Now in its third edition, the Knight Heroes Speaker Series celebrates the boldest and brightest talents in film today. With the festival going virtual due to the pandemic, this year the series features visionary filmmakers in conversation with their creative mentors. The 2021 speakers are: Radha Blank and Gina Prince-Bythewood, and Adele Romanski and Amy Seimetz.
Held online, this edition features the pairs in dialogue about their craft, inspiration, and mentorship. Moderated by Kiva Reardon, the pairs also take questions virtually from the filmmaking community in Miami and Southern Florida—and beyond!
Radha Blank is a director, performer, writer, and proud native New Yorker. Winner of the 2020 Sundance Vanguard Award, Blank’s debut feature, The Forty Year Old Version, was one of the most acclaimed debuts of the year. It was awarded the Sundance Film Festival U.S. Dramatic Directing Award and was also nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Film. In addition to her celebrated stageplays, Blank has written for Empire (Fox) and She’s Gotta Have It (Netflix). When not writing for the stage and screen, Radha performs as RadhaMUSprime, whose brand of hip-hop comedy has sold out shows from New York to Norway.
Gina Prince-Bythewood is an award-winning director, writer, producer, and one of the most versatile storytellers working in film and television. Known for her authentic character-driven work, she has directed and written such influential feature films as Love & Basketball and Beyond The Lights. Most recently, she directed the critically acclaimed blockbuster The Old Guard. Her next feature film will be directing the historical epic The Woman King for TriStar Pictures, starring Viola Davis. Upcoming for television, Prince-Bythewood will direct the first episode and serve as an Executive Producer of ABC’s limited series Women of the Movement. An advocate for equal representation in film and television on-screen and behind the scenes, Prince-Bythewood funds a scholarship for African American students in the film program at her alma mater, UCLA.
Adele Romanski is an Academy Award and Golden Globe-winning producer whose credits include Barry Jenkins’ award-winning Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk; Eliza Hittman’s Never Rarely Sometimes Always; Chad Hartigan’s Morris From America; David Robert Mitchell’s The Myth of the American Sleepover and Under the Silver Lake; and Season Two of Starz’ Golden Globe-nominated series The Girlfriend Experience (written/directed and executive produced by Amy Seimetz and Lodge Kerrigan alongside executive producer Steven Soderbergh). She and Jenkins founded the production company PASTEL along with partner Mark Ceryak. Upcoming PASTEL projects include The Underground Railroad; Charlotte Wells’ debut feature Aftersun; and The Untitled Lion King Prequel for Disney.
Amy Seimetz, a Florida native, is an acclaimed writer, director, producer, and actress. Her most recent feature film, She Dies Tomorrow, was released in 2020 by Neon. Sun Don’t Shine, Seimetz's directorial debut feature film, won a special jury prize at South By Southwest in 2012 and was nominated for two Gotham Awards. Seimetz also co-created and executive produced two seasons of the Golden Globe-nominated Starz series The Girlfriend Experience, based on the Steven Soderbergh feature of the same name. Seimetz's notable film credits in front of the camera include Steven Soderbergh’s forthcoming feature Kill Switch, The Secrets We Keep, Pet Sematary, Alien: Covenant, and Upstream Color. Her television acting credits include Showtime’s The Comey Rule, Netflix's Stranger Things, AMC’s The Killing, the HBO comedy series Family Tree, and the EPIX series Get Shorty.