Legendary Casting Director Pam Dixon (Angels in the Outfield, City Slickers) will be returning as the mentor for our 'Best Actor' in 2019! Pam was hired by CBS Television and quickly became Assistant to the Head of Casting. She left CBS to become VP of casting for ABC Television. Another promotion made her Senior VP [...]
Join us in welcoming Crazy Rich Asians Producer John Penotti as the mentor for the winner of 'Best Film!' John is President of SK Global, the merged entity of Los Angeles-based film finance/production entity Sidney Kimmel Entertainment (SKE), and New York and Hong Kong-based Ivanhoe Pictures, an international local-language content company. As an independent producer, Penotti has [...]
We are pleased to announce that 2019 Academy Award-winner Phil Lord will serve as the mentor for the winner of 'Best Director!' Phil Lord and creative partner Chris Miller are the prolific multi-hyphenate duo behind some of today’s most successful films and television shows, including the Academy Award-winning best animated feature, Spider-man: Into The Spider-verse, The Lego [...]
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 28, 2019 -- Easterseals Southern California, a leading disability services organization, announced registration is now open for its annual Easterseals Disability Film Challenge, the entertainment industry’s premiere disability inclusion competition. Interested filmmakers and participants can register at DisabilityFilmChallenge.com now through April 3, 2019, when registration will close at 6 p.m. PST. “The entertainment industry [...]
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 22, 2019 -- Easterseals Southern California, a nonprofit organization providing disability services, is proud to announce its partnership with Sundance Institute. As an Allied Partner, Easterseals will host “Abilities Unlimited: The Real ‘D’ in Diversity” at the Sundance Film Festival, a panel that calls attention to the need for persons with disabilities to be included [...]
As part of the Easterseals Disability Film Challenge, the winning filmmakers are awarded mentorship meetings with active members of the entertainment industry. ‘Check Mate (new window)’ was awarded “Best Film” in the 2018 Easterseals Disability Film Challenge, and the winning team was treated to an exciting day at Universal Studios! Check out creator Carl Hansen's [...]
As part of their Easterseals Disability Film Challenge prize package, winning filmmakers are awarded mentorship meetings with active members of the entertainment industry. Day Daniells won the 2018 “Best Filmmaker” Award for her directing of the film 'Hit On (new window)' and earlier this year, met with Bec Smith, a Motion Picture Literary Agent at [...]
Easterseals Disability Film Challenge 2018 participant J.B. Abajian won the 2018 “Best Actor” Award for his role as "The Hawk" in Visibility. Earlier this summer, J.B. received one of the key aspects of his prize package when he met with Pam Dixon, one of Hollywood’s leading casting directors (Angels in the Outfield, The Mask of [...]
Easterseals Disability Film Challenge winning filmmakers are awarded mentorship meetings with active members of the entertainment industry as part of their prize package. David Tenenbaum, who won the 2018 “Best Awareness Campaign” Award for his film Footloose, met with Tiffany Smith-Anoa'i, EVP of Entertainment Diversity & Communications at CBS Entertainment earlier this year. Throughout her [...]
Over the weekend, 2018 Easterseals Disability Film Challenge participants attended the HollyShorts Film Festival to see their films screened during the “Family Films” Block. Easterseals Disability Film Challenge winning films received an automatic entry into Hollyshorts, which is an official Academy Award qualifying Film Festival, as one of their challenge prizes. Winning filmmakers were invited [...]