Register now for our first event of 2024, as limited tickets remain for the January 9th exclusive chat with Susanna Fogel ‘02CC (director of CAT PERSON and THE SPY WHO DUMPED ME, and co-writer of BOOKSMART), and Olivia Newman ‘12SOA (director of WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING and Apple TV’s THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME, and writer/director of FIRST MATCH).  The panelists will discuss their professional journeys, writing process, and directing for television and features. RSVP here!

Susanna Fogel is a director, screenwriter, and novelist. Her film credits include co-writer of BOOKSMART, for which she was nominated for a BAFTA and a WGA award for Best Original Screenplay, CAT PERSON, which was based on the New Yorker short story and which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, Lionsgate’s THE SPY WHO DUMPED ME, and Magnolia’s LIFE PARTNERS, both of which she cowrote and directed. She is currently in post-production on WINNER, a biopic of the whistleblower Reality Winner, which she directed and cowrote with journalist Kerry Howley.

On the TV side, her directing credits include the pilot episode of HBO Max’s The Flight Attendant, for which she won a DGA award, the pilot of Amazon’s The Wilds, and the WWII-set limited series A Small Light for National Geographic and Disney+, which recently won a Humanitas Award. She is currently in pre-production on Netflix’s limited series Hatching Twitter, and an original series she created for Peacock called Ponies, which centers on two young widows who become spies in the CIA Moscow Station in 1977.

Susanna is also an avid writer of satire whose pieces have been featured in The New Yorker. Her first novel, Nuclear Family, was published by Macmillan in 2017. She is an alumna of Columbia University, Concord Academy, and the Sundance Screenwriters Lab.

Olivia Newman is the director of the box office hit adaptation of the New York Times bestseller WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING for Sony, starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and David Strathairn. She also directed and co-executive produced the series THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME for Apple through Twentieth based on the mystery-thriller novel by Laura Dave starring Jennifer Garner and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. Olivia’s debut feature film, FIRST MATCH, was financed and distributed by Netflix and premiered at SXSW in 2018. The film garnered her the Audience Award for Best Feature at the festival.

Olivia is an alum of the prestigious Sundance Screenwriters and Directors Labs, and was chosen to be in the inaugural Female Forward program at NBC. She is also the recipient of the IFP/Durga Foundation Filmmaker Award, the Adrienne Shelly Foundation filmmaker grant, and the Maryland Filmmakers fellowship. Additionally, Olivia has received funding from the Sundance Institute, HBO, the Tribeca Film Institute, the San Francisco Film Society, and The Caucus Foundation, as well as support from IFP and Film Independent. Her short films have screened at dozens of festivals internationally including the New York Film Festival, Palm Springs International Shortsfest, and Aspen Shortsfest, and have been broadcast on PBS. Olivia received her MFA from Columbia University and her BA from Vassar College.

Katherine Chang is a writer/producer and independent film consultant. For over fifteen years, she has assisted film industry clientele in development, financing, production, and distribution. Ever a rom-com lover, Katherine had the pleasure of writing and producing A BRUSH WITH LOVE for the Hallmark Channel in 2019. Her film credits include: MIDNIGHT SUN (Bella Thorne & Patrick Schwarzenegger), JANE GOT A GUN (Natalie Portman & Joel Edgerton), and ESCAPE PLAN (Sylvester Stallone & Arnold Schwarzenegger).

Katherine is an Associate Instructor at UCLA Extension in a course on Entertainment Financing. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University.