Composer Filmmaker Accelerator 2024

Cali is an Emmy-winning composer whose compositions cover a variety of styles, from lush orchestral scores to industrial/electronic sound designs. She has composed music for various shows and films including Vogue: Cake Bomb (2021), starring Renate Reinsve, and Apple TV / A24’s Home (2022), which won her 2023’s Daytime Emmy for Best Original Compositions. Other writing credits include Valiant Picture’s upcoming feature Chopin (2024), The Spiderwick Chronicles (2024) on ROKU and Fastest Woman On Earth (2022) on Max. She’s a recipient of 2018’s BMI Pete Carpenter Fellowship, and 2021’s SESAC Reel Change Film Fund.

Connor Cook is a film composer/multi-instrumentalist living in Los Angeles. She grew up playing bluegrass and Irish music, with an emphasis on accordion, mandolin, banjo, and guitar. Connor got her BM in Music Theory and Composition from Appalachian State University, then attended Columbia College Chicago to get her MFA in Music Composition For the Screen. In 2022, Connor was awarded a Sundance/MacArthur Foundation Journalism Grant for her composition project “The Act of Remembering”. She was a mentee in the inaugural 2019 Alliance for Women Film Composers Mentorship Program, and now serves on the Board of Directors. Connor is a 2023 Keychange US Innovator, and a 2022 & 2023 Mentor in the ScreenCraft Works Cross Border Program. She teaches film composition at CSUN.

Cora (Yi-Huan) Chung is a composer and cellist from Taiwan. She started her classical music training at age four. As a composer, her music has been performed and recorded at the Sound of Silent Film Festival in Chicago and 20th Century Fox Studios in 2019. She is an alumna in the prestigious Sundance Institute Film Music and Sound Design Lab at Skywalker Sound and has been awarded an Honorary Mention for the 2020 Peer Raben Music Award at Soundtrack Cologne in Germany. In 2021, she received a music grant from John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and was invited to the “Art Of Practice” fellowship at Sundance and Marché du Film “Spot the Composer” program at Cannes Film Festival. In 2023, she was selected to the CASA CINE film and music residency in Château de la Napoule in France.

Ian Chen is a Taiwanese-Canadian composer currently based in Los Angeles. His recent composing titles include Taiwanese period drama Trade War (2024) and Netflix series Futmalls (2020). Ian’s work has earned him the “Best Score Award” at the 18th Independent Music Awards and a finalist spot for the “Music of the Year” award at the 2020 Game Audio Networks Guild Awards. He also collaborates as an additional writer and orchestrator for prominent composers such as The Newton Brothers and Amanda Jones; select projects include Emperor of the Ocean Park (2024) on MGM+ and Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023) on Apple TV+. Ian’s works can be heard on major streaming platforms like Disney+, Netflix, and Amazon TV, as well as on leading TV networks across Asia, including Youku, Formosa TV, and Sanlih TV.

James Peter Moffatt is an Award-Winning Composer from Liverpool, UK. He has scored numerous international films including BAFTA shortlisted and BIFA and Oscar-nominated We Are Dancers, BFI-winning Virginia, and the multi-award-winning House of Cardin. He collaborated with the first female director at the National Theatre, writing music for stage, and the Prince and Princess of Wales on their photography exhibition HOLD STILL for the National Portrait Gallery. His work has been broadcast and recognized by BBC Introducing, Venice Film Festival, Rolling Stone Magazine, Vice, and The Hollywood Reporter, collaborating with Academy-Award, Emmy, BAFTA, and Grammy winning personnel.

Kerwin Young is a composer, recording producer with Rock and Roll Hall of Fame status, an arranger/orchestrator, multi-instrumentalist, Hip-Hop ambassador and performing rights associate with Next-Level USA, and international scholar, lecturer, and life coach. Young has composed for film and television, including Sister Act 2, Euphoria, and The Midnight Club. ​Young has composed ten symphonies, a pentalogy, concerti, orchestral fantasies, arias, ballet suites, choral works, chamber, wind band, and jazz big-band works. Kerwin Young earned a B.M. and M.M. in music composition at the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance, where he studied with Chen Yi, Zhou Long, and Jazz Messenger legend, Bobby Watson.

Levi is a twice Michigan Emmy-nominated composer for film and media for Boutique agency Fortress Talent Management. Credits include Vampire Academy on Peacock, Sewer Divers on Discovery Channel, and the award-winning Me, the Other. Levi is also a noted composer for an opera commission for the Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center, a chamber work at Carnagie Hall, and a 6-week residency with Civitella Ranieri in Umbria Italy. As a composer, piano instructor, and community organizer Levi has served as a board member for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southeast Michigan, founded a community group piano lesson program at Peace Neighborhood Center, and continues to find ways to support community through music via various non-profit committees and initiatives.

María Eugenia León is a film and concert music composer. Her work Busca la Alegría received the Inaugural Composition Award for Female Composers from the Gran Canaria Philharmonic Orchestra, a nomination at the Hollywood Music in Media Awards; and other recognitions. Her score from Flow took her to the Jerry Goldsmith Awards, Fimucinema, ISFMF, and the Chinese Theater in Hollywood. She’s premiered at Cannes Court Metrage; and more recently at LALIFF and Outfest, with the short film Inés Unfortunately. León studied Piano at the Canary Islands Music Conservatory and Engineering at the Gran Canaria University. She also earned a Dual Bachelor’s Degree in Composition and Film Scoring, and a Conducting Minor, at Berklee College of Music, where she graduated Magna Cum Laude.

Maxwell Karmazyn is an ASCAP Award-winning composer, multi-instrumentalist, and producer. He’s recorded for and shared the stage with artists such as Stevie Wonder, Hans Zimmer, Björk, Imagine Dragons, P!NK, James Blake, and Earth, Wind, and Fire. He has most recently contributed music for Steven King’s Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, and Awkwafina’s Quiz Lady. His music can be heard on Sonic the Hedgehog, Terminator: Dark Fate, Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Netflix Cobra Kai, Apple TV+ The Snoopy Show, Dreamworks animated film Trolls, and Guillermo Del Toro’s Netflix original series Trollhunters. He’s had over 200+ music placements for studios such as Disney, Lucasfilm, AppleTV, Amazon, and Sony. He’s a voting member of the Recording Academy for The Grammy Awards.

Natasha is an award-winning composer from London based in Los Angeles. She is a two-time BAFTA scholar and in 2023 she won the BMI Composer Award. Natasha has composed for numerous films with prominent directors worldwide, including Some Kind Of Paradise and Deep Into The Forest, which both premiered at Tribeca Festival 2024. Furthermore, Natasha has worked on the music team of many large-scale projects such as The Exorcist: Believer and Death Stranding II. Natasha has been featured on CBS News and New Music USA for her work, and her music has been performed globally. She is a graduate of The University of Oxford and the San Francisco Conservatory, and was selected for the 2024 cohort of AWFC Mentees. In her spare time you will find her drinking tea and playing the banjo!

Throughout her career, Nyla looks forward to empowering the voices of queer people and women of color while enriching her music with her vocal gospel and songwriting roots. From her childhood in North Carolina to her experiences in Miami, Chicago, and now LA, Nyla’s genre-bending musical journey has made waves in her community and attracted a plethora of collaborators, creators, and deep thinkers to her work. She is a passionate creator who believes in crafting organic and synthetic textures to fashion environments that feed our imaginations. Woven into the foundation of her art is the belief that stories reveal to us our true selves, and the music that we lend to our stories should help draw the world in.

Sobhan Afsarian is an award-winning composer. A recent graduate from the Royal College of Music’s Composition for Screen program in London, Afsarian was awarded the Royal College of Music Scholarship in 2023. With two bachelor’s and two master’s degrees in composition, he is celebrated for his innovative blend of classical and cinematic music. His work was featured among the top 50 pieces for film in the European Recording Orchestra Composition Competition 2024, and he has been nominated for both the Ivan Juritz and Sempre Music Competitions. Looking ahead, Afsarian will collaborate with directors and animators, and his compositions will be featured at VIFF Amp CFA 2024, where emerging composers gain hands-on experience and mentorship from industry professionals.

Asia Youngman is an award-winning Indigenous (Cree-Métis) filmmaker. Most recently, she co-directed and executive produced I’m Just Here for the Riot (2023) for ESPN’s acclaimed 30 for 30 series. Her previous short films include N’xaxaitk’w (2022) and This Ink Runs Deep (2019) which both premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Named as one of Playback’s “10 to Watch”, Asia is an alumna of the TIFF Filmmaker Lab, the TIFF Talent Accelerator, the Canadian Academy Directors Program for Women and the Berlinale’s DocSalon Toolbox Programme. She is currently writing her first feature narrative with the support of the TIFF Writers’ Studio.

Brendan Prost is a writer, director, and producer known for his eclectic body of work, including four feature films, over a dozen shorts, and several web series and music videos. His films, marked by powerful performances and an earnest exploration of themes like alienation and vulnerability, have been showcased at prestigious international festivals such as Edinburgh, Vancouver, and Inside Out – Toronto LGBT Film Festival. His work has also premiered on Hulu, CBC, and The Queer Network, where his short Loretta’s Flowers has garnered over three million views. Brendan holds an MFA in Film and Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. He is also an alum of the Directors’ Lab at the Canadian Film Centre.

Award-winning Canadian filmmaker, Caitlyn Sponheimer, is a Director Guild of Canada nominee, Reykjavik Talent Lab alumna, and Telefilm Canada and Canada Council for the Arts grant recipient. Caitlyn’s debut feature, the Telefilm/Crave film Wild Goat Surf has won multiple awards, and was theatrically released in Summer 2024. Her work has been shown at festivals around the globe with her co-written feature premiering under Telefilm’s Best of New Canadian Cinema at Cannes Marche (’18). Caitlyn wrote, directed and produced a project for 20th Digital Studios/Freeform, The Ugliest of Them All, which garnered nearly 3 million views in under a week. Acting credits include Amazon’s The Boys, and Supermassive’s horror video game, Little Hope starring opposite Will Poulter.

Karen started her career as a producer and entertainment lawyer, and has since written and directed ten short films, three music videos, a true-crime documentary series for Investigation Discovery (US), a web series, and five feature-length films — Stained (2010), Evangeline (2013) and The Curse of Willow Song (2020), which premiered at the Vancouver International Film Festival (2020). In 2024, she directed a darkly comedic supernatural road trip feature, Armageddon Road. The film was shot almost entirely in the volume wall and with miniatures, using a unique combination of old and cutting-edge technology. The second project is Karen’s tenth short film, Mrs. Chang’s Perfect Teeth, which won the Director’s Guild of Canada BC “Established Director Greenlight Award” in 2023.