Trey Ellis is an award-winning filmmaker, American Book Award-Winning novelist, playwright, essayist, and Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University. Most recently, he is an Executive Producer and interviewer of the Peabody-winning HBO documentary True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight For Equality and last year’s Emmy-winning King in the Wilderness also for HBO. He is the author of the novels, Platitudes, Home Repairs, and the American Book Award Winning, Right Here, Right Now, as well as his memoir Bedtime Stories. His extensive work for the screen includes the screenplay for the Peabody winning and Emmy nominated HBO film The Tuskegee Airmen and Good Fences for Showtime, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was shortlisted for the PEN award for Best Teleplay of the year. His works have been screened at the Museum of Modern Art and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, GQ. Playboy, Vanity Fair and NewYorker.com. His plays have been commissioned by the Lincoln Center Institute and have been performed around the country including Washington, D.C.’s historic Ford’s Theater, the Pasadena Playhouse, and the New Victory Theater in New York.
Trey will be judging the finalist round of the Drama Feature category.