Curators
The New York City Independent Film Festival is proud of our team of curators who shape the program each year.
Dennis Cieri
Executive Director and Co-Founder · Music Video Curator
A native New Yorker and multimedia travel journalist contributing to RealFoodTraveller, Travel World International Magazine and Food & Wine Magazine. Dennis also makes travel and environmental videos. His travel series “Beyond Moscow” was broadcast on Amazon Prime from 2018 to 2023 and on SES, a European TV network. Tubi TV acquired his ecology documentary “Lionfish, an Invasive Species.” He has produced film and TV projects including Brew York, Food Truck Foodie, and Out There. As the founder and executive director of The New York City Independent Film Festival, which screens over 200 indie films yearly, he has created a collaborative and supportive environment for filmmakers from around the world.
Bonnie Rush
Director and Co-Founder · Mid-Length Narrative Film Curator
New to the ‘indie film world’ in 2009, Bonnie was the co-founder of the festival and helped lay the groundwork for the festival’s current success. She is also part of the original Cieri Media team and was one of the original creators of the ‘egarage’. The ‘Jersey transplant’ has been active in the art world, working at small theaters and galleries. Her paintings have shown at galleries in Manhattan and Long Island City. She is currently employed by The Metropolitan Opera.
Gerard van den Broek
Documentary Curator
Gerard is a born Dutchman, with a vast TV career working internationally as a journalist and TV program editor. In 2004 he started his own international film festival focusing on journalism: current affairs and sports documentaries. In 2012 he met Dennis and got involved in the NYC Independent Film Festival, first as a judge, since 2014 as the documentary curator. The NYC Indie Film Fest receives some 300 feature and short documentaries each year from all over the world, of which some 60 docs make it to the golden selection. Gerard watches every single one of them. He also produced the 2018 Awards Ceremony at the SubCulture Club on Bleecker Street. This year he started the Music Film Festival in the Netherlands.
Dominik Pagacz
Art/Experimental Curator
Dominik Pagacz is a multidisciplinary artist whose body of film work spans over two decades. His films have screened internationally at experimental venues in Rio de Janeiro (Curta Cinema), Amsterdam (EYE Film Institute), New York and the UK (Alchemy). Dominik is curating the festival’s art/experimental film programs and exhibitions.
Lucie Guillemot
Narrative Shorts Curator
Bringing a little bit of the “French touch” to the NYC Indie Film Festival, Lucie is a Parisian freelance filmmaker and film festivals coordinator. She is a screener for the Sundance Film Festival, and the Film department’s coordinator for the Deauville, Gerardmer and Reims Polar film festivals, and the industry coordinator for the Critics’ Week in Cannes. She has been a curator for NYCIFF since 2017.
Virginie Balabaud
Super Short and Art House Curator
Virginie Balabaud is French and lives in Paris. She works in arts since 1999. Her work is at the border between documentary and video art, but her favorite medium has always been photography. She is a psychology and psychoanalysis graduate, and likes to work on the topics of memory and objects.
Mario Gajo
Narrative Feature and AI Film Curator
Mario Gajo is a highly acclaimed filmmaker from Porto, Portugal. With three degrees in Arts and Cinema and a Master’s degree in Communication Sciences, Mario has directed several award-winning films selected in film festivals worldwide including Ann Arbor Film Festival, Melbourne Film Festival, and Vienna Shorts. He has also produced several highly acclaimed films. Mario has helped program prestigious film festivals such as NYCIndieFF and Slamdance.
Jonny Lewis
Animation Curator
Jonny Lewis has written and directed 26 short films since 2008. His 2016 stop-motion animation comedy, G.I. Hospital, won 5 awards and was featured in 35 festivals. A fan of all styles of animation, Jonny’s first indie feature, “Waking Up in Idaho” is now in post-production.