KRISTINE BELSON
President
As president, Sony Pictures Animation, features and series, Kristine Belson is responsible for spearheading the studio’s strategy and growth as well as overseeing the development and production of all theatrical, serial and short form content on the Sony Pictures Animation slate.
Sony Animation most recently collaborated with filmmaker Matthew A. Cherry on the short film Hair Love, which won the Academy Award® for Best Animated Short.
The studio’s latest feature release, the critically-acclaimed Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is the winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
Sony Pictures Animation’s past releases include the mouth-watering Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and monster comedy Hotel Transylvania film series. The studio’s upcoming release slate includes the action comedy Connected produced by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, and Vivo, Sony Pictures Animation’s first-ever animated musical, featuring all new songs from Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creative force behind the Broadway smash Hamilton.
Belson joined Sony Pictures Animation in 2015 after spending nearly a decade at DreamWorks Animation, where she produced the Academy Award-nominated animated feature The Croods. Belson also served as Executive Producer of the Academy Award®-nominated film, How to Train Your Dragon.
Belson joined DreamWorks Animation with over 15 years’ experience developing and producing live-action and animated films for the Jim Henson Company, Columbia Pictures, Turner Pictures, and 20th Century Fox.
Kristine will be judging in the finalist round for the Comedy Feature category.
REBECCA WINDSOR
Director of Warner Bros. Television Workshop
Rebecca Windsor is the Director of Warner Bros. Television Workshop, the premier writing and directing program for artists looking to start or further their careers in television. As an extension of her role developing new talent, Rebecca helped launch Warner Bros. digital brand Stage13, overseeing the critically acclaimed Snatchers, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and SXSW, and Special, which premiered on Netflix and garnered four Emmy nominations. Previously, she was the Creative Producing Initiative Manager of Sundance Institute’s Feature Film Program, playing a key role in coordinating the Creative Producing Lab and Summit, Screenwriters and Directors Labs, and Episodic Story Lab. Prior to Sundance, Rebecca was Manager of Development at Samuel L. Jackson’s television company, UppiTV, and at Mandeville Films. She started her career as an assistant at the Broder Webb Chervin Silbermann Agency and ICM. A San Diego native, she attended Northwestern University, where she received a BS in Theatre.
Rebecca will be judging in the finalist round for the Comedy TV Pilot category.
JENNY HALPER
Executive Vice President, Development & Production at Maven Pictures
Jenny Halper is EVP of Development and Production at Maven Pictures, and has worked on films including The Kids Are All Right, The Whistleblower, Bernie, Still Alice, Novitiate, Freak Show and American Honey. Most recently, she Executive Produced A Mouthful of Air, which Amy Koppelman adapted from her novel of the same name and directed. She also recently co-produced Guy Nattiv’s Skin, which received the Fipresci Prize at TIFF, selling to A24; Executive Produced Andrew Ahn’s Driveways, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival selling to FilmRise, and was recently nominated for two Independent Spirit awards; and Executive Produced Sara Colangelo’s The Kindergarten Teacher, which premiered at Sundance 2018 to rave reviews, winning the directing prize and selling to Netflix.
As a screenwriter, her adaptation of Laura Van Den Berg’s short story “What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us,” now titled “The Burning Season,” was a Sloan Grantee via the Tribeca Film Institute, received a Film Independent Fellowship, placed on the Athena List and the 2016 Black List, and received a 2018 Sloan Grant from Film Independent, among other awards. Her adaptation of Alice Hoffman’s novel At Risk, her favorite book from childhood, received a Film Independent Screenwriting Fellowship and placed on the 2018 Black List.
As a fiction writer, she is an Our Stories Emerging Writer Award winner and a Pushcart Prize nominee. Her stories have been published and reprinted in places including the Chicago Tribune, Roxane Gay’s PANK, Joyland, and the Southeast Review, and her story collection was a finalist for the 2015 St. Lawrence Book Prize.
A graduate of Northwestern and Emerson, where she received a 2008 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Grant, she is a founding member of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists. She is a lifelong resident of Brooklyn, where she is the proud owner of a turtle, Herbert, and a VCR that still works. She has seen the Penny Marshall classic, A League of Their Own, exactly 38 times.
Jenny will be judging in the finalist round for the Sci-Fi Feature category.