2025 Film Jurors

Will Goss

Dark Matters

Will Goss is the Creative Development Coordinator at Crooked Highway. A filmmaker and screenwriter based in Los Angeles, he previously spent over a decade working as a film critic and entertainment reporter for such outlets as the Austin Chronicle, Cinematical, Empire Magazine, Film.com, Indiewire, MSN Movies, The Playlist, and Rolling Stone.

Smriti Mindhra

Documentary Short

Smriti Mundhra is a DGA Award winner, two-time Academy Award nominee, and three-time Emmy-nominated filmmaker known for pushing the boundaries of nonfiction storytelling. She recently created and directed The Romantics, Netflix’s definitive documentary on the history of Bollywood, featuring 35 of its biggest stars and rare archival access.

Smriti’s breakout short St. Louis Superman—a story of activism, trauma, and resilience—was Oscar-nominated and acquired by MTV Documentary Films after a multi-studio bidding war, with support from Judd Apatow, Brad Pitt, and Mark Ruffalo. She received her second Academy Award nomination for I Am Ready, Warden, a powerful documentary that continues her commitment to centering urgent, character-driven stories.

She is the creator, director, and executive producer of Netflix’s global hit Indian Matchmaking (three seasons) and its spinoff Jewish Matchmaking, both Emmy-nominated. She continues to explore cultural identity and reinvention in her new unscripted series Bollywood Dance U, a high-stakes college dance docuseries, and Muslim Matchmaker, now streaming on Hulu.

Her debut feature A Suitable Girl premiered at Tribeca, where she won Best New Documentary Director. On the scripted side, Smriti recently directed episodes of Never Have I Ever (Netflix) and The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh (Amazon Freevee), expanding her creative footprint across both documentary and narrative formats.

Jeffrey Reiner

Narrative Student Shorts

Director/Producer Jeffrey is an award-winning film and television director and executive producer with his notable credits including the iconic Friday Night Lights, Fargo, Homeland, Dirty John, and The Affair. He has been awarded a Golden Globe, a Peabody, and multiple American Film Institute Awards for his outstanding contributions to film & TV. Jeffrey got his start as an independent filmmaker and returns to his roots with Lake George, a gritty, dark comic, Neo Noir. Lake George premiered at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival and will be released theatrically by Magnolia Films. In addition, Jeffrey is in production on a feature documentary about the wine maker, Randall Graham, and his cutting edge project Popelouchum.

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