Women Rocking Hollywood 2022 panelists

WHAT'S THE PANEL ALL ABOUT?

Women Rocking Hollywood 2024: Female Filmmakers Breaking Barriers & Breaking Records

11th Annual Women Rocking Hollywood Panel: Surviving and Thriving in a Changing Landscape—The last few years have been difficult for artists working in the screen industries. This has been especially true for women. And yet, they persevere. This year’s panel celebrates the show runners, directors and advocates creating great work despite the challenges. From fan favorites to genre films and compelling stories on the small screen, female filmmakers are reflecting diverse voices onscreen. Join us as this panel of powerful women changing the landscape of film & tv from the inside discuss their projects and how they navigate the worlds inside and outside Hollywood. Scheduled to appear are writer/executive producer Aeysha Carr (Woke, the upcoming Government Cheese), director Rosemary Rodriguez (Peacemaker, The Walking Dead franchise), producer/executive producer Dara Resnik (Daredevil, Home Before Dark), writer/executive producer Carla Ching (Fear the Walking Dead, Mr. & Mrs. Smith), writer/executive producer Danielle Sanchez-Witzel (Up Here, Survival of the Thickest), and advocate Chandra Jackson (director of marketing and communications for Women in Film). Moderated by Leslie Combemale (lead contributor, Alliance of Women Film Journalists). North 100B

WHO ARE THE PANELISTS?

ROSEMARY RODRIGUEZ

Rosemary Rodriguez has built a career working on both her own features and in episodic television. Rosemary has won awards for independent features Acts of Worship and Silver Skies, which she both wrote and directed, and has become one of the go-to guest directors on the small screen. Her credits include Rise, The Walking Dead, Jessica Jones, The Good Wife, and Elementary among many more. More recently she executive produced and directed on the Apple TV+ show Home Before Dark, and directed episodes of Peacemaker, Your Honor, and Elsbeth. She has several films in the works, including Gated, a genre film about what happens when a wealthy community takes their Latino workers for granted and the very gates designed to keep them safe, keep them trapped instead.

DANIELLE SANCHEZ-WITZEL

Danielle Sanchez-Witzel is a comedy writer and producer signed to an overall deal at Netflix under her banner, SanWitz Productions, where she co-created the series Survival of the Thickest which premiered in 2023, and is celebrating the release of its second season. She is also part of the all-star Broadway team that developed Hulu’s romantic comedy musical Up Here, ensuring that at least one member of the squad was not a Tony winner. She also served as show runner for three seasons on NBC’s critically acclaimed The Carmichael Show. Danielle has worked under overall deals at 20th Television, CBS Paramount, and NBC Universal.

CARLA CHING

Carla Ching is a native Angeleno who called NYC home for 16 years. Her plays include Revenge Porn or The Story of a Body (Ammunition Theater Company 2022; Toulmin Commission for The Atlantic; O’Neill Playwrights Conference 2021), Nomad Motel (NNPN Rolling World Premiere at City Theatre, Pittsburgh, Horizon Theatre in Atlanta and Unicorn Theatre in Kansas City; NY Premiere at The Atlantic Theatre in NYC), The Two Kids That Blow Shit Up (Artists at Play, Theatre Mu), Fast Company (South Coast Rep, Ensemble Studio Theatre) and TBA (2g). Carla’s full-length plays have been produced or workshopped by Aurora Theatre, Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor, CTG Writers’ Workshop, Huntington Theatre Company, The Kitchen, The Lark Playwrights Workshop, Lyric Stage, Ma-Yi, Midnight Rice, PFP and The Women’s Project among others. Former artistic director of 2g. Founding member of The Kilroys and member of New Dramatists. Carla is a co-recipient of the 2021 Horton Foote Playwriting Award from the Dramatist Guild and with Ammo, a recipient of The Los Angeles New Play Prize. On television, Carla has written for Graceland, Fear the Walking Dead, I Love Dick, The First, Preacher, Home Before Dark and the award-winning Mr. and Mrs. Smith co-created by Francesca Sloane and Donald Glover. She is currently developing new projects for both the big and small screens, several soon to be announced.

DARA RESNIK

Native New Yorker Dara Resnik holds a B.A. in Economics from Tufts University and an M.F.A. in Motion Picture Producing from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts’ Peter Stark Producing Program. Following a successful feature writing career, she has been writing and producing television for over a decade, including stints on Aaron Sorkin’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Pushing Daisies, Mistresses, Castle, Jane the Virgin, Jill Soloway’s I Love Dick, and Marvel’s Daredevil. She co-created HOME BEFORE DARK for Apple TV+, a drama inspired by real-life 13-year-old crime reporter Hilde Lysiak.

She currently has a limited series in development at Peacock that spotlights Robert Durst's female victims, and has co-written and produced an independent feature called California Scenario. Between projects, Dara teaches the next generation of writers in the Peter Stark Producing Program and the John Wells Division of Writing for Screen & Television, both at USC, and the Sundance labs. In her spare time, Dara is an active leader in her progressive Jewish community, Ikar, and she also runs the occasional marathon. Dara finds the motivation to push ever onward from the many young women she mentors.

CHANDRA JACKSON

Chandra Jackson is the Director of Marketing & Communications at WIF, the foremost organization working to advance gender parity in the screen industries. An impassioned and innovative communications strategist, Chandra has spent the past 15 years advising world-class organizations. Before joining WIF, she held positions in marketing at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, where she led the development and execution of strategic marketing campaigns and partnerships for art and film programming.

Chandra is devoted to equitable stewardship and has served on juries for the California Arts Council, Los Angeles County Department of Arts & Culture, the City of Pasadena and the City of West Hollywood. She also serves as President of the Advisory Board of TeenTix LA, a nonprofit that ensures equitable access to art and culture experiences for young people. Her work is guided by radical entrepreneurial thinking and a commitment to advancing storytelling as a catalyst for social change.

Chandra holds a bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies from Manhattanville College and a master’s degree in Performance Studies from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, with a focus on Art and Public Policy.

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AEYSHA CARR

Aeysha Carr is currently serving as Creator/Executive Producer/Showrunner on the Apple Original series “Government Cheese". Previously, she served as Co-Executive Producer on Darren Star's “Uncoupled” and Executive Producer/Showrunner on the Hulu original “Woke.” Her prior TV credits include "Brooklyn 99,” "The Carmichael Show," and “Everybody Hates Chris.” On the feature side, Aeysha most recently wrote the sequel to Midnight Run. She also recently adapted Planes, Trains, and Automobiles for Paramount with Kevin Hart attached to star.

Leslie Combemale is moderator and creator of the Women Rocking Hollywood panel at San Diego Comic-Con and WonderCon. She has been writing about film, with a focus on women and diversity for over 18 years on sites like AWFJ.org, TheCredits.org, and her own site, CinemaSiren.com. She has a passion for artists below the line, celebrating them through her film art gallery ArtInsights, where she has been selling film art by the filmmakers for over 30 years. She is an expert on the history of animation and film art, and has been amplifying the careers of animators important to the classic animated features and tv shows, as well as production artists integral to films like Star Wars and Harry Potter, at conventions around the world for over a decade. She believes parity for women behind the camera and below the line will come, in part, through the support of the thousands of vocal fans at entertainment and comic conventions, that have loyally attended the Women Rocking Hollywood panels since its inception.

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You can see her work with AWFJ on this Alliance of Women Film Journalists page.

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