Ardis Nelson is a Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages at ETSU. She has published extensively on Guillermo Cabrera Infante (1929 – 2005), Cuban film critic and novelist, who wrote the screenplay for Vanishing Point and The Lost City. She has attended film festivals in Havana and Miami and co-authored a Critical Annotated Bibliography on Central America film and video. She currently teaches Spanish translation and interpreting and directs the Language and Culture Resource Center (LCRC) and the Migrant Education Program (MEP).

Michelle Keenan is lifelong student of film and film history.  Along with fellow SOAPIFF judge Chip Kaufmann, Michelle is editor and co-reviewer of Reel Takes in Rapid River Magazine, an arts monthly serving western North Carolina.  Prior to creating Reel Takes, Michelle Keenan served as a guest film reviewer for Rapid River. 

Working as a film screener and marketing committee member for the first several years of the Asheville Film Festival, Michelle is delighted to work with SOAPIFF to support another independent film festival in the Appalachian region.

When not reviewing movies, Michelle is a full time fundraiser for WCQS Public Radio, a photographer, and a freelance writer, covering titular topics from hats to flax and everything in between.  Michelle resides in Asheville, North Carolina with a 19 year old cat, a much younger dog and a very patient fiancé.

Chip Kaufmann is a native of Greenville, S.C. He attended the University of South Carolina and graduated from Furman University with a degree in Drama and Speech. He began a career in public radio in 1979 by reviewing films for WSCI in Charleston, S.C. before becoming a classical music announcer at public radio station WCQS in Asheville N.C. back in 1983. He was one of three final judges at the initial Asheville Film Festival in 2003 and is currently a film critic for Rapid River, a monthly Arts magazine in Asheville. He is also President of the Hendersonville (N.C.) Film Society.

Chip specializes in movies from the silent era and has been teaching courses on silent film for the College for Seniors program at the North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement which is located at the University of North Carolina, Asheville. Courses he has taught there include The Silent Film Experience, Classic Literature in the Silent Era, American Stars of Silent Cinema, D.W. Griffith: The Birth of American Cinema and Beyond, and Women Filmmakers in the Silent Era. He currently has over 300 silent films on DVD.

Jack Fowler worked in distribution for Quest Entertainment, the feature film production company located at Universal Studios in Orlando, FL. He was Vice President of Marketing, which included International Sales & Licensing for theatrical, video, and television, as well as Domestic Sale & Licensing, which included HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, and Pay TV. Jack produced all trailers for sales and promotion. He also served for many years as the principle buyer of all U.S. products to be licensed in Germany for Martest AG. Jack was a Buyer & Exhibitor at three annual media markets: MIFED (in Milan, Italy) AFM (in Santa Monica, CA) and at the Cannes Film Festival (in Cannes, France) Jack is presently a full time commodities trader on the NASDAQ market, yet he still finds time to consult with various distribution companies in California.

Jennifer Barker is originally from Davenport, Iowa, but has lived all over the U.S., including San Francisco, New Orleans, Oregon, Arizona, and Indiana, as well as overseas in Berlin and Bangor, Wales. She attended Tulane University as an undergrad, and The University of Oregon and Indiana University as a graduate student. Before arriving in Johnson City, she was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Stanford University. Jennifer is an Assistant Professor in the English Department at East Tennessee State University, and the Director of the Film Studies Minor. She teaches courses on Contemporary Global Cinema, Documentary, and Animation, and Introductory courses on Film and American Literature. Her research and writing focuses on cross-cultural sites of transformation, including the international antifascist culture of the 1930s and 1940s, the transatlantic modernist culture of the 1910s and 1920s, and the global culture of post-WWII cinema. Currently she is working on a book manuscript, Radical Projection: The Aesthetics of Antifascist Film.