Meet the
2021 Selection Team

Jon Ravenscroft (he/him) is a Senior Program Specialist at the Chicago Park District, specializing in film and media programming like Chicago Onscreen and Movies in the Parks. Since creating the Chicago Onscreen Local Film Showcase in 2014, Jon has served as the Creative Director and lead programmer for all eight seasons.

Dalina A. Perdomo Álvarez (she/her) is a Puerto Rican curator and writer who is currently a Curatorial Assistant at the MSU Broad Art Museum. She was the 2018-2020 Curatorial Fellow at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, and has also worked at the Video Data Bank and The National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture.

Raul is a film programmer in Chicago for over 13 years. Raul programs for Comfort Station Logan Square, Full Spectrum Features, The Nightingale Cinema, Midwest Film Festival, and is the After Dark programmer for the Chicago International Film Festival. Raul is on staff for theChicago Underground Film Festival and on the screening committee for True/False, Onion City, and Camden International.

Raul has been named a film screen gem by New City Chicago for 2015, 2017 and 2019. In 2019. Raul, in partnership with Full Spectrum, received a MacArthur Foundation Connections grant for the Chicago Cinema Exchange program - an exchange between Mexico City and Chicago Filmmakers.

Bio coming soon.

Marcus E. Davis serves as Senior Program Specialist for Teen Arts & Civic Engagement with the Chicago Park District managing the TRACE (Teens Re-Imagining Art, Community & Environment) program.

An interdisciplinary artist with a critical interest in black joy and queered creativity, Marcus leverages music, images, scholarship and humor to explore new ways of being and seeing in the world. His work has been featured in Blacklines, Windy City Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Reader. Marcus received a bachelor's degree in Visual Ethnography from DePaul University.

Brian Hieggelke is the co-founder of Newcity, the preeminent cultural publishing company in Chicago (and Sâo Paulo, Brazil), which launched in 1986. In 2014, they launched a sister film production and boutique distribution company, Chicago Film Project, to pursue opportunities that have three characteristics: superior quality, commercial viability and some kind of Chicago DNA.

Their first film, Signature Move (2017), world premiered at SXSW before playing more than 150 festivals worldwide and racking up numerous awards. Their second film, Jennifer Reeder's Knives and Skin (2019), world premiered at the Berlinale before playing many of the top festivals in the world. Hugh Schulze's Dreaming Grand Avenue (2020) is their third feature.superior quality, commercial viability and some kind of Chicago DNA.

Bio coming soon.

Angelique Grandone is an arts manager focusing on contemporary performance on the stage and in the streets. With a background in theatre making and social justice, she draws upon skills acquired in a wide variety of settings including work as a performer, a doula, a health educator, a community organizer, a company manager and a producer. Currently, she works with the Chicago Park District as the Theatre and Performing Arts Specialist in the Night Out in the Parks program. She’s run away with the circus six times, and will likely do it again.

Nikki Jolly is a Cultural Worker and Senior Program Specialist for the Chicago Park District where her role focuses on supporting a network of 15 Cultural Centers and cultural partnerships city-wide to create collaborative programs with artists, community arts groups, cultural institutions and museums, and other city agencies to provide neighborhood parks and their patrons greater access and input in Chicago's cultural offerings. She holds her B.A. in arts administration and marketing from Columbia College Chicago.

When she's not making her own films, Thavary Krouch is supporting other independent filmmakers in her role as Independent Film Coordinator for the Chicago Film Office. She has a background in film distribution, having managed the sales, marketing, and distribution of Facets' art house films. Her own films have largely focused on the Cambodian-American and immigrant experience.

Bio coming soon.

Nicky Ni is a curator and writer living in Chicago. She was co-founder of LITHIUM (2017-19), a Pilsen-based gallery dedicated to time-based art. LITHIUM then became TNL (aka. The Neu Lithium), an online editorial and curatorial platform for time-based and media art. Additionally, she has curated exhibitions or screenings at Conversations at the Edge, Mana Contemporary, Museum of Contemporary Photography, SITE Galleries, among others. She has written for Newcity, Chicago Artist Writers and Sixty Inches from Center. Ni graduated from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Northwestern University.

(Photo: Guanyu Xu)

Tim is a Project Manager at the Chicago Film Office supporting series television shows and independent filmmakers navigate filming in Chicago. Prior to that, he was a freelance Production Manager for 12 years in Film, TV, and Commercial production in Chicago."

Latham Zearfoss works in Chicago, where they produce time-based images, objects and experiences about selfhood and otherness. Outside of the studio, they contribute to collective motions toward joy and reflection through social projects such as a queer dance party (Chances Dances), a critical space for white allyship (Make Yourself Useful), and an itinerant conference on socially-engaged art (Open Engagement).