Founded in 2017, the HDS Film Fest is an annual student-led festival that explores the intersection of film and faith.
These are the people that help make it possible:
Mario Cader-Frech – President and Chair - Events
Cader-Frech worked as SVP at ViacomCBS producing 30 global campaigns and 20 award-winning documentaries reaching nearly a billion cumulative subscribers in 160 countries; complimented with events, consumer products, digital offerings, recreation, books, and educational components. He spearheaded the ideation of the DeeperDive.org—bringing together media professionals and scholars of media, religion, and business to foster critical reflection and collaborative relationships to improve religious literacy of the American public. He serves on numerous boards including MoMA NYC; Reina Sofia Museum Madrid; and Y.ES Contemporary Art—an art program of his namesake foundation. Enjoys car racing and boxing.
Annie Ablon- Vice President, Treasurer, Chair – Internal Comms
Annie Ablon has focused her time at HDS examining the intersection of religious literacy and religious freedom with the hope of returning to convey all that she has learned back to her home state of Texas. Annie has had the pleasure of completing both the CRPL and RCPI programs under the Religion and Public Life umbrella of Harvard Divinity School. Annie's interest in the HDS Film Festival stems from her love of art, particularly how storytelling in entertainment media has the potential to powerfully reinscribe, or deconstruct, what are often hegemonic and destructive presentations of embodied religious lives, experiences, cultures, and communities. She is so excited to be involved with the Film Festival!
Isabella Huffington – Chair, Media Strategy
Isabella likes country music, reality dating shows, books with no plot, the theater, and is unable to write a bio that doesn’t read like a dating profile. She graduated from Yale in 2014 with a major in history of art and wrote her thesis on art and accessibility. Isabella is originally from Los Angeles but has lived in New York City for the last nine years, working as a mixed media collage artist. Since 2018, when she was hit by a bike, she has struggled with chronic pain, which has made her increasingly aware of the role that spirituality and religion can play in bringing resilience and hope. She’s interested in chaplaincy, Christian mysticism, and meditation. Isabella has ordered a too-large kitchen table at the advice of her Greek mother and hopes to have you all over for dinner.
Jeremy Barber – Chair, Studio & Talent Relations
Jeremy Barber is a partner in the Motion Picture Literacy and Talent departments at UTA. Prior to UTA, he was president of Catch 23 and Catch 23 UK, the production and management company which he helped found. During his tenure, Barber executive produced One Hour Photo and King’s Ransom. Barber was also head of production and acquisitions at Artisan Entertainment, where he oversaw films such as Requiem for a Dream, The Blair Witch Project, and Buena Vista Social Club. Barber began his entertainment career as an attorney at Loeb & Loeb (after working for Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, clerking on the Ninth Circuit, and working in the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia). Prior to Hollywood, Barber had a career in politics, where he worked on the Dukakis/Bentsen campaign, for Congressman Chuck Schumer, Senator Herb Kohl, and on Bill Clinton’s Chicago convention. Barber serves on the Georgetown Law School Board of Visitors, the Telluride Film Festival’s Esteemed Council of Advisors, the board of The People Concern, UTA’s Advisory Council and Leadership Council, Campbell Hall’s Advancement Committee, the Independent School Alliance Board of Directors, and served as chairman of the board of the UCLA lab school, where he now maintains an emeritus position. Jeremy holds a law degree from Georgetown University, and a MA and BA from Cambridge University. He is a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences. He lives in Beverly Hills with his three teenage children.
Daniella Malfitano – Chair, Health Impact
Daniella is a multi-faceted chef, media creator, health coach, and author. For the past decade she has worked globally with several industry-leading companies like Disney and PBS as a wellness expert and a passionate and beloved culinary host and producer. As a chef of 15 years and an integrative nutrition health coach who loves empowering people to enjoy the power of a plant-based diet to attain and sustain personalized optimal health, her experience in the kitchen, on stage, and behind the camera has led her to work with individuals and companies as a trusted health expert and food and faith focused thought leader and speaker. Check out her online show Plant Based Made Easy on YouTube and Instagram @ChefDMalfi, and her online gospel radio show Healthy and Free at audilous.com/praise95!
Sara Jin Li – Chair, Red Carpet
Sara Jin Li is a 26-year-old artist based in Los Angeles, CA by the way of the Midwest. As an immigrant and a queer woman of color, Sara’s work centers marginalized identities and has been described as “radical, clever, and gut-twisting.” She has written several short films and plays, including Leap of Love (2023), which won the Disability Film Festival. Her investigative reporting of the Gracemoon Studios acting cult was named New York Magazine’s “One Great Story.” Sara’s first book, Growing Up Powerful: All Things Friendship (Penguin House Teen), is now available for pre-order. She is currently studying at Harvard University for her masters, writing on her Substack, and being a cat-momanger. For context, Sara is a Virgo.
Robbie Rhodes - Chair, Internal Relations & Social Media Manager
Robbie is the academic technologist in the IT & Media Studies department at HDS, where he specializes in audiovisual support and media production for the campus. When not at HDS, he is pursuing a certificate in Digital Storytelling at Harvard Extension School. Robbie received his bachelor’s degree in film studies from Rhode Island College in 2017 and has since been involved in many independent video and music projects in the Greater Boston area. He is an avid fan of classic and foreign cinema, and his three favorite films are Inland Empire, Santa Sangre, and Agnes Varda’s Vagabond.
Robert Deveau – Chair, Media Services
Robert Deveau is Media Services Supervisor for Harvard Divinity School. He studied at the Orson Welles Film School in Cambridge, le Teatre National de Strasbourg in France, and at Boston University's Center for Digital Imaging Arts in Waltham. For many years an actor, he appeared on stage at most of the Boston area's theatres, as well as acting for over 20 years with the ingenious Beau Jest Moving Theatre and in all of writer/director Larry Blamire's film, around which a small but select cult has arisen. Check out Bob's IMDB entry.
Josie Lee – Chair, Newsletters
Josie is the Technology Services Coordinator in the Office of IT & Media Services at HDS. Though she doesn't have a film background, she's a lover of movies and has always carried a list of top films to pull out as an icebreaker. She finds that you can learn a lot about a person just by knowing their favorite works. The movies currently holding the top spots on her list are those with, in her opinion, amazing cinematography (e.g., The Fall, Dune 2022, the Grand Budapest Hotel, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind).
Ella St. Hilaire- Screenings Chair
Ella St. Hilaire is an entrepreneur and artist working at the intersection of womanism, decolonial theory, and the avant-garde.
Jerusha Achtenberg - Chair, External Communications
Expository Writing Professor at Harvard Extension School and Harvard Medical School.
Geralyn Dreyfous - Chair, Film Festival Submissions
Award-winning American film producer and Co-Founder of Impact Partners and Impact Gamechangers Films, producers of narrative films focusing on social justice issues. Dreyfous is a Harvard Alumni in Sociology and a Teaching Fellow at Harvard Divinity School.
Armando Fumagalli - Chair, Film Festival Panels
Director of the Master's degree program in International Screenwriting and Film Production at the Catholic University of Milan.
Bex Thompson - Harvard Cross-University Alliance Chair
Bex Thompson is a writer and educator studying the nexus between spirituality and art at Harvard Divinity School. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and African & African American Studies from Harvard College, where she conducted research on transformative justice praxis as a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow. In partnership with Harvard Radcliffe Institute, she has taught and facilitated a variety of courses in carceral spaces across the United States that interrogate matters of race and gender through critical explorations of literature, art and pop culture. Her work gives attention to how people and communities heal, repair, and care for one another in the wake of racial, colonial and gender violence.
Past Film Fest Members
Past Student Organizers
2022
Ariella Gayotto Hohl, MDiv '24
2021
Amy Greulich, MDiv ‘21
Prince Jenkins, MDiv '22 (documentarian)
Maisie Luo, MTS '22
2020
Amy Greulich, MDiv ‘21
Jason Hoelzel, MDiv ‘20
Charli Pence, MTS ‘20
Bridget Power, MDiv ‘19 (documentarian)
Lindsey Smith, MTS ‘20 (assisted)
2019
Amy Greulich, MDiv ‘21
Charli Pence, MTS ‘20
Bridget Power, MDiv ‘19 (documentarian)
Laura Ryan, MTS ‘20
2018
Seth Castiglione, MTS ‘20
Rutdow Jiraprapasuke, MTS ‘18 (co-founder, documentarian)
Bridget Power, MDiv ‘19 (co-founder, documentarian)
Past HDS Staff Member Supporters
Leslie MacPherson
Katie Caponera and Office of Student Life
Nancy Birne
Sheila Dennis
Sydney Bayer
IT team: Dan Hawkins, Kama Lord, Naohito Miura
Bok Center team: Katie Gilligan, Casey Cann, Mike Oliveri
Harvard Web Publishing team: Kate Brodofff, Richard Clinch
Previous and current HDS-affiliated Supporters
Dudley Rose and the Office of Ministry Studies
Kerry Maloney and the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life
Lauren Kerby and the Religious Literacy Project
Ann Braude and the Women’s Studies in Religion Program
The Hemptons
The Swartz Family
Geralyn White Dreyfous
Mario-Cader Frech, Dean’s Council, formerly of Viacom/CBS