JURY
Maxine Bailey
Jury Committee
maxine bailey (she/her) is a dynamic member of Toronto’s arts community. She currently serves as Executive Director of the Canadian Film Centre (CFC).
Previously, maxine served as the Vice-President of Advancement at TIFF where she founded Share Her Journey, a fundraising commitment to achieving gender parity both on and off screen. She also co-founded the Black Artists Network in Dialogue (BAND), which showcases Black cultural contributions nationally and internationally, and currently participates on the advisory boards and steering committees for the Luminato Festival Toronto and the City of Toronto’s Culture Plan External Advisory Panel.
Jacob Stebel
Jury Committee
Jacob Stebel, Program Director, Ghetto Film School New York.
Jacob is a teacher, writer, photographer, and producer from Long Island, NY where he spent his teenage years and early twenties working on public access shows, and managing an arthouse movie theater, while writing and acting in several short films. After co-writing and producing the no-budget feature Freaks, Nerds & Romantics, a story about the unraveling of a punk band and their local music scene, he finished his BA in English at Stony Brook University, graduating Summa Cum Laude before getting his MA in English Education at Columbia University’s Teachers College.
After graduating, Jacob brought his enthusiasm for working with young people and his love of writing to The Cinema School, the first public high school in the nation to require four years of study in narrative filmmaking. A strong partnership with Ghetto Film School developed, as Jacob contributed to four years of International Thesis Films, serving as script advisor and on-location production support to the Fellows in Stockholm, Sweden (2014) and A Coruña, Spain (2015). His work with students has been featured on ABC7, PIX11, & NY1 News, and written up in The Atlantic.
After nearly a decade of teaching in the South Bronx, Jacob is delighted to transition to developing student filmmakers at Ghetto Film School, bringing his passions for education, film, diversity, and equity of access to this inspiring organization and its deserving students.
