Nathan Bittner is a film director and editor specializing in narrative and documentary storytelling whose work has earned multiple Telly and ADDY Awards. He recently served as lead editor for the interactive feature film The Moment: Part 1, which won a 2025 Webby Award for Best Multimedia Storytelling. In association with the Virginia-based production company Distant Moon, Nathan has led editorial for multiple Hillsdale College Online Courses and written and directed documentaries and commercials for mission-driven nonprofits and brands.

Tommy Britt is a writer and teacher from Virginia. Most of his writing takes the form of film, television, literature, and music criticism, though he also writes short film scripts and has won screenwriting awards at the Sidewalk Film Festival, Hollywood Just4Shorts, and the Cinalfama Lisbon International Film Festival, among others.

John Carter is a video producer at Reason. He has participated in MPI’s Short Film Lab, Directing Workshop, Mindful Editor Workshop, and Short Film Theory and Fundamentals Workshop.

Joe Duca is on a mission to create a more hopeful world—24 frames at a time. His feature films Evergreen (2019) and Her Name Was Jo (2020) earned critical acclaim, multiple festival awards, and distribution through Gravitas Ventures, Paramount+, HBO Max, and Amazon Prime Video. His feature script Len & Sal In Sperryville was named a finalist in the 2024 American Zoetrope Screenplay Competition. His documentary short The Dying Business, produced in partnership with MPI, has screened at the Academy Award-qualifying Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival and Indy Shorts International Film Festival, among other festivals.

Vivian Kerr is an LA-based actor, writer, director, and producer with her company Rue Dangeau. Her latest project, the pilot Soft Boil, was selected for the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Her feature debut, Scrap, premiered at the Deauville American Film Festival, screened at 44 festivals worldwide, and holds a 98% “Certified Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Her second feature, Séance, a Victorian Gothic thriller shot by DP Johanna Coelho (The Pitt), had its world premiere at the Newport Beach Film Festival. As a writer, she won the 2024 Austin Film Festival Drama Teleplay Pilot Award for The Mitfords, and her pilot Five Points has been selected for numerous prestigious development programs, including Sony Pictures TV’s Rising Storytellers Search and the 2025 Women’s List.

Katie Lowman is a creative based in Baltimore, Maryland. For the past five years, she has worked as a production assistant and assistant director in film and television, including projects in the Pennsylvania and New York film markets. Her directorial debut, Riding With My Girl, premiered at the 2024 DC 48 Hour Film Festival, where it won Best Cast Ensemble, Best Special/Visual Effects, Best Drama, and Second Place Runner-Up.

Hilary Miller is a Los Angeles-based writer and comedian with an MFA in screenwriting from Pepperdine University and a background in ComedySportz. Her screenplays have placed in the top 15% of the Academy Nicholl Fellowship. She currently teaches English literature at a Christian high school in Santa Monica and has previously served as an MPI intern.

Kaitlin Moose is a writer/director from Greenville, South Carolina. She earned her BA in secondary education from Clemson University and has a passion for “edutainment.” Kaitlin previously participated in MPI’s 2024 Documentary Storytelling Workshop and has won awards for her films Adultlings and Rough Draft. She also created the aviation short On Borrowed Wings for MPI’s Collaboration Filmmakers Challenge.

Robert Anthony Peters is an actor and filmmaker. After training at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in New York City, he has worked professionally in theater, film, voiceover, and television for more than two decades. A SAG-AFTRA member, his acting credits include The Pursuit of Happyness and Steve Jobs. He is also a policy advisor for the Heartland Institute, a fellow with the Archbridge Institute and the Center for American Culture and Ideas, and chair of the Fully Informed Jury Association. This is his third MPI writing workshop. His award-winning debut film, Tank Man, is available online, and he will appear as Luke in the upcoming MPI Original feature One Second After.

Lauren Spohn is a writer, director, producer, and assistant professor of Intellectual History at the University of Texas. Her work spans documentary, narrative, and animation, and most recently she served as assistant director, co-writer, and associate producer on a four-part docuseries for EWTN+. She is currently directing an animated short executive-produced by Oscar-nominated director Tim Reckart and has previously participated in MPI’s production workshops. Lauren studied English at Harvard College and earned a doctorate in Philosophical Theology from the University of Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar.