2025 Filmmakers
Rocky Mountain Women's Film is thrilled to introduce you to an extraordinary lineup of attending filmmakers.
At Rocky Mountain Women’s Film Festival, we believe that the magic of a film doesn’t end with the closing credits. It’s in the stories behind the stories, the passion behind the lens, and the creativity that drives filmmakers to bring their visions to life. That’s why we’re proud to present an exclusive opportunity for you to connect with these talented storytellers through our post-screening Q&A sessions.
Jessica Earnshaw
director
Jessica Earnshaw is a documentary photographer and filmmaker based in Brooklyn, New York. Her work focuses on criminal justice and healthcare, and has appeared in National Geographic, The Marshall Project, Mother Jones Magazine, The New York Times, and NPR. In 2015, she received the prestigious Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation Fellowship to photograph aging in American prisons. She is a graduate of the International Center of Photography’s photojournalism program and studied documentary filmmaking at The Gulf Islands Film & Television School. Her first feature film, JACINTA, premiered at Tribeca Film Festival 2020.
Alexandra Shiva
Director
Alexandra Shiva is an award-winning filmmaker known for crafting intimate character-driven documentaries. She most recently directed and produced ONE SOUTH: PORTRAIT OF A PSYCH UNIT, which premiered on HBO in 2024. Her previous films include THIS IS HOME, which premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and won The Audience Award: World Cinema Documentary, and the Peabody Award-winning HOW TO DANCE IN OHIO. Other notable works include STAGEDOOR and BOMBAY EUNUCH, which won Best Documentary at New York’s New Festival.
Ariana Garfinkel
producer
Ariana Garfinkel is a producer based in the San Francisco Bay Area whose feature documentaries include IT’S DOROTHY! (Tribeca 2025), ON THESE GROUNDS (SXSW, Starz), NEVER TOO LATE: THE DOC SEVERINSEN STORY (PBS American Masters, Peacock), YOU DON’T NOMI (Tribeca, AMC+), and BEST AND MOST BEAUTIFUL THINGS (SXSW, PBS Independent Lens). She has held development and production executive positions at Miramax Films, Tribeca Productions, and other leading production companies. Ariana has served on juries for the International Documentary Association and Jewish Film Institute, and is a graduate of Stanford University.
Cindy Meehl
Director
Cindy Meehl is an award-winning documentary film director who founded Cedar Creek Productions in 2008. Her debut film BUCK, about renowned horse whisperer Buck Brannaman, premiered at Sundance in 2011, won the U.S. Documentary Audience Award, and was shortlisted for an Academy Award. She also directed THE DOG DOC, which premiered at Tribeca in 2020. Cindy has served as executive producer on critically acclaimed films including NATCHEZ, FASHION REIMAGINED, REWIND, TRAPPED, and FOR THE BIRDS.
Elizabeth Westrate
Producer
Elizabeth Westrate is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker with over 25 years of production experience leading complex international projects. Her work has been broadcast on PBS, HBO, Hulu, Amazon, and at major film festivals worldwide. She is producer of JIMMY & THE DEMONS for Cedar Creek Productions, which premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival. Westrate was director of the critically acclaimed documentary A FAMILY UNDERTAKING (PBS/POV) and series producer of I CONTAIN MULTITUDES for PBS Digital. She has served as line producer on high-profile projects including CATCHING FIRE: THE STORY OF ANITA PALLENBERG (Cannes 2023) and THE HUMAN FACTOR (Telluride 2019).
Chithra Jeyaram
director
Chithra Jeyaram is a physical therapist-turned-filmmaker who identifies as Tamil. Her films reveal the extraordinary in the everyday, honoring the wisdom, resilience, and love that define both biological and chosen families. She is an alumna of Visions du Réel’s RoughCut Lab, the Chicken & Egg Accelerator Lab, the BGDM Artist Fellowship, and the Gotham Documentary Fellowship. Her films have been showcased by platforms and festivals including PBS, Apple TV, BlackStar, SXSW, and DOC NYC. She calls Chennai and New York City home and is writing her first screenplay, THE LONGEST SUMMER.
Norah Shapiro
director
Minneapolis-based Emmy Award-winning director and producer Norah Shapiro left a decade-plus career as a public defender to work in documentary filmmaking. Her film TIME FOR ILHAN, about Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival and received a 2018-2019 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing Special Class. Her current film MAGIC & MONSTERS received International Documentary Association Enterprise grants and was runner-up for the 2024 Library of Congress/Ken Burns Prize. Ms. Shapiro is a 2021 and 2012 McKnight Media Artist Fellow and a founding member of the Minneapolis Chapter of Film Fatales.
Elizabeth Foy Larsen
Producer
Elizabeth Foy Larsen is an award-winning, Minneapolis-based journalist and bestselling author. Her work has appeared in numerous national and international publications, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Mother Jones, Slate, The Guardian, and StarTribune. Her Mpls/St. Paul magazine feature article THE EXIT STRATEGY about litigation against the Children’s Theatre Company won best feature at the 2018 Minnesota Magazine Awards. Elizabeth taught magazine journalism at the University of Minnesota’s Hubbard School of Journalism for 11 years.
Dylan Nelson
Producer
Dylan is an Emmy- and Producers Guild Award-nominated documentary filmmaker. Most recently, she produced the 2025 documentary feature THE STAMP THIEF, which investigates a Holocaust mystery, and directed the 2022 documentary feature MISSISSIPPI MESSIAH, about civil rights iconoclast James Meredith. Her documentaries have screened worldwide, won Peabody and Emmy Awards, and been shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Behind the Lens
Filmmaker Forums, Gaylord Hall
open to all pass holders
Filmmakers make the festival! Take advantage of one or both of our FILMMAKER FORUMS during lunch on Saturday and Sunday. If you pre-purchased a box lunch they will be available to pick-up at Gaylord Hall just before the forum.
Saturday Topic
OCTOBER 18, 1:15PM
Cinematic Truth Tellers: Challenging Failing Systems
Film has the power to expose hidden realities, amplify unheard voices, and hold institutions accountable. In this forum, filmmakers explore how their work confronts systemic failures — from public health and reproductive justice, to school safety and institutional abuse — while honoring the resilience of those most affected. Together, they reveal how cinema not only documents injustice but also sparks dialogue, empathy, and the possibility of change.
Sunday Topic
OCTOBER 19, 1:15 PM
Art as Resistance, Art as Legacy
Film, like all art, is an act of resistance against forgetting. This forum will explore how filmmakers use cinema to preserve memory, challenge injustice, and reimagine cultural touchstones for new generations. Whether chronicling stolen children seeking truth, an artist’s magnum opus, families redefining belonging, or Dorothy’s enduring symbolism, these stories remind us that art leaves legacies that outlive us. This forum explores how film transforms struggle into beauty, silence into testimony, and individual vision into collective memory.
