Coby Batty and Johnny Hott have written an original score for Bruce Bickford's silent claymation opus, CAS'L, and they will perform live with the film on Saturday, April 18 at Gallery 5 during the Festival. Batty is a native of Richmond. As a young boy he spent several years in the starring role of Amal in the Christmas production of “Amal and the Night Visitors.”  He has enjoyed success as a part of the GriefBirds, the Fugs, NRGKrysis and his new project, Prongtong.

Bruce Bickford was born in Seattle in 1947. Inspired by Willis O’Brien’s animation in King Kong and the work of Ray Harryhausen, Bickford began animating in the mid-1960s. After a tour of duty in Vietnam as a U.S. Marine, he sought work as an animator in California where he met rock musician Frank Zappa. After a six-year collaboration with Zappa in the 1970s, Bickford returned to Seattle where he has lived since. Following the completion of Prometheus’ Garden in 1988, Bickford has created several hours of clay and line animation, none of which have been fully completed. In 2004, Bickford appeared in the award-winning documentary feature, Monster Road (directed by Brett Ingram), about his life and work. See the Bruce Bickford website.

Christopher Holmes currently teaches film at UNC-Greensboro and was a finalist in three previous JRFF juried competitions, including Grand Prize in 2005 with Fence Dogs. His films have played the Milano (Italy), Indie-Memphis, Anchorage and Slamfest Film Festivals as well as PBS-TV in North and South Carolina.

Johnny Hott and Coby Batty have written an original score for Bruce Bickford's silent claymation opus, CAS'L, and they will perform live with the film on Saturday, April 18 at Gallery 5 during the Festival. Hott was raised in Richmond on drum corps and country music. He was a founding member of House of Freaks, Famous Actors From Out of Town, Chez Roue and his current new project, Prongtong.

Brett Ingram. Formerly an electrical engineer on the Space Shuttle Main Engine Program, Brett Ingram exchanged his pocket protector for a movie camera in 1990. His first documentary feature, Monster Road, won sixteen awards (including “Best Documentary” at the 2004 Slamdance Film Festival) and premiered on Sundance Channel in 2005. A 2007 Guggenheim Fellow, Ingram teaches filmmaking in the Media Studies Department at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Ingram’s second documentary feature, Rocaterrania, premiered at Cinequest San Jose Film Festival in February 2009. See the Brett Ingram website.

Kevin McNeer is a native Richmonder and graduate of St. Christopher’s High School. He studied filmmaking in Moscow and currently lives and works there as a professional filmmaker.

Mary Beth Reed studied film under Phil Solomon and Stan Brakhage at University of Colorado-Boulder, and later earned MFAs at Bard College and California Institute of the Arts. Her films have been screened at the Museum of Modern Art, New York Film Festival’s Avant Garde sidebar and in Europe with filmmaker Courtney Hoskins.

Richard Robinson is an award-winning photographer based near Charlottesville, Virginia. His still photography has appeared in numerous publications, including Smithsonian, National Geographic Traveler, Time, and The Washington Post Magazine, and have been exhibited nationally. Robinson earned his MFA in Photography and Film at VCU (December 2008), and his thesis film, The Beekeepers, was his directorial debut as a filmmaker and an official selection at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Robinson first learned beekeeping in Zutphen, the Netherlands, more than twenty years ago. See the Richard Robinson website.

Peter Schilling Jr. is a Minnesota-based novelist and film critic. His work has appeared in The Rake magazine and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, as well as his own blog, The Bug. He is the author of the acclaimed novel, The End of Baseball, and is currently at work on both a graphic and conventional novel.

Ron Thomas Smith also hails from Richmond and has worked in video production for over fifteen years with clients including Bill Clinton, the Dalai Lama and Hank Williams III.  He is currently working on an MTV-reality show on West Virginia folk artist Jesco White.

Ellen Spiro. For two decades, Ellen Spiro has created award-winning documentaries including Diana's Hair Ego, Greetings from out Here, Roam Sweet Home, Atomic Ed & the Black Hole, Are the Kids Alright? and TROOP 15OO. She built her reputation doing small-scale unobtrusive productions – often as a one-woman crew. She is noted for her ability to bring a sense of humor and warm humanism to her social-justice themes. An Austin, TX resident now, she spent her adolescent years in Richmond, where her father is on the faculty of VCU. Her films have been televised worldwide and are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, and she is the recipient of Guggenheim, Rockefeller and NEA fellowships.

Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala and Jayson Lamb met while attending Christ Episcopal Day School, an elementary school in South Mississippi, at ages 9-10. When Chris saw the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark when it was released in 1981, he was completely captivated by the movie’s adventurous spirit and taken with the character of Indiana Jones. He came up with the idea to remake the film, with himself playing the part of Indiana Jones. On the Mississippi Gulf Coast from 1982-1989 while remaking Raiders of the Lost Ark in the summers, Chris developed a passion for acting and producing. During the school year however, Chris attended a boarding academy for six years on the north shore of Long Island, New York, and he went on to complete his degree in Theater and Production at The College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio, Class of 1993. He came to Los Angeles in 1994 to pursue the common creative dream of being an entertainer, producer and writer and has successfully navigated his way into and learned the ins and outs of multiple entertainment industries: the video game industry, the music industry and the film business. Recently, Eric and Chris founded an independent film company aptly named “Rolling Boulder Films.”