FESTIVAL
PROGRAMMERS
Over the years, the LightReel Film Festival programming team has curated some eclectic lineups in Union Market, sifting through hundreds of entries every Festival season and blending their unique personal perspectives to introduce audiences to the latest and visionary new voices as well as established auteurs from all over the world.
We wanted you to meet this year’s programming team. Under the leadership of Tim Gordon, this year’s team welcomes Subrina Wood, who has joined as a screenplay programmer, alongside Kimberley Browning, who joined as the shorts programmer.
Charles Kirkland
Role: Features Programmer, (5th Year).
Charles Kirkland Jr. is a working film critic who has been reviewing movies for the last twelve years. He began on the Spectrum radio show on WMAL 105.9 in Washington, DC. He would appear on the show to promote the activities of the DC Film Society, review movies, and discuss the Oscars. After being pronounced an “Award Predictor” by a group at the Film Society, he started my podcast, The DC Film Life in September 2013. With his co-host Michael Bryant, The DC Film Life, “where real guys talk about real movie stuff,” reviewed movies and movie trends and became the go-to podcast site for filmmakers in the city to promote their projects.
His reviews and musings can currently be found on the Facebook site, The DC Film Life. Since the end of the podcast, he has gone on to write for the websites, Thefilmgordon.com, RogerEbert.com, and idobi.com. Charles hosts a show on DC Radio (DCradio.gov) called Conversations where he discusses movies and interviews filmmakers. He is a co-host of the show, Keeping It Reel with Film Gordon where he reviews movies and talks about the entertainment world every week. Keeping it Reel can be found on DC Radio, YouTube, Blogtalk radio, and many other outlets. He is a member of the Publicity Committee of the DC Film Society, the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA), a voting member of the Black Reel Awards, and a reviewing judge for the DC Shorts Festival. He also serves as the Features Programmer for the LightReel Film Festival.
Christopher Llewellyn Reed
Role: Documentary Programmer, (3rd Year).
Christopher Llewellyn Reed is a film critic, filmmaker, and educator, currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Film and Moving Image at Stevenson University. A member of both the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA), as well as a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic, he is Managing Editor at Film Festival Today and lead film critic at Hammer to Nail. From 2014 to 2020, he was the host of Dragon Digital Media’s Reel Talk with Christopher Llewellyn Reed, which won numerous broadcast accolades, including a Telly and a Communicator Award. From 2018-2021, he was the cohost of The Fog of Truth, a podcast devoted to documentary cinema. He has also served on juries for the Annapolis Film Festival, Baltimore High School Film Festival, Dallas VideoFest and Thin Line Film Festival, moderated panels for Annapolis and the Maryland Film Festival, and is the author of Film Editing: Theory and Practice.
Chris started off studying Russian literature and holds a B.A. from Harvard University, in Slavic Languages and Literatures (concentration in Russian), an M.A from Yale University in Russian and East European Studies (concentration in Russian Film), and an M.F.A. from the Graduate Film Program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Kimberley Browning
Role: Shorts Programmer, (1st Year).
Kimberley is a filmmaker and film festival professional. She is the founder and Festival Director of the Hollywood Shorts Film Festival, which launched in 1998 in Los Angeles. She is an Associate Short Film Programmer at the Tribeca Film Festival and is the Program Advisor of Tribeca's feature film production program AT&T Untold Stories. She also serves as Chair of the Film Panel at YoungARTS. Kimberley directs and produces film, television, new media, and theatre, and is developing new projects under her Griffith Place Films banner.
Kimberley directed ‘Room 19’, a documentary film that focuses on the story of an innovative 3rd-grade art teacher who transforms her student’s view of the world – and themselves. She is the director of the theatre play Like Blood From A Cheap Cigar, which premiered at the 2016 Hollywood Fringe Festival, and was part of the Edinburgh Fringe Theatre Festival in August 2017.
Kimberley is the Executive Producer of HBO Access, producing three episodic comedy pilots developed via HBO Access 2016 Screenwriting and Directing Fellowship programs. Based in LA, she is originally from the Washington DC area and is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences.
Subrina Wood
Role: Screenwriting Programmer, (1st Year).
Subrina is a Boston-born, Greater DC Metro transplant. She is a TOS Trekkie, a lover of Golden Age comics, an avid reader of science fiction and fantasy novels, and an amateur Oscar historian. She created the SyFy Sistas, four Black women who promote Afrofuturistic films, books, and TV shows. Their podcast, The SyFy Sistas is a member show of the highly regarded Trek Geek Podcast network, where it is the only Black-hosted podcast. Subrina oversees the production of the podcast and maintains its website. The SyFy Sistas have a robust social media presence where Subrina leads the Tuesday show discussions and creates the Weekly Poll.
Subrina reviews films and promotes film festivals. Her movie podcast, Five by Five: A Movie Podcast, is a call back to her father’s love of ham radios. The show format has Subrina and a guest expert run down their five favorite movies on topics ranging from Black Exploitation to wine. She is a member of the African American Film Critic Association and has appeared on TCM as a guest programmer.
She is a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross where she earned a B.A. in Fine Art History. She earned her M.S. in Accounting from Northeastern University. After years of working as a C.P.A., she is currently studying film production and screenwriting at New York Film Academy.
Adrian Rashad Driscoll
Role: Immersive Programmer, (2nd Year).
From the small city of Barstow CA, (yeah, the pit stop on the way to Vegas) Adrian Rashad Driscoll followed his dream of becoming a professional actor and moved to Los Angeles. Shortly after that, he was woken up. After 6 years of great weather and bad traffic, he now makes his living as a filmmaker and VR consultant. He has had the privilege of working with large studios and amazing companies to produce great VR titles and experiences. In addition, Adrian works with the EAST school program on multiple VR projects that are more geared toward education and medical research. His goal is to focus on the deeper side of VR and MR and to destroy the stigma of “VR being just for gamers.” French Fries are the key to his heart.
Sherin Nicole
Role: Talk Series Programmer, (5th Year).
Sherin Nicole is a writer, an author, and may also be a covert agent. There are whispers that the CIA offered her a college scholarship (but that's classified). After graduating from Howard University she worked in a variety of creative spheres, before returning to grow the radio upstart she helped to launch. By day, she's an agent provocateur as chief creative officer at idobi Network. By night, she writes for idobi.com and produces content for geeks and nerds alike on the Geek Girl Riot radio show, as well as for publications like Blcklst.com, RogerEbert.com, and the Alliance of Women Film Journalist (AWFJ). She is also a Black Reel Awards voter. Culturally, Sherin is half American, half British, and very southern; right down to the accent and love of grits. Government reports show a residence in Washington, DC but Sherin spends most of her time on the astral plane and hopes to meet you there.