2025 Jury
FEATURES, DARK MATTER
Kimberly Leszak
Kimberly is the Community and Content Manager and occasional contributor at FANGORIA Magazine. She lives in Philadelphia with four cats.
Greg Newman
Greg Newman is the Executive Vice President of Dark Sky Films, the Chicago-based distribution and production label he founded in 2008 under MPI Media Group. A respected voice in independent horror, he has championed acclaimed titles including The House of the Devil, We Are Still Here, and Girl on the Third Floor, helping to propel the careers of filmmakers like Ti West, Jim Mickle, and Ted Geoghegan. His latest production, Let’s Start a Cult, continues his commitment to bold and original storytelling.
Alison Foreman
Alison Foreman is a Features Writer at IndieWire covering TV, film, and industry trends. Mostly known offline as Ali, Foreman describes herself as a journalist with a passion for blood, spectacle, and basic human decency. She’s also the mad genius behind the midnight movie column IndieWire After Dark, offering fringe cinema selections for the streaming age. Reporting for Mashable in 2020, Foreman was awarded Best Online TV Feature by the Los Angeles Press Club for her work covering police procedurals and the Black Lives Matter movement. The following year, she was nominated twice more for the National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards. Foreman has bylines across sites and subjects, having written about video games, music, web culture, science, politics, and tech for The AV Club, Refinery29, CNN, and more. Foreman graduated from Georgia Tech in 2017, specializing in applied computer science and experimental design. She previously worked in national broadcasting at CBS News, Showtime, and "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert." A firm believer in "Starship Troopers,” Ali is a now a full-time cinephile who can also lick her right elbow… but not the left. Follow Alison Foreman on social media @alfaforeman
FEATURES, HEAD TRIP
James-Michael Fleites
Fueled by a lifelong obsession with horror films, James-Michael Fleites launched Horror Press in 2022. Since its online debut, Horror Press has amassed a sizable and constantly growing audience of fans and creators alike. In addition to the top notch editorial and journalistic work, the main draw of the website is its ethos of inclusion. James-Michael is passionate about celebrating the diversity of horror and is committed to uplifting underrepresented voices in the genre. His dedication, tireless work, and unwaveringly kind and supportive nature have not only helped Horror Press evolve into a community hub, but have also earned him a glowing reputation among horror fans, writers, and filmmakers. In addition to horror, this New Jersey native's areas of interest include watch collecting, snackology, and X-Men: The Animated Series, his second love, right after Evil Dead.
Justin LaLiberty
Justin LaLiberty is Director of Operations of Vinegar Syndrome sister company, OCN Distribution, and the Curator/Producer of the Cinématographe label. Before these roles, he has worked in various movie theaters, video stores and film archives and has been an avid collector of home video for over twenty five years. He lives in Connecticut with his wife, cat and 5,000+ blu-rays.
Gigi Murakami
Gigi Murakami is an Ignatz-nominated manga artist & illustrator, and content creator at the intersection of horror media, alternative nerd culture, and (schlocky) film. Her work blends Japanese manga art, vintage grindhouse poster art, and pulp comic aesthetics, while thematically focusing on the dark, dramatic, fantastical, and often introspective. Colloquially known as "Queen of Horror Manga", she has a handful of both traditionally published and self-published works, but is most recognized for her supernatural horror manga, RESENTER, which had a one-shot published with Viz Manga.
SHORTS
Katie Rife
Katie Rife is a freelance writer, critic, and film programmer. She was a writer for The A.V. Club from 2014-2022, and currently writes about film for outlets like Indiewire, RogerEbert.com, and Letterboxd, where she has a column about restorations and reissues. She’s served on the juries of Fantastic Fest and the Fantasia Film Festival, and is the shorts programmer for the Overlook Film Festival, a “celebration of all things horror” in New Orleans, LA.
Shannon Wiedemeyer
Shannon Wiedemeyer is a film programmer and artist based in Queens, New York. For the past 7 years she’s worked for Toba Media’s YouTube and FAST channels ALTER (horror) and DUST (sci-fi). She’s currently the Manager of Creative Operations & Marketing for the brands, working closely with platforms and filmmakers as well as programming for the FAST channels. Previously she was a shorts programmer and on the jury for Fantastic Fest. She’s been a fan of the freaky and uncanny since she was a child and is always on the search for the most bizarre and challenging horror out there. In her spare time she has a monthly community film series in Ridgewood and dreams of being a creature or victim in your next horror movie (I’m being serious).
Kailey Marsh
Kailey Marsh is a Brooklyn-based literary manager and producer. After managing at Brillstein Entertainment Partners for the past 6 years, Marsh went back out on her own once more and formed FIVE LINE. Marsh represents writers and directors across film and television, as well as podcasters and creators. Kailey created and ran the annual BloodList and BloodList.com for fifteen years. The list and platform served as a place for discovery for writers and creators in the horror and dark-genre world.