11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m., Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition

Sean M. Bobbitt is the producer of the hand-painted animated film, THE PEASANTS, Poland’s official entry at the 2024 Academy Awards. Bobbitt is an American former Peace Corps volunteer who served in Poland from 1991 to 1993. He has remained in that country for the past 34 years, working as a journalist, entrepreneur, and film producer. His previous films as producer include the Oscar-nominated animated feature, LOVING VINCENT (2017), the world’s first fully hand-painted film— which is made in a style that evokes the paintings of Vincent van Gogh. An Oscar nominee for Best Animated Feature, LOVING VINCENT presents the story of a young man who delivers a final letter written by the troubled painter.

Event cosponsored by IELP, UAlbany’s Intensive English Language Program.

12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m., Campus Center West Auditorium

Tim Cahill, co-creator of BOOKS, is a writer, advertising industry executive, humorist, cartoonist, musician, and TV script writer. An Associate Creative Director at the media company Digitas, he has helped shape campaigns for Amazon Prime, Angie’s List, CenturyLink, Chase Bank, CVS, Empire State Development, and Progressive Insurance, among others. Cahill is also a prolific contributor of humor pieces to The New Yorker and McSweeney’s, many of them in collaboration with BOOKS co-creator Kristina Libby. He is also a card-carrying member of the National Cartoonists Society.

3:15 p.m. – 4:15 p.m., Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition

Paul Camarata is Supervising Producer at NFL films— the official film and television company of the National Football League. He is also a Guilderland native and graduate of Albany’s Christian Brothers Academy. A director, showrunner, and winner of twelve Emmy awards, he is the director of the short documentary, IT STARTS WITH US (2024), about Fran Brown, the new, celebrated head coach of the Syracuse Orange football team. Recently, Camarata was co-showrunner of the 5-part HBO series, HARD KNOCKS: OFFSEASON WITH THE NEW YORK GIANTS (2024). At the 2022 Albany Film Festival, he screened his short animated film, WHY NOT THE EGG?, about downtown Albany’s quirkiest architectural wonder. 

10:45 a.m. – 11:45 a.m., Campus Center West Auditorium

Kelly Carlin, actress, screenwriter and radio host, is the daughter of George Carlin (1937-2008), a comedian who helped to define American comedy in the second half of the 20th century. She served as executive producer and starred in the two-part documentary about her father, GEORGE CARLIN’S AMERICAN DREAM (2022), winner of a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special. Kelly Carlin is also the author of an acclaimed memoir, A Carlin Home Companion: Growing Up with George (2015). An outspoken advocate for prohibiting nonconsensual AI-generated media, she recently received national attention for her opposition to an unauthorized, AI-generated George Carlin comedy special.

12:15 p.m. – 1:15 p.m., Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition

Carrie Courogen is the author of Miss May Does Not Exist: The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood’s Hidden Genius (2024), an acclaimed biography of comedian, director, actor and writer Elaine May, one of the greatest comedy writers of all time. With Mike Nichols, May began her career as one-half of the legendary comedy team known as Nichols and May, a duo that revolutionized the comedy sketch. May’s films as screenwriter include MIKEY AND NICKY, HEAVEN CAN WAIT, TOOTSIE (uncredited), ISHTAR, THE BIRDCAGE and PRIMARY COLORS. The LA Times called Courogen’s new biography, “A minor miracle... a fascinating, three-dimensional portrait of a brilliant, complicated artist.”

3:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m., Campus Center West Auditorium

Luis Gispert,  acclaimed American photographer and sculptor, is the director of CAJITA (2024), winner of Best U.S. Narrative Feature at the 2024 New York Latino Film Festival. Based on a true story, CAJITA follows an Afro-Latino immigrant who flees his home country hidden inside a crate, and presents his struggles to find a sense of self, community, and home in the Spanish speaking enclaves of Miami. Gispert’s works in both art and film explore consumerism, social stratification, popular culture and the Cuban American experience. His work appears in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, and other major museums.

Event cosponsored by the University Art Museum in association with the exhibit “History Lessons,” showcasing new ways of learning, preserving, and making history.

12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m., Campus Center West Auditorium

Micah Khan, director of the TV pilot for the new sitcom, BOOKS, is a South Asian American filmmaker and Capital Region resident who has directed and produced over 30 short films. He recently finished his feature debut, THE ZOMBIE WEDDING (2023), starring Cheri Oteri of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. His recent short film, MEETCUTE ON DANCEWORLD (2023) was featured in MovieMaker Magazine and tweeted by Ben Stiller to his 5.4 million followers. David Benioff of HBO’s GAME OF THRONES said of MEETCUTE, “Never seen anything quite like it before. I was smiling the whole way through. It’s fresh, original and it kicks ass.”

12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m., Campus Center West Auditorium

Kristina Libby, co-creator of BOOKS, is a writer, artist, and technology executive best-known for founding the Floral Heart Project—an award-winning, nationwide COVID memorial initiative in partnership with 1-800-FLOWERS.com. She is a prolific contributor of humor pieces to The New Yorker and McSweeney’s, many of them in collaboration with BOOKS co-creator Tim Cahill. Also with Cahill, she wrote the pilot for another TV show, PENNY STARTS A CULT, winner of the Grand Prix: Television Script Pilot at the 2024 New York Script Awards. In December 2024, Libby won The Moth StorySLAM in New York City.

4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m., Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition

Sharon Liese, filmmaker and UAlbany alum (Class of 1981), co-directed the award-winning short documentary, THE FLAGMAKERS (2022) with Cynthia Wade. A meditation on the 21st century American Dream, the film tells story of immigrant and refugee employees at the largest American flag factory in the nation. It received an Emmy for Outstanding Short Documentary, among other prizes. Her acclaimed films include PARKER (2023), nominated for the Short Film Grand Jury Prize at Sundance; TRANSHOOD (2020), which aired on HBO; and THE GNOMIST (2015), nominated for Best Documentary Short at Tribeca. She is also the creator of multiple documentary series on various platforms, including PINK COLLAR CRIMES (CBS), HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL (WeTV), and LET US PREY: A MINISTRY OF SCANDALS (Starz).

1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m., Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition

Nicole London is co-director with Stanely Nelson of HARRIET TUBMAN: VISIONS OF FREEDOM, a rich and compelling portrait of the best-known “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, marking the bicentennial of Tubman’s birth in 1822. Also with Nelson, London co-directed the PBS documentary, BECOMING FREDERICK DOUGLASS (2022). As producer, London shared an Emmy for Outstanding Arts and Culture Documentary for MILES DAVIS: BIRTH OF THE COOL (2019). Her newest film as director is THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MISS SCOTT (2025), the true story of African American jazz virtuoso Hazel Scott, an early civil rights activist and pioneering TV host who faced persecution during the Red Scare of the 1950s. 

10:45 a.m. – 11:45 a.m., Main Theatre, UAlbany Performing Arts Center

Gregory Maguire is the beloved author of Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (the basis of the hit Broadway musical and the 2024 movie blockbuster), a multimillion-copy bestselling writer, and a proud University at Albany alum (Class of 1976). His new novel is Elphie: A Wicked Childhood (2025), published in March 2025, almost 30 years after the original novel. Elphie finally reveals the backstory of the feisty, young Elphaba before her witchy powers took hold. A frequent visitor to Albany, NY, where he was born and raised, Maguire is the author of dozens of bestselling novels inspired by classic children’s stories. His professional and personal papers are housed at the UAlbany University Libraries' M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections & Archives.

3:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m., Campus Center West Auditorium

Ryan Murphy is the film editor and producer of CAJITA (2024), winner of Best U.S. Narrative Feature at the 2024 New York Latino Film Festival. As editor, he has collaborated with many leading directors, including Errol Morris, Michael Moore, Greg Mottola, Jason Reitman, Ben Stiller, Roger Waters, Tom McCarthy, and Ethan Coen. His work is featured in many notable films including STILLWATER (2021), SYRIANA (2015), THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY (2013), and ADVENTURELAND (2009). He also served as the press kit photographer in promotion of the Beastie Boys’ 1998 Grammy award-winning album Hello Nasty.

Event cosponsored by the University Art Museum in association with the exhibit “History Lessons,” showcasing new ways of learning, preserving, and making history.

1:15 p.m. – 3:15 p.m., Campus Center West Auditorium

Mary Paley wrote, directed and produced THE NEIGHBORHOOD THAT DISAPPEARED (2014), a landmark film for Albany residents and local history buffs about the vibrant urban neighborhood that was erased to build Empire State Plaza, a massive state office complex. Writing recently in the Times Union, Chris Churchill said, “A decade after its initial release, the documentary remains a love letter to the people who lived there — and an angry objection to the wounds they and their city suffered.” Paley also directed MORE THAN WORDS: THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF NEWSMAN BOB PALEY (2018), a tribute to her late father, a longtime photojournalist for Albany's now-defunct Knickerbocker News.

12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m., Main Theatre, UAlbany Performing Arts Center

Chuck Schultz directed the animated and live-action feature, WHEN MY SLEEPING DRAGON WOKE (2022), which was named Best Feature Documentary Premiere at the Heartland International Film Festival. The film is inspired by the play Feeding the Dragon (2018), written by his wife, Sharon Washington. His other films as director include the documentary, THE LAST CROP (2016), about aging farmers struggling to keep a family farm in California’s Central Valley; 5 DAYS IN JULY 5 (2007), a dual-screen projection installation that revisits the 1967 Newark Riots/Rebellion; and THE RURAL STUDIO (2003), about the work of architect and housing activist Samuel Mockbee.

2:15 p.m. – 4:30 p.m., Main Theatre, UAlbany Performing Arts Center

Ironweed Award Winner, Award Ceremony, 6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m., Campus Center West Auditorium

Susan Seidelman directed the hit 1985 film, DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN, starring Rosanna Arquette and the pop superstar Madonna—a truly iconic film of the 1980s, and one that exerted an enormous influence on that decade’s fashion and aesthetics. The date of the Albany Film Festival marks the true 40th Anniversary of the film’s premiere on March 29, 1985. A bored New Jersey housewife in an unhappy marriage becomes obsessed with messages exchanged between lovers in personal ads in a New York City tabloid, and embarks on a search for the authors. Seidelman also directed the Punk film SMITHEREENS (1982), the first US indie film to be nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes.

12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m., Main Theatre, UAlbany Performing Arts Center

Sharon Washington, playwright and actress, received a 2023 Tony Award nomination for Best Book of a Musical as co-writer of New York, New York. She debuted as a playwright with her solo play Feeding the Dragon (2018), about a girl who grows up inside a public library— based on her own life experiences growing up in an apartment on the top floor inside the St. Agnes Branch of the New York Public Library. Her late father worked as the library’s custodian, feeding the antiquated but still-functioning coal furnace. The 2022 animated and live-action feature, WHEN MY SLEEPING DRAGON WOKE, a unique, true-life fairy tale, is inspired by Washington’s play. As an actress, her many credits include JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX (2024), JOKER (2019), MICHAEL CLAYTON (2007), and DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE (1995).

4:45 p.m. – 5:45 p.m., Main Theatre, UAlbany Performing Arts Center

Ironweed Award Winner, Award Ceremony, 6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m., Campus Center West Auditorium

Frank Whaley, ubiquitous character actor and UAlbany alum (B.A., Class of 1987) is known for significant supporting roles in IRONWEED, PULP FICTION, THE DOORS, FIELD OF DREAMS, JFK, THE FRESHMAN, and other major films. Whaley also stars in SWIMMING WITH SHARKS (1994) as the all-suffering underling of “the boss from Hell”— a Hollywood mogul played by Kevin Spacey. Whaley excels as a naïve young man who accepts humiliation and abuse to “pay his dues” and advance his career in the movie business. That film has long been regarded among Hollywood rookies as mandatory viewing for anyone attempting to start a career in the industry. At Sundance, as screenwriter and director, Whaley won the Walter Salt Screenwriting Award, and received a Grand Jury Prize nomination, for his film JOE THE KING (1999).

12:15 p.m. – 1:15 p.m., Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition

Alissa Wilkinson, New York Times film critic is the author of We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine (2025), about Joan Didion’s adventures in Hollywood. A defining literary voice of the 1960s and ‘70s— and one of America’s best-known nonfiction writers and “New Journalists”— Didion was also part of an unlikely, but prolific screenwriting team with her husband, journalist and author, John Gregory Dunne. Wilkinson joined the New York Times as a featured critic in November 2023 after several years at Vox and Christianity Today. In announcing her appointment, the Times said, "Alissa has expanded the notion of the role a critic can play, producing not just memorable reviews but also a steady stream of thought-provoking essays….”