The New Mexico Film Foundation, in partnership with The Stagecoach Foundation, is proud to present the New Mexico Above-the-Line virtual conversation series for 2021. This is the third of four, in-depth Zoom discussions with noted New Mexico producers, directors, writers, and actors. Whether you are a filmmaker, or want to be, listen and learn as above-the-line talent from across the state share their stories about making films and television in The Land of Enchantment.

New Mexico Above-the-Line: Writers

April 3, 2021

10am - 11:30am

Join this in-depth conversation and lively Q&A with four successful New Mexico film and television writers. Together, we will examine project selection, development, writing process, production, post, and distribution, as well as the advantages and challenges of filmmaking in New Mexico.

Razelle Benally is an Oglala Lakota/Diné film director and writer who holds a BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts and MFA candidate at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She was a 2015 Sundance Institute NativeLab Short Film Production Fellow with her first short narrative I am Thy Weapon. In 2017, her two-hundred dollar thesis film Raven traveled the international film festival circuit. In 2018, she directed a PSA promoting the Indigenous Vote featuring Mark Ruffalo, Tonia Jo Hall, and Shailene Woodley. Her latest short narrative Ókiya was funded by Academy Award Winner Spike Lee. She is in development of two feature-length narratives: Winter in Black Mesa (2022), and War Cries (2023). She received support from Sundance Institute's 2018 Creative Producing Summit and was supported through the 2020 Sundance Institute Feature Film Program as part of the Screenwriters Intensive track.

Robert Dean is a native to the sprawling New Mexico landscape and has been working professionally in the state film business for the past nine years in several facets of production, from writing to directing to production managing (Dead of Night, Wander). He has written several screenplays and is currently in development on multiple projects. Witnessing first-hand the many pitfalls that independent filmmakers face, Robert and Buffalo 8 joined forces to create Buffalo 8 New Mexico, a full-service division that will serve producers, projects and companies looking to shoot within the state of New Mexico.

 Melinda Snodgrass studied opera at the Conservatory of Vienna, graduated from UNM. with a degree in history, and went on to Law School. After three years as a lawyer, she realized she hated lawyers and turned to writing. In 1988, she accepted a job on Star Trek: The Next Generation and began her Hollywood career where she has worked on staff on numerous shows and has written television pilots and feature films. Most recently working as an executive producer on Wild Cards for Universal Pictures. In the prose world she writes for and co-edits Wild Cards with George R. R. Martin. She has completed the fifth book in her five book Space Opera series Imperials and is working on a fourth novel in the Carolingian series. For fun she rides her dressage horses, plays video games, and spends a lot of time in the gym

Lee Zlotoff is an award-winning writer, producer and director of film and television. Among his more than 100 hours of television credits, he was the creator of the original hit series MacGyver as well as the writer and director of the independent film Spitfire Grill, which won the coveted Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. In addition, he is the director of the MacGyver Foundation and author of the Amazon best-selling book, The MacGyver Secret: Connect to Your Inner MacGyver & Solve Anything. Zlotoff is also the co-founder of the Santa Fe Network (SFN), a New Mexico based digital entertainment network launched in 2017. Zlotoff was born and raised in New York and is a graduate of St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, where he has served for over a decade on the board of directors. After a long sojourn in the Los Angeles area where he helped raise four children who have since blessed him with four grandchildren, Zlotoff now resides in Santa Fe, with his wife, artist Dayna Matlin

This series is moderated by Steve Graham, a producer, writer, director, and co-founder of the Santa Fe production company Goodwest Productions. Since 2005, he has produced 111 episodes of television and worked on more than a dozen films. He was co-executive producer for five seasons on the television series Z Nation (Syfy) and was co-executive producer on Netflix’s Black Summer. Recently, he produced the award-winning punk puppet musical The Love That Would Not Die and is producing the New Mexico based drama The Penny and the horror comedy Hermanos Muertos