Editors
Christopher Reed -1154 posts
Christopher Reed -1154 posts
Christopher Llewellyn Reed is a film critic, filmmaker, and educator. A member of both the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA) and a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic, he is: lead film critic at Hammer to Nail; editor at Film Festival Today; formerly the host of the award-winning Reel Talk with Christopher Llewellyn Reed, from Dragon Digital Media; and the author of Film Editing: Theory and Practice. In addition, he is one of the founders and former cohosts of The Fog of Truth, a podcast devoted to documentary cinema.
M.J. O'Toole -355 posts
M.J. O'Toole -355 posts
M.J. O'Toole began writing for HtN in early 2021 during the Sundance Film Festival. An NYC native and lifelong cinephile, his favorite films include Chungking Express, The Three Colors Trilogy, Hiroshima Mon Amour, Lovers on the Bridge, and Midnight Cowboy. He is the Digital Marketing Manager for the agency 3rd Impression - working alongside Editor-at-large Matt Delman - that specializes in digital marketing for independent film. He holds a BA from Adelphi University and a Masters in Digital Photography from the School of Visual Arts. You can check out his portrait and street photography on Instagram.
Matt Delman -98 posts
Matt Delman -98 posts
Matt Delman is the Editor-at-large for Hammer to Nail, spearheading the redesign and relaunch of the site in January 2020. Delman has been a frequent contributor since 2015, with boots on the ground at film festivals across North America. He also runs a boutique digital marketing agency, 3rd Impression, that specializes in social media advertising for independent film. He was recently featured in Filmmaker Magazine for his innovative digital strategies.
Don R. Lewis -85 posts
Don R. Lewis -85 posts
Don R. Lewis is a filmmaker and writer from Northern California. He was a film critic for Film Threat before becoming Editor-in-Chief of Hammer to Nail in 2014. He holds a BA in screenwriting from California State Northridge and is an MA candidate in Cinema Studies at San Francisco State.
Contributors
Michael Tully -764 posts
Michael Tully -764 posts
Michael Tully is an award-winning writer/director whose films have garnered widespread critical acclaim, his projects having premiered at some of the most renowned film festivals across the globe. He is also the former (and founding) editor of this site. In 2006, Michael's first feature, COCAINE ANGEL, chronicling a tragic week in the life of a young drug addict, world premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. The film immediately solidified the director as one of Filmmaker Magazine’s "25 New Faces of Independent Film,” a reputation that was reinforced a year later when his follow-up feature, SILVER JEW, a documentary capturing the late David Berman's rare musical performances in Tel Aviv, world-premiered at SXSW and landed distribution with cult indie-music label Drag City. In 2011, Michael wrote, directed, and starred in his third feature, SEPTIEN, which debuted at the 27th annual Sundance Film Festival before being acquired by IFC Films' Sundance Selects banner. A few years later, in 2014, Michael returned to Sundance with the world premiere of his fourth feature, PING PONG SUMMER, an ‘80s set coming-of-age tale that was quickly picked up for theatrical distribution by Gravitas Ventures. In 2018, Michael wrote and directed the dread-inducing genre film DON'T LEAVE HOME, which has been described as "Get Out with Catholic guilt in the Irish countryside" (IndieWire). The film premiered at SXSW and was subsequently acquired by Cranked Up Films and Shudder.
Jessica Baxter -108 posts
Jessica Baxter -108 posts
Jessica Baxter is a visual media critic with a background in filmmaking (including the 2005 award winning horror comedy short film, Snow Day, Bloody Snow Day). She began writing on the internet circa 2006, and spent 10 years as the Seattle City Editor for Not For Tourists. She’s been a contributing writer for Film Threat, Hammer to Nail and Screenrant. She also produces and co-hosts the podcasts Paid in Puke (covering female-driven films) and Really Weird Stuff: A Twin Peaks Podcast. She lives in Seattle, WA with her spouse, kids, and too many pets. In addition to movies, she loves singing, cool clouds, and pie. Follow her on twitter (for now) @tehbaxter and on BlueSky @thebaxter.
Melanie Addington -103 posts
Melanie Addington -103 posts
Melanie Addington is the Executive Director of Tallgrass Film Association as of 2021. She has worked in the film festival world since 2006, first as a volunteer, and then eventually becoming the Oxford Film Festival Executive Director in August 2015. She used to be a reporter for the Oxford Eagle (a community newspaper) and then Pizza Magazine Quarterly (a global trade magazine). She still loves pizza. And she still writes for Hammer to Nail and Film Festival Today about her other great love: movies. She is from Southern California originally but lived in the South for 20 years. She now resides in Wichita, KS, and has one son.
Bears Rebecca Fonte -97 posts
Bears Rebecca Fonte -97 posts
Bears Rebecca Fonté is a transgender filmmaker, festival programmer, and journalist. She founded Other Worlds Film Festival after two years as the Director of Programming for Austin Film Festival. Her SciFi shorts ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE, PRENATAL, and THE SECRET KEEPER have played 150+ festivals including Fantasia, SciFi London, Boston SciFi, FilmQuest, Austin Film Festival and Dances With Films. Her LGBTQIA Horror short CONVERSION THERAPIST made its world premiere at Inside Out in Toronto and US Premiere at aGLIFF. Her feature thriller iCRIME, which she wrote and directed, was released on DVD, VOD and streaming by Breaking Glass/Vicious Circle Films in 2011. Bears Rebecca also was one of the producers on the Sundance Jury-Award Winning short THE PROCEDURE. In 2021, after five years on the Board of Directors she was made Artistic Director of aGLIFF, the oldest Queer film festival in the Southwest.
Nelson Kim -63 posts
Nelson Kim -63 posts
Nelson Kim wrote and directed the award-winning independent feature SOMEONE ELSE (2016), which was hailed by the LA Weekly as “a tense, unexpectedly moving psychological study of a man’s unraveling,” by VCinema as “a nimble and smartly designed independent production… a highly intriguing debut,” and by PopMatters as “a movie that ultimately forces you to think on your feet… certain to provoke discussion, and perhaps argument, amongst viewers.” Go to SomeoneElseMovie.com to learn more. Nelson teaches film at Wagner College in Staten Island, where he co-directs the Film and Media Studies Program. He lives in Brooklyn.
Mike S. Ryan -62 posts
Mike S. Ryan -62 posts
Mike is a New York City native who hasn't left the city, despite the city having left long ago. He was lucky enough to catch the final hurrah of NYC's film rep theaters in the mid '80s by working as projectionist and co-programmer at Bleecker Street cinema. He still prefers the analog experience of light passing through celluloid, vinyl records and conversation eye-to-eye. When he's not out of town producing a film he can be found lurking in the basement of Cinema Village or yelling at the old codgers at MoMA to stop snoring. Mike has produced many award winning films including JUNEBUG, FORTY SHADES OF BLUE, PALINDROMES, OLD JOY, MEEK'S CUTOFF and recently THINK OF ME, THE COMEDY and THE TURIN HORSE.
Jack Schenker -56 posts
Jack Schenker -56 posts
Jack Schenker is based in Los Angeles, CA. He has worked in the film industry for 5 years at various companies including Mighty Engine, Film Hub, and Grandview. Jack continues to write for Hammer to Nail, conducting interviews with prominent industry members including Steve James, Riley Keough, Christian Petzold, and Ira Sachs. His dream is to one day write and direct a horror film based on the work of Nicolas Winding Refn and Dario Argento. He directed his first short film this year titled Profondo. Jack's favorite filmmakers include Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, Denis Villeneuve, Bong Joon Ho, David Lean, John Carpenter, Ari Aster, Jordan Peele, and Robert Altman to name a few. Look out for Jack on Twitter (aka X). You can see the extent of Jack's film knowledge on Letterboxd, where he has written over 1000 reviews and logged over 1600 films.
The Editorial Staff -52 posts
The Editorial Staff -52 posts
Hammer to Nail's editors and contributors team up on collaborative articles and lists.
Brandon Harris -43 posts
Brandon Harris -43 posts
Brandon Harris works nebulously in the world of American Independent Film as a critic and journalist, producer and director, writer and educator. The Cincinnati, Ohio native is a Contributing Editor for Filmmaker Magazine and teaches part time at the New York Film Academy. You can catch his reviews here at H2N and over on his site Cinema Echo Chamber. He resides in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, which is also the setting for his forthcoming feature film debut, Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa.
Tom Hall -40 posts
Tom Hall -40 posts
Tom Hall is the Artistic Director of the Sarasota Film Festival (2005- present) in Sarasota, FL and Programming Director at FILMnewport in Newport, RI (2009-present). Formerly, Hall was Programmer for The Nantucket Film Festival in Nantucket, MA (2002-2005) as well as a former Director of New Media for Bravo/The Independent Film Channel (1997-2000). He has also worked in the Industry and Guest Services Offices at The Hamptons International Film Festival (2002-2003). In January of 2010, Tom was named one of Spring Board Media’s 20 under 40 in Film. Tom has directed short films for Bob Mould's Carnival of Light and Sound Tour and is a member of the indieWIRE blogging community with his blog The Back Row Manifesto. A graduate of the University of Michigan (’94), Hall resides in Brooklyn, NY with his wife and son.
Ted Hope -35 posts
Ted Hope -35 posts
Ted Hope is an American independent film producer based in New York City. He is best known for co-founding the production/sales company Good Machine, where he produced the first films of such notable filmmakers as Ang Lee, Nicole Holofcener, Todd Field, Michel Gondry, Moisés Kaufman, and Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, among others. Hope later co-founded This is That with several associates from Good Machine. He later worked at the San Francisco Film Society and Amazon Studios.
Pamela Cohn -26 posts
Pamela Cohn -26 posts
Pamela Cohn is a Berlin-based media producer, film programmer, writer and creative consultant. She authors a well-regarded blog on international nonfiction and experimental film called Still in Motion, and is an arts journalist for other publications and sites where she covers film festivals, posts film reviews, and conducts in-depth interviews with artists.
Cullen Gallagher -20 posts
Cullen Gallagher -20 posts
Cullen Gallagher is a Brooklyn-based film and literary critic who also writes for The L Magazine and Not Coming to a Theater Near You. An active composer and musician, he has also written music for films, and directed several music videos. More information on his music is available at www.myspace.com/modernsilentcinema. He also has a dish named after him at Jimmy’s Diner in Williamsburg.
Sammy Levine -18 posts
Sammy Levine -18 posts
Sammy Levine is a filmmaker and critic from Atlanta who currently resides in NYC. His obsession with film started at an early age and has only gotten more addictive and consuming. Post UGA graduation, he directed, produced, and wrote his first feature length film Requiem for a Writer (inspired by his favorite novel Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth). When not working his entertainment advertising day job - he has been writing scripts, reviews, and/or working on short films. Sammy has a particular affinity for challenging/stylistic/dark cinema. Boogie Nights is his most watched and loved movie; Sexy Beast ranks a close second. He has made it his life mission to average watching at least one movie a day and so far so good! Also, a deep music lover, you can catch him wherever an alternative folk or dad rock band is playing in NYC.
David Lowery -14 posts
David Lowery -14 posts
David Lowery is a filmmaker from Texas. His short work, including the award-winning short A Catalog Of Anticipations and the acclaimed essay film Some Analog Lines, has screened at festivals worldwide, including Slamdance and SXSW, as well as on IFC, PBS and at Wholphin. He is an alumni of the Berlinale Talent Campus and a two-time recipient of a TFPF Production Grant. His first feature film, St. Nick, will premiere at the 2009 SXSW Film Festival. Much of his work, in both film and print form, can be found at his website, www.davidpatricklowery.com.
Lena Dunham -14 posts
Lena Dunham -14 posts
Lena Dunham was born New York City in 1986 and she's still there. She left briefly to attend Oberlin College (she graduated in 2008 with a degree in creative writing). She has worked as a dog groomer, comedienne, babysitter, hostess, and contributor to adolescent girl magazines like Seventeen and Teen Vogue. She is known as the creator, writer, and star of the HBO television series Girls (2012–2017). Prior to Girls, Dunham wrote, directed, and starred in the semi-autobiographical independent film Tiny Furniture (2010).
Evan Louison -13 posts
Evan Louison -13 posts
Evan Louison comes from many generations of New Yorkers, going back to the 1800s. He holds a BFA from the Conservatory of Music at Purchase College, SUNY. In recent years he has acted in a number of short films, most recently the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival and Sarasota Film Festival official competition selection “Nowhere Kids," by Eric Juhola (Off the Grid). His first appearance onscreen was in David Woolner's "Advent," which won special recognition from the Rhode Island International Film Festival and the Best Short Film prize at the Silverlake Film Festival. His next film will be Nadia Szold's "Joy de V." As a director, his first feature film is "A Light in the Window Lost," produced by Brandon Harris. He most recently directed a short promotional film for Abel Ferrara’s “Mary,” entitled “Abel Ferrara: You are in Heaven, You are in Hell.” He is a member of the Palazzo Xhupame theatre workshop. His video work has been shown online through Filmmaker Magazine.
Noah Buschel -12 posts
Noah Buschel -12 posts
Born in Philadelphia in 1978, Noah Buschel grew up in New York City’s Greenwich Village. After spending some time as a contributing editor for Tricycle Magazine, he made his feature film debut with Bringing Rain, starring Adrian Grenier and Paz de la Huerta. Bringing Rain was produced by Belladonna Productions, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2003, and was released by Plexifilm. His second feature, Neal Cassady, was produced by Jean Doumanian Productions. It starred Tate Donovan and Amy Ryan, and was released by IFC Films in 2008. His third film, The Missing Person, starred Michael Shannon and premiered at Sundance. Buschel was nominated for a Gotham Award for Breakthrough Director and the film was on IFC.Com's 2009 Ten Best List. His upcoming film is Mu, starring Jena Malone, based on Maura O'Halloran's Pure Heart, Enlightened Mind: The Life and Letters of an Irish Zen Saint.
Holly Herrick -5 posts
Holly Herrick -5 posts
Holly Herrick works as a Programmer for the Newport International Film Festival, the Sarasota Film Festival, and the Hamptons International Film Festival. She has also served on the Screening Committee for the Project Forum of the IFP’s Spotlight on Documentaries. She likes all kinds of films, but has a penchant for innovative non-fiction, regional cinema and narratives that are both structurally compelling and vividly emotional. Holly was born and mostly raised in central Maryland, and after extended sojourns in France, Manhattan and Florida, she now pays her rent in Brooklyn, NY. She is a proud graduate of the New College of Florida.
Matt Patti -4 posts
Matt Patti -4 posts
Matt Patti has enjoyed voicing his opinions on films from a young age. He has lived in the Baltimore, Maryland, area since 2015 and is a graduate of Stevenson University’s Film & Moving Image program. Matt is currently back at Stevenson University, working as the School of Design, Arts, and Communication's Studio Manager.
Rendy Jones -2 posts
Rendy Jones -2 posts
Rendy Jones (they/he) is a film and television journalist born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. They are the owner of self-published independent outlet Rendy Reviews, a member of the Critics' Choice Association, GALECA, and a part time stand-up comedian. They have also written for Rogerebert.com, Vanity Fair, Them, Teen Vogue, CBC News, and Paste.
Tristan Kneschke -1 post
Tristan Kneschke -1 post
Tristan Kneschke has been published by Bloomsbury Academic, Routledge, and Dancecult, and has focused on writing about electronic music for cultural publications including Tiny Mix Tapes, Pop Matters, Metal Sucks, Decoder Magazine, Echoes and Dust, and Hyperallergic, among others. Kneschke records as Metamyther, an electronic music project exploring three-movement song structures, and has contributed scores to several films, including the documentary Conceiving Our Future, which enjoyed the distinction of screening at DocNYC, America’s biggest documentary film festival.
Chris Shields -1 post
Chris Shields -1 post
Chris Shields is a filmmaker and film critic based in Los Angeles. As a writer he is a frequent contributor to Film Comment, Sight & Sound, Cinema Scope, Cineaste, Reverse Shot, MUBI, and Screen Slate. As a filmmaker, his short works have been included in festivals such as the Chicago Underground Film Festival and have screened at venues such as New York’s IFC Center. He is the co-writer of Lindsay Denniberg’s cult favorite "Video Diary of a Lost Girl" (available from AGFA) and her forthcoming film, "Killer Makeover."
Tom Russell -1 post
Tom Russell -1 post
Tom Russell makes films in equal partnership with his wife, Mary; their latest, Son of a Seahorse, will be released on DVD in July 2009. He edited five issues of Russell's Quarterly, a magazine devoted to video game design; a collected edition will be released in book form in September 2009. His novel Jolt City is currently available at Amazon. He has run for political office only once and has never gone to college. You can visit him at turtleneckfilms.blogspot.com.
