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MATT BRUNSON

Matt Brunson is the Film Editor, A&E Editor and Senior Editor at Creative Loafing in Charlotte. He’s been with the alternative newsweekly since 1988, initially as a freelance film critic before joining the paper full-time as a staff member in 1996. He’s the recipient of several awards from both the North Carolina Press Association and the North Carolina Working Press, as well as a lifetime achievement award from the 15 Short Film Festival. Matt currently serves as President of the Southeastern Film Critics Association (SEFCA).


FELICIA FEASTER

Felicia Feaster is senior editor focusing on art, film and culture at The Atlantan magazine, part of the largest city-regional magazine publisher in America, Modern Luxury. Previously she was the staff art and film critic for Atlanta’s alternative newsweekly Creative Loafing. She received her B.A. in film studies from the University of Florida and her M.A. in film studies from Emory University. Her film reviews can be found regularly in Charleston City Paper and New York Press. Her writing has also appeared in Elle, Sculpture, Art in America, Artnews, Playboy and Art Papers. She is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association and Women Film Critics Circle. She has curated exhibitions for the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center and TEW Galleries. She has received multiple Green Eyeshade Awards for criticism and Feature reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists.

KEN HANKE

When Mountain Xpress film critic Ken Hanke took the reviewing reins at the paper in late 2000, he went from being a film historian who saw maybe five movies a year to being a weekly columnist who saw five movies a week. At the same time, he changed from the reader who wrote angry letters to critics to the critic who receives angry letters from readers. The culture shock has only begin to subside these 8 years later. He has written several books – Ken Russell’s Films, Charlie Chan at the Movies, A Critical Guide to Horror Film Series, Tim Burton: An Unauthorized Biography of the Filmmaker and has contributed to numerous others. In addition to his work for Xpress, he contributes reviews to the Charleston City Paper and can be heard on WWNC radio Fridays at 5:30 p.m.

 

LARRY TOPPMAN

Over the last 30 years, Lawrence Toppman has explored every aspect of popular culture and the fine arts for The Charlotte Observer. He has written mostly about movies, which he has covered there since 1987 and has won the North Carolina Press Association’s top award for criticism three times. He has also acted in more than 50 stage productions; most have been done by Opera Carolina, where he has sung in the chorus for 26 seasons and has occasionally had small solo roles. If he could have written any one film throughout history, it would be "Chinatown."


SAM WATSON

Sam Watson is co-founder and chairman of the State of Franklin Film Society, an organization dedicated to educating residents in the greater Tri-Cities area of Northeast Tennessee about the art of film and bringing limited releases to the region. A film columnist and journalist for more than 25 years, Watson is Internet & Special Projects Editor at Johnson City Press, a daily newspaper in Johnson City, Tenn., where he has been on staff since 1988. He credits his love for motion pictures to a childhood spent watching old serials, shorts and features in a Saturday morning club for employees’ children at the chemical factory where his father worked. Watson holds an English/journalism degree from Tennessee Technological University, where he also studied film literature and film history.