The Young Film Forum (YFF) Archive Dive: PIN: A PLASTIC NIGHTMARE

The Gotham Film & Media Institute celebrates and nurtures independent film and media creators, providing career-building resources, access to industry influencers, and pathways to wider recognition. The organization, under the leadership of Executive Director and award-winning producer Jeffrey Sharp, fosters a vibrant and sustainable independent storytelling community through its year-round programs, which include Gotham Week, Gotham Labs, Filmmaker Magazine, The Gothams, Gotham EDU, Owning It, and Expanding Communities. Writer, Director, Producer Paula González-Nasser (she/her) is a Colombian filmmaker currently residing in Brooklyn, New York. In 2016, she and Ryan Martin Brown co-founded 5th Floor as a film collective after graduating together from the film program at Florida State University. Paula’s feature directorial debut, THE SCOUT, had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. In 2025, Paula was named one of 25 new faces in independent film by Filmmaker Magazine. She has also produced films like Melina Valdez’s WEAPONS AND THEIR NAMES, which premiered at Sundance 2023, and Ryan Martin Brown’s FREE TIME, which received three nominations at the inaugural Slamdance Indie Awards. She is a two-time Gotham Film Week participant and a 2023 Sundance Producers Intensive Fellow. Previously, Paula worked as a location scout on many New York films and TV shows such as High Maintenance, Russian Doll, Search Party, NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS, and more. Mimi Davila is a Cuban-Bulgarian actress, comedian, writer, and filmmaker raised in Miami. She appears in Julio Torres’ PROBLEMISTA and was a series regular in the Amazon/Annapurna Pictures pilot Hot Pink. Her directorial debut, Pangea, was in competition this year at Palm Springs International ShortFest. In 2024, she sold her comedy series The Chonga Girls to CBS, which she was set to star in. Stage credits include, Ophelia in Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Hamlet and her original comedy shows at San Francisco SketchFest, the New York Comedy Festival, and Dynasty Typewriter. Next, she is set to appear in the feature film, IN AN ORDERLY FASHION starring Oscar Nuñez. Eliza Hittman is an award-winning filmmaker, born and based in Brooklyn, NY. Her most recent feature NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS premiered in the International Competition at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival where it won the Silver Bear. It premiered in the US Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival. It was nominated for 7 Independent Spirit Awards, and won a New York Critics Circle Award for Best Screenplay and Best Actress. Her film BEACH RATS premiered in the US Dramatic Competition at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, where she won the Directing Award. It premiered internationally at Locarno in the Golden Leopard Competition and was the Centerpiece Film at New Directors / New Films. It was the winner of the Artios Award for Outstanding Achievement in Casting, Outstanding Screenwriting in a U.S. Feature at Outfest, and the London Critics’ Circle Film Award for Young British/Irish Performer of the Year. She is the a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. She has also written and directed for television. Her credits include High Maintenance (HBO), 13 Reasons Why (Netflix), and A Friend of the Family (Peacock).