TRIFEST
2026 JURY
Meet the festival’s prestigious jury.
Animation
Margie Cohn
Margie Cohn is President of DreamWorks Animation and leads the prolific animation studio of almost 1,000 artists, animators, technologists and executives to produce two to three theatrical films per year plus numerous television episodes across all platforms. Among the many titles produced under Cohn’s leadership are multiple Emmy winning series, including Guillermo del Toro’s Trollhunters, and The Adventures of Puss in Boots.
Best Performance
Karen Allen
Karen Allen is an internationally known actor who created the role of Marion Ravenwood in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Allen has acted in over fifty films including Animal House, Starman, Malcolm X, Scrooged and The Perfect Storm. Recently, she starred in Incidents Around the House with Jessica Chastain which will be released in 2026. As a filmmaker, she directed the award-winning A Tree, A Rock. A Cloud.
Documentary
Tony Gerber
Tony Gerber is an Emmy and PGA award-winning filmmaker who has written, directed and produced over a dozen documentaries for National Geographic, including Kingdom of the White Wolf. His independent films include Full Battle Rattle (Berlinale premiere and SXSW Special Jury Prize), The Notorious Mr. Bout (Sundance 2014), and Takeover (Tribeca 2021), Most recently he directed War Game (Sundance 2024), which The New York Times called “a nail-biter of a documentary.”Gerber co-founded Market Road Films.
Lynn Nottage
Lynn Nottage is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright (Ruined in 2009 and Sweat in 2017), whose work often focuses on the experience of working-class people. Her plays have been produced widely throughout the United States and the world. She was the first (and remains the only) woman to win the Pulitzer Prize twice. Lynn is also a producer, screenwriter and co-founder of Market Road Films. She served for three years as an Artist Trustee at the Sundance Institute.
Experimental
Wenhua Shi
Wenhua Shi is a filmmaker, curator, and educator working in experimental film and media. Shi pursues a poetic approach to moving image making, and investigates conceptual depth across film, video, interactive installations, and sound. His films have circulated through a range of international venues and festivals. He is a professor at University of Massachusetts Boston and the founder of RPM Festival.
Local
Juliane Hiam
Juliane Hiam is a writer, producer and frequent collaborator with her partner, artist Gregory Crewdson. An alumna of the USC School of Cinematic Arts, Hiam finds being on the TRIFEST jury particularly meaningful because film festivals were defining in the early development of her career after she wrote and directed a feature film at age 21. Hiam lives in Berkshire County.
Narrative
Haley Elizabeth Anderson
Haley Elizabeth Anderson is a writer, filmmaker and visual artist whose work explores themes of personal history and identity. Her short film Pillars premiered at Sundance 2020 and won Best Short Film award at AFI 2020. Her short Summer Animals won the Jury Prize at SXSW2 2021. Anderson’s debut feature film Tendaberry premiered at Sundance 2024 and was nominated for the prestigious Next Innovator Award. She was also named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s ’25 New Faces of Independent Film.
Molly Cooper
Molly Cooper is a film producer with credits that include The Grand Budapest Hotel, Moonrise Kingdom, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and The Darjeeling Limited, and has worked for production companies based at Universal Pictures, New Line, and DreamWorks. Her film writing has appeared in Filmmaker Magazine, Interview Magazine and Bright Wall/Dark Room. Cooper taught Screenwriting and Filmmaking at Bard College at Simon’s Rock.