Michelle Kantor Executive Director / Co-Founder
Michelle Kantor is an award-winning filmmaker who co-founded Cinefemme in 2002. She earned a BFA in Film Production at the University of Colorado, Boulder in 2000, and an MFA in Cinema from San Francisco State University. Her film work includes: "The Redemption" (1999, winner of Goldfarb Award for Best Student Film), "Citizen" (2002), "Bettina in the Fog" (2003, winner of the Thunen Award for Excellence), and "Antipodiste" (2006), an hour-long documentary about a family of 5th-generation French circus/vaudeville foot-jugglers. In addition to filmmaking, Michelle is an artist and writer.
Heide Foley Chief Financial Officer
Heide Foley is Cinefemme's CFO and has served on the Board of Directors since its founding. She is a real estate professional working as an asset manager specializing in budget forecasts and performance analysis for a boutique property firm in Sausalito, CA. She also manages site specific areas for large public events for Dominic Phillips Event Marketing. A filmmaker and writer, she is currently working on an informational production focusing on bank owned properties called REOs.
Ginelle Hustrid Secretary / Board of Directors
Katrina Parks Co-Founder / Board of Directors
Katrina is an award-winning filmmaker whose video work has received grants from humanities councils, museums and foundations, and has been featured in many showcases. Her video piece “wrappings,” in which she wore a dress made entirely out of trash to Wall Street and other venues around the US, won a SASA Award from the United Nations. As a writer and supervising producer, Katrina has worked on programs for channels including Discovery Channel, PBS, Planet Green, Spike, TLC and Travel Channel. She has a BFA from the University of New Mexico in painting and drawing, and an MFA from San Francisco State University in Film Production.
Kimby Caplan Board of Directors
Kimby Caplan is an award winning avant-garde and documentary filmmaker whose work has screened at venues across the country, including the SXSW Film Festival, The Smithsonian Institute, and the Samuel Goldwyn Theatre at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles. Her latest film, LISTEN, received a 2005 Student Academy Award and also qualified to be nominated for an Academy Award. Excerpts will air on the PBS funded Documentary, History Through Deaf Eyes in the fall of 2006. She received her BFA in Film Studies at the University of Colorado in 1999, and her Master's in Communications at Southern Methodist University in 2004. Currently she is an MFA candidate at the American Film Institute as a Cinematography Fellow.
Cheryl Kanekar Board of Directors
Cheryl Kanekar's films explore rebellion, challenging authority and change, across countries and cultures. Her award-winning documentary "A Pyramid of Women", about the first Indian women to break a male monopoly on a Hindu custom, has been screened at film festivals across the world. Her fiction films "Spinning Wheels", "Poor Man" and "Jailhouse Stock" have also been in festivals in Belgium, Cuba and the US. Cheryl grew up in Mumbai, India, where she edited the youth magazine “Challenge”; wrote investigative articles, short stories and poetry for other magazines; and worked with students’ and women’s organizations and on documentary films. She is currently based in San Francisco, California and is finishing Algorithms, a fictional film trilogy about the war on terror.
Annie Oelschlager Board of Directors
In 2006, Annie developed, produced, and directed the hit original stage production Internet Dating: The Musical. She is the associate producer of the upcoming independent feature Good Time Max, starring and directed by James Franco. She wrote, produced and starred in the award winning 35mm musical comedy Gretchen Brettschneider Skirts Thirty (Best Short - San Diego Film Festival.) She also served as executive producer on the feature documentary Making Gretchen. Annie is a native of Akron, Ohio. She holds a BA in English Literature from Pomona College. She lives and works in Los Angeles.
Cindy Peters Board of Directors
A graduate of Emerson College, Cindy has produced, written and directed many independent projects. She is most interested in creating material that make a difference in the world. Some notable works include the feature COFFEE DATE (starring Jonathan Silverman, Sally Kirkland and Wilson Cruz) that she produced as well as CITIES OF THE UNDERWORLD season 3, a series she produced for the History Channel. In 2008, she won a Telly Award for a marketing campaign she directed for Nutro, Natural Choice. She has an extensive production background and can proudly say she has worked on films with budgets of $1.80 to $180 million. Cindy is currently developing new projects for both film and television with her company Lucid Films.