2022 Honorees and Guests
Each year, we invite a group of internationally-recognized filmmakers, scholars, and activists to curate special programming, give talks, and discuss films throughout the fest.
The Director’s Spotlight Award - Jim Cummings
OIFF is proud to announce Jim Cummings as the third recipient of the Director’s Spotlight Award. Director, actor, and writer Jim Cummings was the 2016 winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s Short Film Grand Jury Prize. In 2018, his first feature film Thunder Road received the top award at SXSW in Austin, Texas. The movie went on to be nominated for the John Cassavetes Award at the Film Independent Spirit Awards.
In his second feature, The Wolf of Snow Hollow, Jim directed, wrote, and starred in the film alongside Academy-Award nominee Robert Forster. Most recently, Jim wrote, directed, edited, and played the lead role in The Beta Test, which screened at film festivals around the world before being released in theaters and eventually on Hulu. Jim has been an invited speaker at the Cannes Film Festival, a mentor to fellow filmmakers at Sundance, and the founder of the Short to Feature Lab in Malibu. In 2021, Jim was also the recipient of a career retrospective at the Champs-Élysées Film Festival in Paris. As an actor, Jim can be seen in the recent Halloween Kills opposite Jamie Lee Curtis.
Here at OIFF, one of Cummings’ films will be screened at the Wright Opera House with Jim in attendance for a Q&A.
The Film in Action Award - Zaire Love
The Film in Action Award honors a filmmaker whose work encourages the pursuit of justice and compassionate living. The 2022 recipient of the award is Zaire Love.
Zaire is an award-winning filmmaker, music maker, writer, and TEDx speaker whose mission is to honor, amplify, and archive the stories and voices of the Black South - focusing her work in Memphis, TN, and Mississippi. Her work captures the lives of Black Southerners and marries them with imagination, creativity, and possibility. In 2021, Zaire received the IF THEN x HULU grant to produce the short film, SLICE, which highlights the uniquely original Black swim culture in Memphis, TN. The highly anticipated film will make its world premiere in 2022.
Zaire is a graduate of Spelman College [BA], Houston Baptist University [M. Ed], and the University of Mississippi [MFA]. She is currently making and creating with her creative cultural studio, Creative Cornbread, and the Southern Foodways Alliance as the Pihakis Filmmaker.
Brian Tallerico, Editor of RogerEbert.com,
Film Critic and Special Guest
Brian Tallerico, the Editor of RogerEbert.com, has covered television, film, video games, Blu-ray/DVD, interviews, and entertainment news for two decades online, on radio, and in print.
In addition, he is a TV writer for Vulture.com, a contributor at Rolling Stone, and freelancer for multiple outlets, including The New York Times, The Playlist, and Rotten Tomatoes. He also serves as President of the Chicago Film Critics Association, co-produces the Chicago Critics Film Festival every May, and is a regular guest on radio stations and podcasts.
You can follow him on Twitter @Brian_Tallerico. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here.
At OIFF 2022, Brian will conduct an interview with Jim Cummings (Director’s Spotlight Award) following a screening of one of Cummings’ films.
Professor Skinner Myers,
Scholar-in-Residence
Professor Myers (Assistant Professor, CU Boulder) will deliver a talk about the future of Black Cinema and will be a crucial interlocutor with our award-winning artists throughout the festival.
Originally from Kalamazoo, Michigan, Skinner is a PHD Candidate at the University of Amsterdam and the father of two kids. He holds a BA in East Asian Studies from Columbia University, a MA in International Affairs from Brooklyn College, and currently works as an Assistant Professor of Film Production at the University of Colorado, Boulder. As a filmmaker he has written and directed 11 films.
His feature film debut, THE SLEEPING NEGRO (2021), world premiered at Slamdance FF and internationally premiered at the Champs-Élysées FF in Paris, France. It won the FIPRESCI award at IFF Mannheim Heidelberg and the VISIONARY award at Cinequest.
Jonathan Rattner,
Artist-in-Residence
Jonathan Rattner is curating a block of experimental films and planning a film workshop for our artists at this summer’s fest. Professor Rattner is an artist and filmmaker who primarily produces experimental nonfiction films and videos. He has screened work in galleries, microcinemas, festivals, and universities internationally, including the Whitechapel Gallery in London, Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Centre of Contemporary Arts in Glasgow, L’Alternativa in Barcelona, Anthology Film Archives in New York, Current’s New Media Festival in New Mexico, Antimatter in Victoria, Canada, and the Ann Arbor Film Festival in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Most recently his film The Interior, an observational documentary about an Alaskan dog musher and his 56 dogs, won best documentary at the Ann Arbor Film Festival and was acquired by the Walker Art Center’s Ruben/Benston Moving Image Collection. Rattner is currently the president of COOP Gallery, Nashville, Tennessee’s longest established, artist-run curatorial collective, and he holds the position of Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Arts and Art at Vanderbilt University.
