Meet the Programmers 2026

Wednesday, April 15, 2026

Meet the Programmers

Every year, the incredible programmers behind SIFF search far and wide for cinema phenomena certain to electrify audiences. They’re on the lookout for independent works that will spark that special feeling of true connection. Their programming lineup makes going to SIFF theaters an experience unlike anywhere else. Learn more about all the programmers below, and check out their Letterboxd profiles to keep up with the community.

Since each programmer brings a unique perspective, they’ve all selected their personal favorites of the Festival. Check out the Programmers’ Picks to see what our SIFF Effect experts recommend for this year’s Festival.

Beth Barrett

Artistic Director
Nordic, Documentary, Spotlight Presentations

Meet Beth | Beth's Picks

Beth (she/her) has been with SIFF since 2003 and is responsible for managing the artistic vision of SIFF, including all aspects of programming for the Seattle International Film Festival, SIFF Cinema’s five year-round screens, and the SIFF Education team. Beth currently serves on the City of Seattle Film Commission and the Board of the Arthouse Convergence, and has served on juries and panels from Palm Springs to Park City.

Shailaja Rao

Programmer
Asian Crossroads

Meet Shailaja | Shailaja's Picks

Shailaja Rao is Executive Director of eShe®, a women-led editorial platform amplifying South Asian women’s voices, and a programmer at SIFF. A writer, advocate, and cofounder of the South Asian Lens Collective, her work spans socio-cultural dynamics, women’s rights, and democratic and secular values across South Asia.

Justine Barda

Senior Programmer
France, the Middle East, North Africa, New Directors Competition

Meet Justine | Justine's Picks

Justine Barda is the founder and director of Telescope Film, which promotes international film and TV to American audiences. She is also a senior programmer at SIFF, specializing in film from the Middle East, North Africa, and France. She has served on juries and panels at festivals around the world.

Dan Doody

Senior Programmer
Archival, Documentary, New Directors Competition, Short Films, UK/Ireland, WTF

Meet Dan | Dan's Picks

A Seattle-area local, Dan Doody (he/him) received a degree in English from Western Washington University and began working for the Seattle International Film Festival in 1999. He programs both features and short films for SIFF, serving for the past 15 years as the festival's lead programmer for its Oscar®-qualifying ShortsFest Weekend. He is an enthusiast of classic horror and the gothic in both film and literature and could quite happily live in a crumbling castle with nothing but the films of Boris Karloff to keep him company.

Megan Leonard

Festival Programming Manager
New American Cinema, Face the Music, Shorts, Spotlights Presentations

Meet Megan | Megan's Picks

Megan Leonard is a festival programmer and producer from Olympia, WA, based in Seattle. She started working for SIFF in 2010 and is currently the Festival Programming Manager. As a producer, her films have premiered at Sundance and SXSW, and received five Vimeo Staff Picks. She is a Sundance Institute and The Gotham Labs alumni.

Darcy Wytko

Shorts Programmer

Meet Darcy| Darcy's Picks

Darcy Wytko is an LA-based writer, filmmaker, and festival programmer with rodeo roots and a soft spot for baby goats and the Velvet Underground. She is a recent graduate of the American Film Institute and a shorts programmer for Palm Springs International ShortFest and SIFF.

Kimberly Dinehart

Shorts Programmer
Documentary Shorts

Meet Kimberly | Kimberly's Picks

Kimberly Dinehart (she/her) is a shorts programmer at SIFF. She has been on the programming team since 2020 and has been involved with SIFF since 2010, first as a member of the inaugural FutureWave committee, later its president, and then as a Festival House Coordinator at our former Eastside venues.

Megan Garbayo-López

Programmer
Films4Families and Documentary

Meet Megan | Megan's Picks

MGL is the Education Manager at the Northwest Film Forum and a board member for GRRL HAUS CINEMA. They are passionate about changing hearts and minds by building community through film. closing the arts access gap in underserved communities, and promoting media literacy.

Marcus Gorman

Programmer
New American Cinema, WTF, LGBTQIA+

Meet Marcus | Marcus's Picks

Marcus is a playwright, screenwriter, and filmmaker. Maybe you’re hella cool and have seen one of his plays around town, enjoyed his programming at numerous arthouses, or spotted his byline in various arts publications. Catch him at suburban cineplexes by day and at the playhouse by night. Next up: Catholic School Girls Go to Hell.

SuJ'n Chon

Programmer
Asian Crossroads, New American Cinema, New Directors Competition

Meet SuJ’n | SuJ'n's Picks

SuJ'n (she/her) is an artist, writer, and curator born and raised in the Seattle area. As an independent consultant, she primarily works with arts organizations and nonprofits led by people of the global majority. SuJ'n began with SIFF in 2006, volunteering while living a five-minute walk from McCaw Hall—and later, from SIFF Cinema Uptown. She has been part of the programming team since 2018, focusing on Asian Crossroads, New American Cinema, and films by and about the Asian diaspora. She also serves on the New Directors Competition committee. SuJ'n now lives on the Swinomish Indian Reservation in rural Skagit County with her human companion, Han, and their beloved cat zoo—Boba, Cleopatra, and Misty (R.I.P. Josephine Baker).

Hebe Tabachnik

Senior Programmer
Ibero America: Latin America, Spain, and Portugal

Meet Hebe | Hebe's Picks

Hebe Tabachnik (she/her) has been a film curator, festival consultant and producer for 20 years and focuses on visionary artists and stories which highlight human rights as well as social, political, and environmental justice. She has participated as juror, project evaluator and panelist in the US, Europe, Latin America, Israel and China. She is Senior Programmer at the Seattle (SIFF), and Palm Springs (PSIFF) International Film Festivals. She is the Artistic Director of Cine Latino Minneapolis Saint Paul, and is part of the industry team of D’A Film Lab Barcelona. She worked for Sundance, and Los Angeles Film Festivals. Hebe was one of the inaugural ARRAY Now Grantees created by Ava DuVernay’s Array Alliance that recognize the top community organizers and arts advocates in the USA. She was the Executive Producer of Valentina (Brazil, 2020 - SIFF2021) winner of 25 awards, and The Perfect David (Argentina, Uruguay, 2021). She is currently working on the feature film project The Meeting (Chile, Vietnam) and Continental Wonder, a non-fiction series in Brazil.

Rhys Iliakis

Shorts Programmer
Animated Shorts

Rhys's Picks

Rhys Iliakis (he/they) has been SIFF’s Graphic Design Manager since 2021, and this year he is debuting as a short film programmer for animation! Along with being a graphic designer and illustrator, he is one of the cofounders of Seattle’s Sea Slug Animation Festival. Rhys graduated from UW’s Visual Communication Design program in 2018, which feels more recent than it is. His favorite film of all time is Spirited Away and when he grows up, he would like to turn into an orca.

Jesse Knight

Shorts Programmer

Meet Jesse | Jesse's Picks

Jesse Knight is the director of programming for Palm Springs International ShortFest. On roller skates, he is 5’11”.

Alison Jean Smith

Festival Programming Coordinator
Northwest Connections, Shorts

Meet Alison | Alison's Picks

Alison is the three-time Local Sightings Film Festival Director at Northwest Film Forum and a recovering freelance journalist. She has also held communications positions at the University of Washington and the King County Council. Alison has received two first-place journalism awards from the UW Society of Professional Journalists for her pieces in “The Stranger.”

Kathleen Mullen

Programmer
Documentary

Meet Kathleen | Kathleen's Picks

Kathleen Mullen is a film curator and programmer based in Vancouver, Canada with over 20 years of international film festival experience. She currently programs for the Seattle International Film Festival, Victoria Film Festival, Frameline: San Francisco LGBTQ+ Film Festival, and Vancouver Latin American Film Festival, and served nearly a decade as Festival Artistic Director of Seattle Queer Film Festival at Three Dollar Bill Cinema.

Nichole Young

Shorts Programmer

Meet Nichole | Nichole's Picks

Nichole Young is the Shorts Programmer at the American Film Institute's AFI Fest. Her programming career spans across SIFF, Palm Springs ShortsFest, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, and Nashville Film Festival. Nichole holds a BFA in Broadcast Journalism from Chapman University and a Master's in Film & Media Studies from ASU.

Colleen O'Holleran

Programmer
WTF

Meet Colleen | Colleen's Picks

Colleen O’Holleran (she/her) has been a programmer for SIFF since 2017, programming films that embrace the dark, terrifying, and weird. Based in the Rocky Mountains where the sun shines over 300 days a year, Colleen remains a lifelong "indoor kid" who you can usually find inside reading a book or watching a movie.

Tracy Rector

Programmer
Global Indigenous Films

Meet Tracy | Tracy's Picks

Tracy Rector (she/her) is a mixed-heritage filmmaker with a passion for amplifying and uplifting artists who identify as Black, Indigenous, People of Color, Trans, and those who are historically marginalized and underrepresented. She holds three decades of experience as a community organizer, educator, filmmaker, film programmer, and arts curator. Her work has been featured on Independent Lens, PBS, and National Geographic, in addition to being screened at international film festivals including ImagineNative, BlackStar, Maoriland, Sundance, SXSW, Cannes, and Toronto. Tracy served as a Seattle Arts Commissioner for eight years, is a Stranger Genius, sits on the boards of Working Films and Multitude Films, and is on the Advisory Council for the Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center on Media. She is happiest unapologetically fighting for justice and equity for all.

Martin Schwartz

Programmer
German-Language and Central European Cinema

Meet Martin | Martin's Picks

Martin Schwartz (he/him) is a scholar, film lover, and arts advocate based in Seattle, WA. Until its closure, he served as Program Curator at Goethe Pop Up Seattle, the temporary branch of the international cultural institute of the Federal Republic of Germany, where among other filmic duties he programmed the monthly series GERMAN CINEMA NOW! at the Northwest Film Forum. Martin is a playwright as well, and five of his works have graced and troubled stages in California and Arizona. He earned a BA from UC San Diego and an MA from University of Chicago, working on German literature, drama, and film, and is currently pursuing his PhD at the University of Washington, where his research focuses on antisemitism and New German Cinema.

Andy Spletzer

Programmer
Alternate Cinema, Documentary, New American Cinema

Meet Andy | Andy's Picks

Andy Spletzer started attending the festival in the ’90s on a press pass after helping to start the alternative weekly newspaper “The Stranger.” After hanging up his film critic’s lanyard, he wrote for television, won an Emmy for a locally-produced short documentary, and has worked in the independent film and commercial realm as a script supervisor. He started working at SIFF 20 years ago, first as the publications editor and then as a film programmer. He writes screenplays in his spare time.

Cory Rodriguez

Shorts Programmer
Queer Shorts

Meet Cory

Cory Rodriguez is a festival programmer in Seattle. He graduated from Seattle U in 2015 with a degree in Film Studies. He has been involved with SIFF for 13 years in addition to working with a handful of other festivals. He loves short films, queer cinema, and the horror genre.

Emalie Soderback

Shorts Programmer

Meet Emalie

Emalie Soderback (she/her) was born and raised in the Seattle area and has been working at Scarecrow Video and with SIFF since 2013. Emalie currently lives in Columbia City with her fiance and dog and spends her time recording “Viva Physical Media,” co-hosting the ‘90s thriller podcast “The Suspense is Killing Us,” and of course, always watching movies.

Date: April 15, 2026
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