Judges

Kevin Nolting is an award-winning film editor who has been working in film and digital cutting rooms for over 37 years. After serving an apprenticeship in Hollywood with iconic film editors like Robert C. Jones and Richard Chew, he’s spent the last 22 years at Pixar Animation Studios, where he edited the Academy Award-winning films Up, Inside Out and Soul and contributed to many others, including Finding Nemo and WALL-E. He also directed the short film '22 vs. Earth’ for Disney+. Kevin currently lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife Diane (UCSC alumna, Porter College, 1978), just a short bike ride from their two daughters and two grandchildren, and is working on independent live-action films while continuing to mentor and consult at Pixar.

Jim Denault, ASC is an Emmy-nominated cinematographer, known for feature films “Boys Don’t Cry,” "Maria Full of Grace,” and “Freedom Writers,”  the TV series “Suits,” “Royal Pains,” “Carnivale,” and “Law & Order - Organized Crime."

Amera Rizk  was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and raised in an Egyptian/Slovak household. She attended Carnegie Mellon University College of Fine Art, obtaining her BFA in Electronic Time Based Media. She took supplemental classes at the Pittsburgh Filmmakers, where she began practicing her passion of Film Editing. A summer job after sophomore year (and every college summer after) took her to Maine to teach Stop Motion Editing. There, she was mentored by Howard Hoffman, a New York Animator, on the nitty-gritty fundamentals of Animation.

After graduation, Amera worked a year in Pittsburgh teaching, waitressing and developing a N.S.F. grant funded planetarium show for the Carnegie Science Center. In July of 1999, Amera moved to San Francisco to seek out a career in Film and Animation.

After completing various documentaries & animations, teaching at Mills College and Curating the SF Arab Film Festival - Amera landed a job in Pixar Editorial. She started as an Editorial Production Assistant on Cars. She then worked as a 2nd Assistant Film Editor on Up, Cars 2 and the Good Dinosaur. She then worked as a 1st Assistant Editor on Cars 3. After beginning as the 1st Assistant Editor on Soul, Amera was promoted to Second Film Editor. She received the Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement for Editing in an Animated Feature on Soul with Kevin Nolting, Robert Grahamjones and Greg Amundson. In 2020, Amera edited the Spark Short, Twenty Something. She also worked as an Additional Editor on Lightyear and the film, Elemental, for which she was also nominated for an Annie.

Amera is currently working on an unannounced project at Pixar as a Co-Lead Editor.

Jennifer Jew is a cinematographer and Emmy-award winning editor who worked as a freelance film assistant for over 10 years on live-action theatrical features. Since 2009 she has worked at Pixar and is currently the lead editor on Toy Story 5, due in theaters June 2026. Jennifer is a graduate of the UCLA Film and Television program and calls the Bay Area home. She designs and makes furniture in her free time and has a weakness for fried food and cake.

Maya Churi graduated with a BFA in Film from NYU and a MFA as an Annenberg Fellow from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. Churi has worked in independent film production, in independent film distribution and as a writer and editor at indieWIRE. As a filmmaker, her projects include Letters From Homeroom (2000) and Forest Grove (2005) which screened at the Sundance Film Festival and the Walker Art Center, among other venues. Her projects have been funded by the Creative Capital Foundation, the Jerome Foundation and New York State Council on the Arts. A screenplay adaptation of Forest Grove was selected to be a part of the 2009 Sundance Producers Lab. In 2011, Churi paused her work as a filmmaker to raise her family. She continued to write and consult while working at ITVS/Independent Lens where she produced grassroots screenings and events for documentary filmmakers. She lives in the Bay Area.