“A true connective experience full of inspiration and amazing people.” — James Choi, Assistant Professor of Cinema (DePaul University)
Mentors (in-person)
Mentors are seasoned filmmakers and writers who are available to help sabbatical participants grow and connect.
Dr. Sabeen Ahmed is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Swarthmore College, where she works in the areas of social and political philosophy, philosophy of race, and anticolonial thought.
Her research and pedagogy are grounded in decolonial, antiracist, and anti-imperial commitments that bring global perspectives and historically marginalized voices to bear the major political (and thus philosophical) questions of our present.
Ahmed was the 2023 Scholar-in-Residence at the Ouray International Film Festival. She returned to Ouray whe she served on the festival jury at OIFF25.
Alexandria Bombach (they/them) is an award-winning director, producer, cinematographer, editor, and story consultant known for character-driven documentaries that capture human stories with empathy and depth. Their latest film, It’s Only Life After All, opened the 2023 Sundance Film Festival with an intimate portrait of the Indigo Girls’ forty years of music, friendship, and activism.
Bombach’s debut feature, Frame by Frame (2015), about Afghan photojournalists, premiered at SXSW and went on to win over 25 festival awards. Their 2018 documentary, On Her Shoulders, following Yazidi activist Nadia Murad, premiered at Sundance, where Bombach received the U.S. Documentary Directing Award. The film was shortlisted for the Academy Award, nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards, and recognized with both the Ridenhour Documentary Film Prize and a Dupont Award.
Most recently, Bombach served as Executive Producer and Editor ofThere Was, There Was Not (2024), directed by Emily Mkrtichian, which chronicles the lives of four women in Artsakh amid war and displacement. Alongside developing their next feature, Bombach frequently collaborates as a story consultant, working with new and seasoned filmmakers to shape narratives with clarity and integrity. They currently reside in the high desert of their hometown of Santa Fe, New Mexico where they serve on the advisory board of the Santa Fe International Film Festival.
Curators
Curators are established filmmakers and programmers who review applications and help build the final cohort.
Colleen Thurston is a documentary storyteller and film curator from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Colleen has produced for the Smithsonian Channel, Vox, PBS, and federal, tribal, and non-profit organizations. Her work has screened at international film festivals and broadcast nationwide. She has received support for her work from Firelight Media, the Sundance Institute, Ford Foundation, Patagonia, ITVS, the Redford Center and Creative Capital. Colleen is the project coordinator for the Indigenous video series, Native Lens on Rocky Mountain PBS, and is the senior programmer for Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival.
Haneol (John) Lee or 이한얼 (b.2002, South Korea) is an award winning filmmaker who is an immigrant from South Korea. Lee's work dives deep into the Korean-American identity and explores themes of the Asian-American diaspora such as generational trauma, language code switching, and cultural duality through a provocative lens. Lee's work has screened at places such as the British Film Institute, Palm Springs International Shortfest, and Cleveland International Film Festival. He is a Short to Feature Lab alumni and a programmer at the Ouray International Film Festival.
Directors (in-person)
These founding directors develop the sabbatical year-round and serve as added mentors during the in-person experience.
Benjamin Wiessner is a producer and VP of Sales & Distribution at Vanishing Angle. He was named to Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Indie Film in 2012 as part of ornana films, where he began producing and distributing shorts and features with partners across the world. He has made numerous award-winning films with premieres at Sundance, Berlinale, SXSW, Cannes, and Tribeca, including producing and self-distributing THUNDER ROAD (SXSW 2018 Grand Jury Prize). Raised by educators, he frequently speaks about filmmaking, distribution, and film marketing at film schools, festivals, and conferences from Cannes to Kazakhstan. He is a founding board member of the Ouray International Film Festival, and co-founded the Ouray Film Sabbatical. In 2018, he co-founded the Short to Feature Lab and in 2020 he helped launch the Vanishing Angle Post Grant for short filmmakers.
Jake Abell is a co-founder and head programmer of the Ouray International Film Festival. Abell is also a filmmaker and scholar with research interests in film, medieval studies, and the environmental humanities. He received a joint Ph.D. in French Studies and Comparative Media Analysis and Practice in 2021 from Vanderbilt University. He published his first book on economic solidarity in medieval poetry in 2023 and has a forthcoming article on the films of the Dardenne Brothers. Abell graduated from Ouray High School in 2009. Abell also serves as a guest speaker and jurist for festivals and other film organizations, including recent engagements with the Native Lens Symposium and Salute Your Shorts Film Festival in LA. He is a co-founder and co-director of the Ouray Film Sabbatical.
Jared LaCroix is a co-founder and head programmer of the Ouray International Film Festival. He is also a filmmaker and creative director. He has directed music videos and fashion editorials for a range of clients, including Biyo and Vogue China. His films have been featured at the Nashville Film Festival, Palm Springs Shortfest, the British Film Institute, and Soho House. In 2021, he was a fellow at the Short to Feature Lab in Malibu. He is currently working on a feature documentary about tea master Yoshitsugu Nagano. LaCroix is a co-founder and co-director of the Ouray Film Sabbatical.