production and Development for SK Global.
Ross’s first job in the movie business was as a grip on Reservoir Dogs. In addition to Quentin Tarantino, he was lucky enough to have worked with Ang Lee, Oliver Stone, and Sydney Pollack, before starting his own filmmaking journey. He is a proud member of the Motion Picture Academy, the DGA, PGA, and WGA.
Sam Kitt is a writer, film producer, and development executive. He has produced features for both film and television. Kitt is best-known for the features such as Love & Basketball, The Best Man, 3 A.M., and Cherry which was an official selection of the South by Southwest Film Festival. Kitt’s television producing credits include Good Fences, Sucker Free City, and Evil Has A Face.
As an executive, he was the President of Spike Lee’s Production company Forty Acres and a Mule.
Rob Kim is a Talent Agent, Producer and is currently Head of Literary Acquisitions for Buchwald and Associates. In the past, Kim started as a talent and packaging agent for literary and television at United Talent Agency. In addition, Kim served as the President of Bernero Productions for ABC television studios and for Foundation Artist Management as well. As a Producer, his television credits include Trevor and the Virgin, Partners, and Life Of The Party.
Galt Niederhoffer is an author, screenwriter, novelist, and film producer.
Ms. Niederhoffer has produced over thirty indie films, twelve of which were selections and award-winners at the Sundance Film Festival – including the Audience Award, as well as awards for screenwriting, directing, and cinematography. Her films include Robot and Frank, The Kids are Alright, The Romantics, and Grace is Gone, among others.
She has written four novels, including The Romantics and Poison, published by St. Martin’s Press. She has also been published in Vogue, New York Magazine, Jezebel, Harper’s Bazaar, and The New York Times.
She has served as an adjunct film professor at NYU and Columbia.
She attended The Chapin School, Milton Academy and Harvard University, and lives in Brooklyn, NY with her three children.
Liz Orr is a TV Literary Agent for Buchwald and Associates. She represents TV and Film writers and directors. In the past, Orr also worked for UGA Talent where she founded the TV Literary department.
Award winning director/writer P.J. Pesce was born and raised in Miami, Florida. After completing an undergraduate degree in English Literature and Architecture at Columbia University, he entered the Graduate Film School and studied directing under Martin Scorsese (from whom he received honors) and Brian DePalma (from whom he received an "F"). He received a Special Grand Jury Award for his short film The Afterlife of Grandpa at the Houston Int’l Film Festival (past winners have included Steven Spielberg and David Lynch), and Young Filmmaker of the Year from the Edinburgh Film Festival. He received Grey Advertising's Student Filmmaker Award and a Presidential Fellowship from Columbia University's School of the Arts.
He was named Best Independent Director at The Hamptons International Film Festival for his critically acclaimed film The Desperate Trail, which he wrote and directed. Entertainment Weekly called it “The best Western on any size screen since Unforgiven,” and Tom Shales of The Washington Post called it a “A new high point in the cable movie.”
After a long search, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez tapped Pesce to direct the prequel to their surprise cult hit From Dusk Til Dawn. It was voted one of the Top Ten Best Direct To Video Titles Of All Time.
In 2010 he was awarded a Dora Maar Fellowship for outstanding midcareer professionals by the Brown Foundation and the Houston Museum of Fine Art in order to work on his script HEART ON FIRE: GRAM PARSONS; earlier his script Beautiful Asian Brides Want to Meet You sold for a record breaking 2 million dollars. It is being produced by Brian Grazer at Imagine Films.
Pesce has written for Universal, Warners, MTV, Working Title, and John Woo’s Lion Rock Productions. He has directed extensively for CBS, NBC, ABC, HBO, and The WB. He created the animated cult show The Adventures Of Chico and Guapo for MTV, for which he also provided the voices of several characters. He recently sold a pilot to ABC television about Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn after the American Civil War, and a feature film script to Extraordinary Entertainment that will begin filming in May.
Richard Potter is a writer, film producer and development executive. He was a senior VP at Miramax as head of the story department at Dimension Films. While in that role, Potter oversaw such films as Scream, Teaching Ms. Tingle, The Faculty and Nightwatch.
At Relativity Media, Potter was the Executive VP of Production and Development. His Executive Producing credits include Mimic, Scream 2, The Prophecy, and Phantoms. Recently, Potter has Produced Diciembres, and Night Of The Animated Dead.
Rodo Sayagues is a screenwriter, producer, and director. His screenwriting credits include Evil Dead, Don’t Breathe, and Don’t Breathe 2, which he also directed. As a Producer, Sayagues’ credits include Calls, Don’t Breathe 2, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Shintaro Shimosawa is a producer, writer, and director for film and television. Shimosawa’s television credits include: Fear The Walking Dead and Zoo, where he has also contributed as a writer. His producing credits include Calls, The Following, and The Ringer.
In addition, Shimosawa produced The Grudge, The Grudge 2, The Echo, and most recently completed production on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake. As a writer, he has written for The 4400, The Dead Zone, Smallville, and The Hustle. He has also directed the feature-film Misconduct for Lionsgate.
Kevin Tent (ACE) has been a somewhat professional film editor in Hollywood for nearly 30 years. In the fall of 2020 Tent was proud to have been elected President of American Cinema Editors.
He is best known for his long time collaboration with director Alexander Payne. Their first film together was on Payne’s Sundance hit Citizen Ruth, starring Laura Dern. Followed by the critical hit Election staring Reese Witherspoon (for which Tent earned his first American Cinema Editor’s nomination). Tent received his second ACE nomination for About Schmidt starring Jack Nicholson and his third for Sideways starring Thomas Haden Church and Paul Giamati. In 2011 Tent was nominated for both an ACE and an Academy Award® for his editing on The Descendants, starring George Clooney. He won the Eddie for best dramatic film of 2011. He was also nominated for an ACE award for his work on Nebraska in 2014 and worked with Payne on his most recent film Downsizing staring Matt Damon.
After attending Los Angeles City College’s film school, Tent got his first break working for legendary B-movie producer Roger Corman, cutting classic films like Emmanuelle 5 and Not of This Earth. While continuing to hone his skills in the throws of B-movies, Tent also tapped into the emerging US Independen film movement. Cutting the underground hit Guncrazy directed by Tamra Davis and the above mentioned Citizen Ruth by Payne.
Some of Tent’s other credits include Ted Demme’s Blow staring Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz. James Mangold’s Girl Interrupted staring Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie, (Jolie winning an academy award for her performance). Disconnect directed by Henry Alex Rubin, Welcome To Me starring Kristin Wigg and Parched a foreign language film (in Hindi) by Indian director Leena Yadav. More recently Tent’s credits include Otherhood from director Cindy Chupack and The Peanut Butter Falcon staring Shia LaBeouf and Zack Gottsagen. Tent has worked with director Barry Sonnenfeld on numerous projects, Nancy Meyers on the The Intern staring Robert De Niro & Anne Hathaway and Martin Scorsese on his short film The Audition.
In 2017 Tent made his directorial debut with the comedy Crash Pad staring Domhnall Gleeson, Christina Applegate, Thomas Haden Church and Nina Dobrev.
Chisom Ude is a creative executive. She has worked in franchise management at DreamWorks Animation and at a boutique management company. Two years ago, she became an assistant to the President of Production at Lionsgate, before getting promoted to her current role as creative executive where she helps manage over twenty film projects in development including American Underdog: The Kurt Warner Story.
Prior to working at Lionsgate, Ude worked on the trading floor of UBS Bank in London, and as an associate producer in unscripted development at BET Networks. She is an alumna of Princeton University.
Gary Ventimiglia is a talent manager and film producer. Currently, he is a manager at Heroes and Villains Entertainment, a management and production company representing writers and directors that specialize in content creation for film, television, video games, comic books, and the internet. Ventimiglia was also a Senior-Production Executive for Madonna’s Maverick Films. His producing credits include Turn It Up, Choke, and Punisher War Zone. He also has produced The Wronged Man, which aired on the Lifetime Network.
Donal Lardner Ward is a producer, director, writer and actor. His acting career began with a role in Whit Stillman's Metropolitan, followed by the film My Life's in Turnaround (1993), which he co-wrote, co-directed, and co-starred in with Eric Schaeffer. Ward and Schaeffer, along with Efrem Seeger, created the sitcom New York Daze for the Fox Network. He directed and wrote the film, The Suburbans, (produced by J. J. Abrams) which he also acted in. In 2011, Ward and Schaeffer reunited for the sequel to My Life's in Turnaround: They're Out of the Business.
In addition, Ward was a staff writer for the HBO series How to Make it in America, produced by Mark Wahlberg. In 2018, he also directed the drama We Only Know So Much, co-written with Elizabeth Crane (based on her novel) and in 2019, Ward was a writer/producer on the final season of The Affair (TV series) on Showtime.
Tod Culpan "Kip" Williams is a director, producer and screenwriter. He wrote and directed The Adventures of Sebastian Cole which was an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival. In 2004, Williams wrote and directed The Door In the Floor, which was adapted from John Irving’s “A Widow for One Year.” In addition, he directed the horror film Paranormal Activity 2.
As a Producer, his films include American Loser and The Big Bend.
