John S. Johnson, Chair and Founder >> L.M. Kit Carson >> Mitchell Lichtenstein >> Robert Powley, Bio Forthcoming >> Marcy Granata Bio Forthcoming >> Jeffery Soros, Bio Forthcoming >>

JOHN S. JOHNSON Chair and Founder of Screenwriters Colony, filmmaker John S. Johnson studied Mathematics and Philosophy at St. John's College and Film at New York University. Mr. Johnson is the founder of three other organizations also providing access to creative processes for writers and artists: Eyebeam, Filmmakers Collaborative, and May68. He serves and has served in various capacities at arts and science organizations including: Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute Board of Directors, Executive Committee, Technology Committee
Nantucket Film Festival Board of Directors, Film Selection Committee,
Taos Film Festival Board of Advisors, Rockport Film School Lecturer.

Mr. Johnson is the Writer, Director, Co-Producer of two films, Without a Trace, June 10, 1979, 16mm film, 1991 and RATCHET, 35mm feature film, 1996..

L.M. KIT CARSON Mr. Carson is a screenwriter/actor/producer of award-winning Hollywood studio and independent movies. He’s had over 30 years experience in the development and production process as both a writer and producer on projects at Disney, Paramount, Tri-Star/Columbia, and MGM/UA. One of the original fellows at the launch of The Sundance Institute, Mr. Carson remains actively involved with the Institute’s writing program for new and emerging talent nationally and internationally.

His first film, David Holzman’s Diary, was selected for the archives of The U.S. Library of Congress Collection – as one of two hundred “American Film Treasures”. ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY magazine has profiled Mr. Carson as “The Big Brother of Independent Film”; and The New York Times has described him as “semi-legendary”. Mr. Carson is a Professor in the Film Division at Columbia University.

MITCHELL LICHTENSTEIN is an actor and writer. He has written two screenplays: "A Charmed Life," adapted from the Mary McCarthy novel, and "TEETH," a feminist horror film. He is working on a book of short stories.

His acting career includes a best acting award from the 1983 Venice Film Festival in for "Streamers" (Robert Altman director) and an American Spirit Award best actor nomination for the 1993 "The Wedding Banquet" (Ang Lee, director). Other projects include: "The Lords of Discipline" (Franc Roddam, director), "Crackers" (Louis Malle, director), "Ratchet" (John Johnson, director)

Mitchell received his education from Bennington College, BA (Drama and Literature), 1978 and Yale School of Drama , MFA (Acting), 1981.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
>> Chase Palmer

COLONY MANAGER
>> Caroline S. Sallee

NFF PARTNER
>> Mystelle Brabbee

CHASE PALMER
Chase Palmer’s two award-winning short films—‘NEO-NOIR’ (2002)—and the Fox Searchlight commissioned ‘SHOCK AND AWE’ (2004)—have played at fests worldwide, including Sundance, BFI London, Deauville Festival of American Film and Melbourne International Film Festival.

Mr. Palmer’s first feature script ‘BURIED ABOVE GROUND’—inspired by the short—is a winner of both the Showtime Tony Cox Award for screenwriting at the Nantucket Film Festival ’03 and the adult/drama prize at the 2003 Austin Heart of Film screenplay competition. His newest effort is ‘THE YOUNG HITCHCOCKIANS’.

A past resident of the colony, he is its biggest enthusiast. He lives in New York City.

MYSTELLE BRABBEE has been with the Nantucket Film Festival since its inception in 1996. She currently holds the position of Artistic Director and previously held the title of Film Program Director. As the Artistic Director she is responsible for the creative path of the Festival and oversees a staff of ten that are responsible as a team for all programming elements.

She has been working on a documentary film titled Highway Courtesans since 1995 and was a recipient of the Soros Documentary Fund. In 2000, Brabbee was Director of Acquisitions for article27, a London based firm known for obtaining rights to independent niche films, and syndicating them to Internet portals and video-on-demand providers. Brabbee assisted in acquiring more than 200 films, documentaries and children's programs that fell outside of mainstream markets. Mystelle Brabbee is a 1993 B.F.A. graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

JOHN HENRY SUMMEROUR
Summerour grew up in Chickamauga, Georgia, the son of a Methodist minister. He is a graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts where he trained as an actor at the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting and the British American Drama Academy in London. He has worked extensively with the Columbia University Graduate Film Department, both in front of and behind the camera, and with Kulture Machine LLC in casting and script development. In 2003 he made his feature film debut with Party Monster playing Rodney, a young innocent at the Chick 'n' Bun who is corrupted by Macaulay Culkin’s and Seth Green's flamboyant club kids. Recent credits include the critically acclaimed productions of Baby Girl and …a matter of choice for Partial Comfort Productions, Les Freres Corbusier’s Boozy at the Culture Project and Slipped Disc for Stadttheater New York, a month-long celebration of

contemporary German drama funded in part by the German government. Upcoming films include the comedic short Mendelbaum! and Haber, featuring the award-winning German actors Christian Berkel and Juliane Köhler. You can see John this summer in Millicent Scowlworthy at the Summer Play Festival in New York. He is co-writing a new “dancical” for the stage about the development of the world’s largest IKEA in Red Hook, Brooklyn, for Partial Comfort Productions. Dirty South is his first screenplay, and he is thrilled to be included in the 2006 Screenwriters Colony.

SOPHIE BARTHES
Sophie was born in France. She grew up in the Middle East and in South America (Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela). Sophie moved to New York in 2000 where she attended Columbia University Graduate School of the Arts Film Division and the Graduate School of International and Public Affairs for a joint curriculum in international affairs and film. She graduated in 2003 after writing and directing two documentaries, including a twenty-minute documentary shot in Yemen on the UNICEF education and health programs for women. Sophie wrote and co-directed the short film Snowblink with cinematographer Andrij Parekh, shot in Ukraine in 35mm, which won Best Director at Texas Film Festival 2005, and Best Short at the San Francisco Women Film Festival and was in the official competition at Tribeca, Stonybrook Staller Center for the Arts, Nantucket, Boston, Denver, Telluride, Hamptons and various international film festivals.

She recently wrote and directed the short film Happinesswhich won the Showtime Tony Cox Award for Best Screenplay in a short film. She is currently working on the feature-length screenplay Cold Souls, which takes place in New York and Russia. Cold Souls won the Nantucket Film Festival Showtime Tony Cox Award for Best Feature Screenplay.