Spotlight on Women Filmmakers
Championing Equality in the Industry
Each year the Festival champions women filmmakers with a curated selection of powerful films by female filmmakers and panel exploring the impact and future of women in the film industry.
In Partnership with the
Center for Women’s History
Preserving Women’s Stories. Inspiring the Future.
The San Diego History Center’s Center for Women’s History in Balboa Park is dedicated to preserving, researching and sharing the stories of women who have shaped San Diego. Through exhibitions, educational programs and archives, the Center works to ensure women’s voices and contributions remain visible in our history.
The 2026 Women’s Film Series and Women’s Panel
are proudly sponsored by the Center for Women’s History.
Women in Film: Breaking Barriers and Shaping the Industry
October 16, 2:30pm | TICKETS
This engaging panel explores how women are redefining the film industry — from directing and producing to writing and financing. Industry leaders will discuss the challenges they’ve faced, the progress being made, and how women’s voices are shaping the future of storytelling both on screen and behind the camera.
Jo Rochelle
director: DEAD DEER HIGH
Jo Rochelle is a Jamaican American TV writer and filmmaker, based in California, originally from Minneapolis. Her films have screened at SXSW, Dances with Films, Bentonville, Urbanworld, and BlackStar, among others. She has developed a family drama pilot at Netflix and has written for Good Trouble on Freeform/Hulu. She continues to develop projects featuring complex family dynamics and characters existing in two worlds.
Arabella Oz
Director: MALLORY’S GHOST
Arabella Oz is a New York-based filmmaker whose debut feature, Mallory’s Ghost, premiered in the Narrative Feature Competition at SXSW 2026. Her work uses comedy and a heightened sense of reality to dig into psychological patterns. She wrote Mallory’s Ghost while working as a mental health counselor, where she became increasingly fascinated by the mechanisms of healing, and made the film in close creative collaboration with her husband, Nick Canellakis.
Lauren Noll
DIRECTOR: SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT
Lauren Noll is an L.A.-based actor-director from East Tennessee. Her feature directorial debut, Same Same But Different, a female-driven ensemble comedy exploring cross-cultural relationships, friendship, and womanhood, premiered at SXSW 2026. A graduate of Harvard’s American Repertory Theater and the Moscow Art Theatre, Lauren began directing with the short drama Honor and has since created award-winning work including Clean Slate and the Oscar-qualified short The Heart of Texas. Across her work, she is drawn to intimate, character-driven stories told with honesty, humor, and compassion.