Year-Round Staff

Sandra L. Gibson – Executive Director

sandra@mdfilmfest.com

Sandra L. Gibson oversees all MdFF activities including the Maryland Film Festival and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Parkway.

Sandra is the former President and CEO of the Association of Performing Arts Professionals and founding board member and Chief Operating Officer of Americans for the Arts. She has worked as a consultant since 2011 with clients including the Smithsonian Institution and Baltimore’s Reginald F. Lewis Museum of African American History and Culture, and the foundation planning a National China Garden at the U.S. National Arboretum. Gibson’s experience in arts and cultural programming began with her tenure at the American Film Institute (AFI), where she held a number of positions including three years as Director of Independent Filmmaker Program and Distribution Programs and more than five years as Director of West Coast Campus Operations and Personnel.


Christy LeMaster – Artistic Director

submissions@mdfilmfest.com

Christy LeMaster started working at the SNF Parkway in June of 2020. Previously she lived in Chicago for 15 years where she worked as a programmer, educator, and producer interested in collectivity, platform, and collaborative processes. She founded Chicago’s cooperatively-helmed microcinema The Nightingale and co-programmed itinerant experimental doc series Run of Life at spaces around the city, including experimental music venue Constellation. From 2017-19, she worked as Assistant Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, organizing programs and exhibitions for the Commons, the museum’s site for art and civic engagement. She taught media theory at Columbia College Chicago, has been a movie critic on WBEZ, and an editor of CINE-FILE.info. Her writing has been published by INCITE Journal of Experimental Media, Brooklyn Rail, and Green Lantern Press. Her projects since the start of the pandemic include acting as the Friday editor for The Quarantine Times and co-organizing the Chicago Cinema Workers Fund.


Theo George – Director of Marketing & Communications

theo@mdfilmfest.com

Theo George is a Baltimore-based arts manager, with a passion for promoting and preserving the cultural legacy of contemporary Black artists and artforms. He holds a Master’s of Arts Management degree from Carnegie Mellon University, and a Bachelor’s in Africana Studies from the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Theo’s passion for elevating marginalized voices and stories has been a steady theme in his work. Theo worked at the forefront of the modern LGBTQ Civil Rights Movement as the Lead Digital Strategist for the National Center for Transgender Equality on a number of high-profile campaigns including the first-ever LGBT Congressional Caucus on transgender violence on Capitol Hill, the 2015 U.S. Trans Survey (the nation’s largest survey of transgender and gender non-conforming people), and consulting on MTV’s Transgender Day of Remembrance television programming and Times Square billboard. Theo has also worked with numerous local and national arts organizations and festivals on programming, branding, and media strategy. Theo was named to the Trans100 list in 2015 and received a Rising Star Award from Black Transmen Inc. Theo’s arts practices include DJ’ing under the moniker, Theodore Rexx, and curating as a founding member of the Baltimore Black Queer Art Collective (BBQ Art).


Gregory Golinski – SNF Parkway Theater Manager

greg@mdfilmfest.com

Gregory studied Film Production and Cinematography at SVA in New York before returning to Baltimore more than a decade ago. He was a Manager at Video Americain, as well as at both The Senator and Charles Theaters before joining the MdFF team with the opening of the Parkway.


Tasia Talbert – Events Manager

tasia@mdfilmfest.com; events@mdfilmfest.com


Mia Smith – Programming Consultant

mia@mdfilmfest.com

Mia is a consultant, curator, organizer, educator and activist, cofounder of Invisible Majority. Since returning to Baltimore in 2009 after graduating Temple University with a BA in Broadcasting, Telecommunications and Mass Media and African American Studies, she’s spent a lot of time using art as a vehicle for community development, highlighted inequity and racism in the art world and providing more opportunity to young artists of color. In 2015 she founded Invisible Majority as a concrete way to address the inequity, providing affordable space and services to underserved creatives. She’s worked with numerous organizations, businesses and individuals including the Peale Center, Dewmore Baltimore, Red Bull Amaphiko, BOPA and Creative Alliance.


Rob Lundquist – Part-time Chief Financial Officer