BIO

Rashan Mines grew up with a passion for filmmaking and storytelling. When he first saw Star Wars at the age of five, he marveled at the world George Lucas created. He knew that only in film was a world like this possible. At an early age, Rashan began making films with kids in his neighborhood; he would pick up a camera whenever possible, just to get practice. While, attending Howard University, he joined his first of many creative writing groups. Upon graduating college, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue his filmmaking career. He joined the Organization of Black Screenwriters to help hone his craft and to network with others who had a similar passion for film. During this time, he took several film classes at UCLA, at which point he decided to make the move into directing. In the summer of 2014 he wrote and directed his first major short, Devil’s in the Details.

Rashan believes the world of filmmaking is only limited by one's imagination and since the human imagination is limitless, the world of filmmaking knows no bounds.

Ren-Horng Wang hails from Taiwan and has had a passion for storytelling since childhood. Experiencing the sweep of David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago and other epic films illuminated the possibilities the canvas of filmmaking in creating times long past or worlds that only exist in the imagination. Creators such as Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Stanley Donen, James Cameron, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Ang Lee have also been major influences, teaching Ren-Horng how to thrill audiences, build characters that people can relate to, and tell stories that allow audiences to laugh, cry, and fall in love.

As an alumnus of Brown University’s Art-Semiotics program and American University’s exchange program with the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague, Ren-Horng moved to Los Angeles to pursue film production. He won Third Place Best Documentary Short at the 2013 LA New Wave Film Festival for producing “You’re Doin’ It Bike and Build!” and Best Horror Short at the 2017 San Pedro Film Festival for directing “325 Sycamore Lane.â”

A veteran of AmeriCorps*NCCC who helped rebuild the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina and the global education program Up with People, and as leader of a teen leadership program that teaches entrepreneurship in developing countries, Ren-Horng is a strong believer in the capacity of film to create empathy and inspire change. He hopes to create films with three-dimensional characters that audiences can fall in love with to illuminate previously unconsidered perspectives in life. Such characters and their stories not only entertain but also highlight issues in society and suggest solutions. He hopes to use films to push society forward.