Film is about connection. That’s why we’ve made it our mission to build a community where we can share and experience stories together. With our year-round screenings, education and training, and the largest film festival in North Texas, we bring film home.
Founded in 2006, we are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization sustained by more than 20,000 supporters, volunteers, corporations, grants and individual donors. We lead multiple educational initiatives to mentor excellence in film, television and digital media. And proudly support filmmakers, theatres and film organizations locally and globally.
Johnathan Brownlee is not one to be boxed in. He serves as our CEO & President, but only after trying everything else in film first. He’s an award-winning Canadian-American director, producer, writer and actor with a diverse international body of work. He has taught, lectured and consulted at some of the most respected institutions in North America and has worked as a producer with Academy Award-, Golden Globe- and Emmy Award-winning talent. Brownlee’s feature films, documentaries, television series and digital content have been viewed in more than 100 countries in 14 languages.
James Faust likes to rock and watch movies. Not in that order. He began as the festival’s Senior Programmer at our inception back in 2006, when we were still called AFI DALLAS. That position followed programming roles with the Asian Film Festival of Dallas, The Austin Film Festival and Texas Black Film Festival. A die-hard Raiders fan, James received Telecommunication and Theatre degrees at Texas Tech University, which he followed up with a degree in Cinema Studies at Southern Methodist University. He has served on juries and panels all over the world speaking about film festival management, programming and marketing.