Irv Broughton has been making films for over 30 years. His films have shown at numerous festivals, including Ann Arbor, Bumbershoot, and the Northwest Film and Video Festival, where he is a three-time winner. As a writer, he is author of eleven books, including Producers on Producing and The Art of Interviewing in Television, Radio and Film. Irv holds an M.A. in Creative Writing from the distinguished writing program at Hollins (College) University. He he teaches film and writing courses at Spokane Falls Community College.
Chase Ogden teaches film production at Eastern Washington University. Holding an MFA in film production from Chapman University, Ogden has been a part of 100′s of different film productions over the years. In 2006 he co-created a magazine style outdoor sporting show Outdoor Storytellers and continued to serve as the show’s co-producer, cinematographer, and editor until 2009. He has worked on dozens of commercials for major clients such as Microsoft, Cisco, and Mammoth Mountain and he has had short films in over 50 festivals around the world, including Cannes.
Vaughn Overlie is an avid storyteller and a member of the Spokane Storytelling League, but his first love and passion is films. Overlie says, “I fell in love with cinema in 1953 when he saw Shane. In 1960 he entered the world of foreign films when he visited the Dishman Theater to view Bergman’s The Virgin Spring.
Pete Porter teaches film history and theory/criticism at Eastern Washington University. Dr. Porter’s recent work studies media representations of non-human animals from a cognitive-ethical perspective. He has published in Society & Animals, The Journal of Moving Image Studies, and Michigan Academician. Dr. Porter also serves as film review editor for Society & Animals and on the board of The Friends of Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge.
Aaron Spickelmire, from a very early age, has always been fascinated by movies. It wasn’t until he watched his first foreign film—Run Lola Run in 1999—that he became highly interested in international cinema. He graduated from Eastern Washington University in 2004 with a B.A. in Humanities, and since then has continued to be engaged in the Spokane film community. In addition to SpIFF, Aaron has also been involved with the SFCC International Film Series, the 50 Hour Slam, and worked for over two years at the Magic Lantern Theatre as the manager/projectionist. He now oversees the film programs at The Bing Crosby Theatre.
Dan Webster has been watching movies since 1952 when, after throwing a temper tantrum, he emotionally blackmailed his parents into taking him to see Stanley Donen’s musical “Singin’ in the Rain.” His aesthetic sensibilities, thusly shaped at age 5, never recovered. He took film courses at the University of California, San Diego, taught by the late critic Manny Farber. He began reviewing movies at The Spokesman-Review in 1984, continuing until his retirement in 2009. Webster continues to blog about movies for www.spokane7.com, and he is a cohost of “Movies 101,” a movie-review show that airs weekly on Spokane Public Radio.