Women In Film Panel

Saturday November 11, 2006
2:00pm-3:30pm

Come hear successful women as they participate in a discussion on women in the film industry. Q&A to follow panel discussion. To get your tickets for this event please visit the ticket information page.

Scheduled to Appear: Moderator

Fran Lozano

Fran has served as Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Gavilan College since 2002. Prior to that appointment, she taught English and film at Gavilan College and served as Technology Committee and English Department Chairs. She taught at Hartnell, Monterey Peninsula, Fresno City, and Reedley Community Colleges and CSU Fresno. In 1995 she published Airborne, A Writer's Textbook, and since 2003, she has produced Art Is Essential for Gav-TV 18. She is a member of the Board of Directors for the Carmel Bach Festival and the Performing Arts Task Force at CSU Monterey Bay. Fran's three children study art, law, and science respectively. Fran's interests include film, classical music, horseback riding, and trekking, and in that line, she has hiked in Patagonia, Sikkim, the Alps, China, and on England's Coast to Coast route. Her master's thesis, the Archetypal Role of the Female in the Lord of the Rings, reflects an abiding interest in the lore of ancient realms, both real and imaginary.

Scheduled to Appear: Guest Panelists

Mari Marchbanks (Writer/Director)

Mari Marchbanks is a graduate of the University of Texas with a B.S. in Radio, Television and Film.  She is the Writer/Director of FALL TO GRACE, which premiered in the SxSW Film Festival 2005.  FALL TO GRACE has gone on to screen at film festivals all across the country, and won numerous awards, including the Narrative Feature Prize given by the New Orleans Film Festival and First Place - Best Feature Film at the Rhode Island International Film Festival. Mari is also the 2005 recipient of the Milagro Award in Screenwriting at the Santa Fe Film Festival.

As one of the first films to be launched by Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner’s 2929 Entertainment’s Truly Indie distribution initiative, FALL TO GRACE opened in select cities theatrically this summer. November 14, 2006 marks the FALL TO GRACE DVD release by Cinequest Distribution. FALL TO GRACE is Marchbank’s directorial debut of a feature length movie.

Lisa Jones Johnson

Lisa Jones Johnson was recently named Chief Executive Officer of Comedy Express Television, Inc. Comedy Express is a new cable network targeted to the 18-34 demographic, the “ADD” generation.

Prior to being named Chief Executive Officer of Comedy Express, Ms. Jones Johnson served as Executive Vice President of Development and Operations for Western International Syndication. Her primary focus was on creating, developing and producing programming that would expand the company’s focus beyond first run syndication.

Most recently, Ms. Jones Johnson developed and Executive Produced one hundred and thirty episodes of “On the Cover” a pop culture game show that aired on the Pax Television Network. She also developed and Executive Produced “Bloodsuckers” a two hour telefilm for The Sci Fi Network. The film which premiered in July 2005 was targeted to Sci Fi’s primarily male audience and was Sci Fi’s second highest rated original film of the year.

Ms. Jones Johnson’s extensive experience in the entertainment and media industries, also includes her work as Broadcast Counsel at CBS in New York where Ms. Jones Johnson negotiated CBS’s billion dollar deal with Major League Baseball. Following her work at CBS, Ms. Jones Johnson was a screenwriter and independent producer for four years with projects at Paramount, Fox and Hemdale Communications.

Ms. Jones Johnson began her career as a corporate lawyer in New York for the firm of Debevoise & Plimpton where she specialized in mergers and acquisitions and leveraged buyouts. She also practiced in the area of real estate finance. Ms. Jones Johnson was an Adjunct Professor of Law at USC Law School for four years where she taught courses on drafting and negotiating entertainment contracts.

Ms. Jones Johnson is an honors graduate of Harvard University and the Harvard Law School. Ms. Johnson grew up in Paris, France and Port AU Prince, Haiti, where her father was the US Ambassador to UNESCO and the US Ambassador to Haiti, respectively. As a result she is bi-lingual in French. She also received a fellowship from the Harvard Center For International Affairs to do research on her undergraduate thesis in Brazil.

Louise Rubacky

Louise Rubacky is an editor and filmmaker with over twenty-five years experience in narrative and documentary films. Louise has edited for Jean-Jacques Annaud (Wings of Courage), Francis Coppola (Godfather III), George Lucas (The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles) and Nicolas Roeg (Heart of Darkness), among many others. She wrote, co-directed and co-edited the documentary There’s Something About W, which examines the promises and policies of the Bush Administration; and produced and directed Riding the Rails, a short film about a group of American seniors struggling to pay for their medicines on fixed incomes, who traveled by train to Canada to buy them for a third of the cost of the same drugs in the United States.

Louise lives in San Rafael, CA and is currently indulging in a long-term desire to write a screenplay.

Jessica Jones

An alumnus of the American Film Institute Graduate Directing Program, Jessica has directed several short films and is now co-writing a feature length screenplay she is going to direct titled Prettyface. In her off time she manages story development for Fred Roos, producer of such films as the Godfather parts II and III, The Black Stallion and Lost In Translation.