Brit­tany Bal­lard is the Man­ager of FILM FOR­WARD, a joint ini­tia­tive between Sun­dance Insti­tute and The President’s Com­mit­tee on the Arts and the Human­i­ties. She is also serv­ing her eigth year as Direc­tor of Pro­gram­ming and Fes­ti­val Pro­ducer for Urban­world Film Fes­ti­val, pre­sented by BET (NYC). Before form­ing lit­tle plow films with com­rade Jamil Walker Smith, Brit­tany was Head of Acqui­si­tions at New­mar­ket Films and Pro­gram­mer at Santa Bar­bara Inter­na­tional Film Fes­ti­val and has con­sulted numer­ous dis­tri­b­u­tion com­pa­nies in acqui­si­tions, includ­ing Skouras Films and Regent Entertainment. Brittany stud­ied with Directing/Acting Coach Joan Scheckel and par­tic­i­pated in USC’s pres­ti­gious Direct­ing Inten­stive. Brit­tany grad­u­ated with Hon­ors, Dou­ble Major­ing in Black Stud­ies and Com­par­a­tive Lit­er­a­ture with an Empha­sis in Media Stud­ies from Uni­ver­sity Cal­i­for­nia Santa Bar­bara. Brit­tany pro­duced the indie fea­ture THE AMER­I­CAN DREAM, cur­rently trav­el­ing the inter­na­tional fes­ti­val cir­cuit (includ­ing Santa Bar­bara and Edin­burgh Inter­na­tional Film Fes­ti­vals). Brit­tany and Jamil are co-writing and will co-direct the screen adap­ta­tion of Ayelet Waldman’s acclaimed novel, Daughter’s Keeper, which will shoot in Oak­land this year!

Jamil Walker Smith: I was born in a shoe. My mother is a witch in the pagan tra­di­tion, which makes her a priest. My father lived in my head which was hip because he could be any­thing I wanted him to be. He was the mon­ster in the closet, the bunk bed in my dreams, and then he was dead. I decided at age 6 that I was going to change the world, but when I turned 26 I real­ized I was pass­ing judge­ment in think­ing the world needed to be changed. Over­whelmed by end­less pos­si­bil­i­ties, I decided to clean my room. It was then that I found and turned off the tape that had been run­ning for so long in my head that I mis­took the noise for my breath. I then exhaled, and did what I never thought not to tell myself I wouldn’t do: I started a big band. I made my demons the horn sec­tion, Brit­tany Bal­lard my base, my story the sheet music, and you, my dear friend read­ing this, our audience.

Jamie Kogan man­ages the cre­ation and devel­op­ment of com­mu­nity action and advo­cacy cam­paigns for all lit­tle plow films and media projects. She uses her deep com­mu­nity ties and exten­sive non­profit man­age­ment expe­ri­ence to form strate­gic com­mu­nity alliances and part­ner­ships. Col­lec­tively, lit­tle plow and its com­mu­nity part­ners gal­va­nize audi­ence mem­bers to take action around the real issue that the films bring to light. Jamie is also the senior pro­gram man­ager of Step Up Women’s Net­work, a national non­profit mem­ber­ship orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cated to con­nect­ing and advanc­ing women and girls. Over the course of Jamie’s five-year tenure with the orga­ni­za­tion, Step Up has become one of the most sought-after women’s groups in the coun­try. Prior to join­ing Step Up and lit­tle plow, Jamie served as coor­di­na­tor and then man­ager for Catholic Char­i­ties of Brook­lyn & Queens in an array of youth devel­op­ment pro­grams includ­ing juve­nile delin­quency pre­ven­tion, after­school and youth employ­ment. Jamie holds a master’s degree in pub­lic admin­is­tra­tion from the Robert F. Wag­ner Grad­u­ate School of Pub­lic Ser­vice at New York University.