Board of Directors

Maïa Cybelle Carpenter
President, Board of Directors
http://www.mccarpenter.net
Maïa Cybelle Carpenter is a moving-image artist, curator and professional Executive Assistant. She has been on the Board of Canyon Cinema since 2005. Her films and videos have been exhibited internationally, and selected exhibitions have included: Arts Electronica, The Rotterdam International Film Festival Pacific Film Archive, Ontario Cinematheque, Anthology Film Archives, Exit Art Gallery NY, The British Film Institute, Telluride International Experimental Film Festival, The Taiwan Cinematheque, and PBS Television. She has served as visiting curator for the Pleasure Dome in Toronto, Ontario, was the Programming Coordinator for MIX NYC at Anthology Film Archives and has subsequently curated programs for this festival, SF Cinematheque and SF International Film Festival. She has a BA in Women’s Studies/Film Theory from Barnard College, Columbia University (1997), and has a MFA from the Film/Video/New Media Dept. at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2001). She is the Founder and President of the Board of Directors of Canyon Cinema Foundation, on the Advisory Board of Lunafest, ClifBar & Co, a pre-screener for the SF International Film Festival and is the Executive Assistant to the Managing Directors of Elevation Partners, Inc. in Menlo Park, CA.

Nathaniel Dorsky
Vice President, Board of Directors
http://canyoncinema.com/catalog/filmmaker/?i=95
Nathaniel Dorsky is a filmmaker, educator, and writer. He first joined the Board of Canyon in 2001 and has been re-elected numerous times. Dorsky began to make and exhibit 16mm films within the avant-garde tradition during the early 1960′s and premiered a trilogy at the age of 20 that was written about by Jonas Mekas in the Village Voice. From that time on he continued to make films almost annually in the silent, poetic tradition. These films have been shown and collected by the MoMA in New York, Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, and several universities including Princeton, Harvard, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Colorado. He has written and published a well-received book on a philosophy of cinema titled Devotional Cinema, now in its third printing. Nathaniel has received grants from the NEA (3), the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation (2), the LEF Foundation, and the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art. In 2007, ArtForum dedicated a ten-page article to his work. Nathaniel makes a living as a film editor, mostly in the field of documentaries, and has taught at UC Berkeley, Princeton University, and the SF Art Institute.

Dana Plays
Treasurer, Board of Directors
http://www.danaplays.com/
Dana Plays is an award winning experimental filmmaker whose work has been programmed at more than 50 international film festivals and numerous venues including S.F. Cinematheque, Pacific Film Archive and the Whitney Museum of Art.  She is currently professor of film and new media at The University of Tampa and has held full time appointments at the San Francisco Art Institute, Syracuse University, Occidental College. She has served on the Boards of Canyon Cinema, Los Angeles Film Forum and the Putney School.