Film Faculty

Sonali Udaybabu

Sonali Udaybabu is an Indian filmmaker based. She received her Master of Arts from AJK Mass Communication Research Center, Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi. She has worked in various areas of media and activism including in advertising, publishing, media management, queer feminist activism, and sexual health and rights. She has been a Robert Flaherty Film Seminar Fellow and a Saryu Doshi Graduate Fellow. As a filmmaker, she has contributed to projects as writer, producer, editor, director, and as cinematographer. Her cinematic interests are in the documentary film form and its artistic possibilities in understanding selves.

Dana Schmalenberg

Dana Schmalenberg is a screenwriter with an MFA from Florida State University and a BFA from the Ohio State University. She has sold TV shows to NBC, FOX and the CW, as well as feature films to Disney, Warner Brothers and New Regency. She has recently co-wrote the original movie “Resort to Love” for Netflix and adapted “Sex and the City” author Candace Bushnell’s novel, “Trading Up” for Lifetime Television.

Jerry Smith

Jerry Smith is the founder and CEO of PineRidge Film & Television, Inc. Smith is an internationally recognized writer, producer, and director of lifestyle television programs, TV commercials, corporate image campaigns and online content. PineRidge’s program development division, has taken home six National Daytime Emmy Awards and eleven Emmy nominations in the past nine years. Mr. Smith was honored in 2012 as a Film Florida Legend by the Film Florida state film commissioners and, recently, by the City of Jacksonville as the 2016 recipient of the Film and Television Industry Achievement Award.

Bill Hill

Bill Hill holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Electronic Intermedia from the University of Florida with a primary focus on time-based media and interaction. As an independent filmmaker his experimental and narrative works have been exhibited and screened nationally and internationally. His work has also been published in numerous periodicals and newspapers including Computer Arts, Exposure and Leonardo, in addition to the book entitled "Art, Technology, Consciousness: Mind @ Large."

Alumni Spotlight

Natassja Ebert

Natassja Ebert currently works as a freelance cinematographer and photographer based out of NYC. She initially filmed sports, beginning in ESPN3 on campus which led her to employment in the NBA Summer League and the NFL Draft 2019. Since graduating, she has worked with production houses like The Color Production House and Gesundheit Media, working on projects for Associated Press, USA Today, Visa, Morgan Stanley, and Microsoft, among many others.

Now she is focusing on humanitarian story-telling, filming for non-government organizations as they aid crisis zones worldwide. She documented for World Central Kitchen as they fed The Bahamas post- Hurricane Dorian and the COVID19 response in New York City during the lockdown from March-September 2020. While working with World Central Kitchen, her footage was used on The TODAY Show and “America Food Fund” a campaign by Obama and Leonardo DiCaprio to fundraise for food organizations across The United States.

Currently she is in production on a film about Chef José Andrés, a feature film directed by Ron Howard and partnered with National Geographic. Continuing to lead stories on food scarcity, documenting pivoting moments of this pandemic, and assisting producers as they piece together this narrative of crisis aid.

Visiting Filmmakers