‘2012 Special Guests’ 
Julie Amsberry
9/24/12 •
Julie Amsberry began her artistic journey as a child growing up in small town Iowa, completely entranced in pop music, dancing, live theatre, and the wonder of television. In college, she pursued a degree in music education at the University of Northern Iowa then put her nose to the grindstone for many years as a middle [...]
Jay Albertson
9/24/12 •
Ezekiel Richter and Jay Albertson work together as a filmmaking team, sharing the tasks of writing, directing, and producing. They have completed several short films including Excess Express. More recently, Richter and Albertson finished production on their first feature film, Worst Kind of People. But even more recently, Albertson and Richter have launched an unofficial [...]
Emily Beck
9/20/12 •
Born and raised in North Dakota, Emily now serves as Executive Director of the Historic Fargo Theatre and the annual Fargo Film Festival. After falling in love with movies at a young age, Emily followed that passion in her academic pursuits earning her degree in Film History/Criticism at Minnesota State University Moorhead. She began her [...]
Chad Bishoff
9/20/12 •
Chad Bishoff comes to the South Dakota Film Festival with a film he produced with Eric Dwight and also served as Director of Photography and Editor, Bus 1107. Bishoff started his career in production before moving into producing, writing and directing. He has produced and directed commercial spots for Omaha Children’s Hospital, Nebraska Furniture Mart, [...]
Dalton Coffey
9/15/12 •
Dalton Coffey is an award winning filmmaker from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, known for his creative storytelling and visual aesthetic. Originally from Harrison, Arkansas, Dalton began his creative career as a musician, recording engineer, and songwriter. His passion for storytelling led to a desire to share his stories with a broader audience, providing a new [...]
Greg Carlson – Filmmaker, Professor
9/15/12 •
Greg Carlson is an educator, moviemaker, and writer. He is the senior co-chair of the 2011 Fargo Film Festival, the Associate Film Editor of the High Plains Reader and teaches film at Concordia College. Work that Carlson has directed or produced has been screened in the Orlando Film Festival, the Free Range Film Festival, the [...]
Brianna Deihl
9/10/12 •
Brianna Deihl is a Writer / Director / Producer from Minneapolis. She made her first film in 4th grade. Her mother was the camera operator. Her father ruined most of the takes by driving through the background in his green hearse as he was trying to level the topsoil for planting grass seeds. Since then her senior [...]
Lawrence Diggs
9/10/12 •
Lawrence Diggs uses art to encourage communication on difficult topics. He creates short animations to spark interactive discussions with his audience about these difficult topics. He makes presentations worldwide on culture and food. He works in various media including animation, photography, digital imagery, musical composition, interactive presentation, poetry in English and Japanese, ceramics and microbial [...]
Eric Dwight
9/09/12 •
Eric Dwight comes to the South Dakota Film Festival with a film he wrote, directed, and acted in, Bus 1107. Eric started out writing as a teenager writing scripts, short stories, and even publishing two poems. While in high school he got involved in improvisational comedy. (Something he still performs today in Nebraska, Iowa, and [...]
Matt Eckholm
9/05/12 •
Matt Eckholm is a director, producer and screenwriter from the Twin Cities. He attended the Northwestern University NHSI Film/Video program in 2009, and is currently finishing his Bachelor of Arts in Film Studies at Minnesota State University Moorhead. His film Try Number Three received several awards from the MSUM Film Studies juried screening, including ‘Best [...]
Graham Greene
8/30/12 •
The South Dakota Film Festival is pleased to announce that Graham Greene will be attending the Festival as part of the Thunderheart retrospective. Greene earned his first major feature film credit in the historical epic, Revolution, opposite Al Pacino. Later, he landed the role of Kicking Bird in Kevin Costner’s Dances with Wolves (1990). The [...]
Brian Hoesing
8/25/12 •
Brian Hoesing was born and raised in Aberdeen S.D. and has been making films since childhood. More recently he has Co-Written and Directed several short films including Table 9, which premieres this year at the South Dakota Film Fest. Favorite Films Include Jurassic Park, Back to the Future, Toy Story, Almost Famous, and Son of [...]
Andrew Kightlinger
8/10/12 •
Born and raised in Madagascar, Kightlinger studied politics and French at Augustana College before attending film school at Boston University. Having already directed a few shorts, Kightlinger’s feature directing debut Dust of War, co-stars Tony Todd (Candyman) and Doug Jones (Pan’s Labyrinth). It is currently in post-production. Andrew holds a unique view of the world [...]
Steven Luke
8/05/12 •
Steven is a graduate of South Dakota State University, where he pursued and honed his natural love of acting and producing. His most recent works include Souvenirs starring Academy Award nominee James Cromwell and The Deep End, for which he earned a Best Actor recognition at the 2011 Fischgaard Short Film Competition. When not in [...]
Ben Lifson – Filmmaker
8/05/12 •
Ben Lifson is a senior filmmaker at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Starting out wanting to make video games, he transitioned into film when he realized his interest in visual storytelling through movies. He has found his talent in screenwriting and editing, and has worked on several narrative and documentary works, both student [...]
Amy Miner
8/01/12 •
Yankton native Amy Miner is a teacher at heart. From teaching language arts and drama at both public and private middle and high schools, teaching acting and composition to college students, guiding drama residencies in public and private schools K-12, and offering methods classes to secondary educators, she has been inevitably drawn to the classroom [...]
Patrick McKeown
8/01/12 •
Patrick McKeown is a student filmmaker from Shoreview, MN. He is currently a senior at Minnesota State University Moorhead. In addition to Francois Marconi – Man or God?, he has participated in several projects of varying genre and tone. He enjoys reading comic books, photography, and playing music. His film, Francois Marconi- Man or God?, [...]
Andy Mogren – Filmmaker
8/01/12 •
Andy Mogren is a self taught comedy wizard. With a unique visual and comedy style unlike anything you’ve seen before, he has taken the comedy film festival circuit by surprise with films like Bear Force One and Werewolf in a Girl’s Sorority. He is also the creator of the World’s first 3D comedy television [...]
Jason A. Micallef
8/01/12 •
We are pleased to announce that screenwriter, Jason A. Micallef will be attending the South Dakota Film Festival. Jason travels to Aberdeen to take part in a Q&A following the screening of Butter. Tickets are still available, click on the link to the right to purchase online or stop in at the Capitol Theatre. Butter [...]
Ashley Marie Odegard
7/26/12 •
Ashley Marie Odegard is a screenwriter, director and animator from Fargo, North Dakota. She is currently finishing her degrees in Writing and Film Production at Minnesota State University Moorhead. In addition to her film Verbatim, Ashley has written and directed two narrative shorts and worked on several film crews. She loves to write and works [...]
Sean and Daniella Voysey Olson – Filmmakers
7/25/12 •
Sean and Daniella Voysey Olson are lifelong film lovers and self-taught filmmakers from Minneapolis. Breakfast for Dinner is their second short film: their first, Brother, received the award for Best New Filmmaker at the 2010 Quiet on the Set Film Festival in Minneapolis. Among their favorite films are the Lord of the Rings, anything Pixar, [...]
Raymond Rea
7/13/12 •
Raymond Rea is a film and stage producer/director. He worked for over a decade as an actor and director with San Francisco’s Theatre Rhubarb, a company dedicated to staging rarely seen and risk-taking theatre works. His own production company, Density Over Duration, has produced 8 stage works, 11 short films and a recent feature. His [...]
James Reford
7/12/12 •
Writer and filmmaker James Reford originally hails from Montreal and holds a BA in International Administration. He attended The Stratford Chef’s School and worked in restaurant kitchens for a number of years. He then decided to combine his passion for food and his love of writing. France and its culinary traditions have been of particular [...]
Ezekiel Richter
7/10/12 •
Ezekiel Richter and Jay Albertson work together as a filmmaking team, sharing the tasks of writing, directing, and producing. They have completed several short films including Excess Express. More recently, Richter and Albertson finished production on their first feature film, Worst Kind of People. But even more recently, Albertson and Richter have launched an unofficial [...]
Katlyn Richter – SD Department of Tourism
7/09/12 •
Katlyn Richter – Media Relations Representative, South Dakota Office of Tourism Katlyn joined the Media & Public Relations team in the Office of Tourism in February. She serves as a resource to connect the local film industry to the national film industry. Not only does she work to promote South Dakota as a film location, [...]
Justin and Kristin Schaack
7/09/12 •
Justin and Kristin Schaack have been making films and commercials together since middle school. They both went to film school in Southern California, and stayed in Los Angeles to work in television. In 2006, they moved back to their home state of Minnesota and quickly acquired corporate positions in the media departments of Target and [...]
Mike Scholtz
7/08/12 •
Mike Scholtz is a documentary filmmaker with an eye on history. If any mad scientists are reading this now, please contact him immediately. He is very interested in becoming a test subject for your time machine. Particularly if you can take him back to the year 1972. His latest film, WILD BILL’S RUN, is an [...]
SoulDrive – After Party Band
7/06/12 •
SoulDrive found its footprints when Tyler Pridey of Sioux Falls and Ron Parker of Aberdeen started the group after 2 years of performing as a duo together within and around the Aberdeen area with a successful track record to go with them. In 2010 the soulful two man group formed into a hip four man [...]
Rob Story
7/05/12 •
Rob Story has worked with Outside Magazine, the planet’s leading outdoors sports magazine, since 1988. His involvement in the outdoors industry goes back 20 years. He has written about adventure sports for NBCSports.com, The Los Angeles Times, Backcountry, Men’s Journal, and Rolling Stone, among many others. He’s the Columnist for Skiing Magazine, a correspondent for Outside Magazine, and also acts as Editor at Large for Bike and Powder magazines. He [...]
Brian Turek & Ryan Becken
7/01/12 •
Since 2008 “Thirsty Eye Shorts” (a partnering of Writer Brian Turek + Director Ryan Becken + “Do Everything” Crew Member Matt Beaver + Chief Mischief Maker Jon Harris) has collaborated to create six Short Films (with another in progress) and multiple award winning commercial contest spots in the Twin Cities. We have a passion for [...]
John Vogel
6/25/12 •
John Vogel has been making homemade films since his parents got a VCR camera in the 80s. He feels very fortunate that the Fischgaard Short Film Project provides an opportunity to full fill his childhood dream (The List is his second film selected to play at the SDFF). The other 51 weeks of the year he [...]
Whack Yo Paddle Productions
6/20/12 •
Filmmakers Chance Cole, Jacob Hopkins, and Jared Myers – During their sophomore year in the film studies program at Minnesota State University Moorhead, Chance Cole, Jared Myers, and Jacob Hopkins teamed up to create a short action film called “Run!” Since the production of Run, they have teamed up on numerous other projects which have [...]
Ryan Wood – Filmmaker
6/17/12 •
From frat-boy channeling puppet monkey’s with homicidal tendencies to Dungeons and Dragons geeks with a lovingly strange relationship, Ryan writes and directs “what he knows”. Ryan’s films have screened all over the world in such premier film festivals as Toronto, Bermuda, Minneapolis/St. Paul and, of course, South Dakota Film Festival. His web series Fear of Girls [...]
Patrick Wynne
6/16/12 •
Patrick Wynne is a North Dakota filmmaker with dozens of shorts under his belt. He graduated from the University of North Dakota in 2006 with a degree in Journalism. He then worked as a news photographer as he pursued a bachelors in degree in film from Minnesota State University Moorhead. After graduation in 2010, Patrick [...]
