Filmmaking Discussion at NOVA-Woodbridge

On Nov. 30 at 6:30 p.m., local filmmakers Paul Awad, Lucy Gebre-Egziabher, Kathryn O’Sullivan and John Poague will discuss filmmaking in the theater at the Woodbridge Campus of Northern Virginia Community College, 15200 Neabsco Mills Road in Woodbridge.

The discussion is free and open to the public with free parking in the student parking lot (Lot B). To learn more, contact Bryan Brown at babrown@nvcc.edu or 703-878-5665.

Awad is a director and cinematographer who worked in commercials before turning his focus to narrative projects. His work has received recognition from the ADDY Awards, the Kodak Company and The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. His short films “A Ghastly Tale,” “Dracula’s Mother” and “Sweet Dreams” have won awards at festivals and are currently available on Netflix and Amazon. He has collaborated with O’Sullivan on a dozen projects and directed her award-winning play “Lot Lizards” at the American Globe Theatre. He has also directed plays at The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, The Source Theatre and the Mead Theatre Lab at Flashpoint. Awad teaches digital filmmaking and production at The Art Institute of Washington.

Gebre-Egziabher is an award winning, independent filmmaker who also lectures on film and conducts workshops in film/video production. She has produced and directed narrative films and organizational videos for Teret Productions, a production company she founded in 1999. Her award-winning films “At the Second Traffic Light” and “Weti’s Poem” have been shown at film festivals and venues around the world. She recently joined the faculty of Northern Virginia Community College where she teaches film and theater studies.

O’Sullivan is a playwright and mystery writer. Her novel “Foal Play” won the 2012 Minotar Books/Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Competition and will be published by St. Martin’s/Minotaur in spring 2013. She is also the writer and creator of the award-winning Web-based Western series “Thurston.” She received a Mary Marlin Foundation playwriting grant and a Shubert Fellowship for her play-with-music “MAE” about Mae West. Her plays have been seen at the American Globe Theatre, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and The Source Theatre. She is a theater professor at Northern Virginia Community College.

Poague is well versed in film production having spent his career both in front of and behind the camera. As an actor, Poague has been featured in such films as John Water’s “Serial Mom” and Mario Van Peebles’s “Panther.” Poague has also produced and directed feature films that have received major distribution deals and have been exhibited in venues across the country. His film “The Wickeds” has been called a modern re-imagining of George A. Romero’s classic “The Night of the Living Dead.”

Northern Virginia Community College is the largest institution of higher education in the Commonwealth of Virginia and one of America’s largest community colleges. NOVA enrolls more than 75,000 students at its six campuses in Alexandria, Annandale, Loudoun, Manassas, Springfield and Woodbridge, and through the Extended Learning Institute. For more information about NOVA and its programs or services, call 703-323-3000 or visit the College’s website, www.nvcc.edu.