Michele Weldon is an award-winning author, journalist, emerita faculty in journalism at Northwestern University. She has been working as an editor and writer for more than four decades and is a frequent contributor on issues of gender, media, and popular culture.

Director of BRAINWASHED. Called “Brilliant, one of the most provocative artists in film today,” by The Los Angeles Times, and a “Cinematic Sorceress” by The New York Times, Menkes’ films synthesize inner dream worlds with brutal, outer realities.

Producer of BRAINWASHED. The New York Times called her work “a veritable crusade” and she is a subject of five recent books and three feature documentary films including Brainwashed. She holds an MFA from UCLA and is a member of the Directors Guild of America.

Michelle Yates is Associate Professor in the Humanities, History, and Social Sciences Department at Columbia College Chicago.

Rebecca Fons is Director of Programming at the Gene Siskel Film Center, a public program of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and serves as the Development and Programming Director for the historic Iowa Theater in Winterset, IA.

Ines Sommer is a filmmaker, cinematographer, arts administrator, film programmer, and educator whose genre-crossing projects have explored topics ranging from the environment to the arts, feminism, history, and politics.