Independent Filmmaking Today Filmmakers
Jordan Lisi is a filmmaker based in Brooklyn, New York. He studied film production and theory at Boston University (’21) and is an alumnus of the Woodward Artist Residency in Ridgewood, New York (Winter ‘23). He currently works as a freelance assistant director in film and video production and has 1st AD’d music videos for Bon Iver, The Lumineers, and more; narrative films by visionary independent filmmakers Jake Mahaffy, Jaclyn Bethany, and others; and commercials for corporations such as Misfits Market, The Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, and many more. He also works as a teaching artist at Educational Video Center in New York where he instructs documentary filmmaking workshops. He has been writing and directing his own short films since 2015 and is pleased to announce his debut medium-length film “12 And More Omissions”, a story about distance within cherished relationships.
Rebecca van der Meulen is an award winning filmmaker living in Brooklyn, NY. Her narrative short ‘To Wade or Row’ follows a young woman’s visit to an underground abortion clinic after the procedure has been outlawed in the United States. The film garnered acclaim at festivals such as The National Film Festival for Talented Youth, and was named Best Short Film multiple times including at the New York Socially Relevant Film Festival where it also won the Women Film Critics’ Choice Award. Rebecca received the Next Great Filmmaker Award at the Berkshire International Film Festival and was later flown to Taipei, Taiwan as a United States delegate at a Global Public Television Conference after To Wade or Row screened locally on PBS. The film’s script was chosen for the David Ames Film Award, receiving almost $6,000 for production costs. Her previous film ‘Out of the Pills’, a documentary about the opioid epidemic in West Virginia, was nominated for a Student Emmy Award in 2019. She was both a producer and Director of Photography for this production. She has been a member of IATSE Local 52 Studio Mechanics’ union since 2023 and currently works as an electrician for major studio productions in both film and TV. She previously worked in both the lighting and camera departments on non-union productions since 2016.