Meet Our Programming Committee 2025
John Affleck
John Affleck is the department head for journalism at Penn State and the Knight Chair for Sports Journalism and Society as well as the director of the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism. He’s produced award-winning short sports documentaries with his students and has been involved with the Centre Film Festival since its founding.
Diane Akpovwa
Hi, my name is Diane Akpovwa, and I am a Web and Virtual Reality Intern for the 2025 Centre Film Festival Immersive. In collaboration with Pearl Gluck, Clementine Briand, the Palmer Museum of Art, and our Sponsors, we have ideated a night where the cinematic, the virtual, and the fine arts converge. By reaching out to immersive filmmakers around the globe, developing programming materials, applying for grants, and enhancing the festival website, I have thoroughly enjoyed enriching Penn State’s Arts Community alongside the Centre Film Festival. As a senior majoring in Human-Centered Design, minoring in Art History, with a certificate in Museum Studies, I am incredibly passionate about technologically enhancing art experiences for various cultural institutions. As the current Creative Director of VALLEY Magazine, I am thankful for opportunities like this where I can exercise my Creative Project Management skills. As a Virtual Reality artist and director myself, I relish this opportunity to contribute my skills to the positive expansion of the Penn State zeitgeist through immersive art experiences.
Catharine Axley
Catharine Axley is an independent documentary filmmaker and educator based in central Pennsylvania. Her most recent film, ATTLA, co-produced by ITVS and Vision Maker Media, aired nationally in 2019 on PBS’ Independent Lens and went on to win awards at the American Indian Film Festival and BendFilm Festival. Her films have screened at major festivals including San Francisco International, DOC NYC, Heartland, Harlem International, and the United Nations Association Film Festival. Before joining Penn State, she taught at the University of Kentucky and Spelman College.
Rasa Drane
Rasa “Ray Dray” Drane, M.Ed, is a playwright, director, choreographer, and higher education administrator. A graduate of Bethune-Cookman University and Penn State, she created Whew Chile! Black Women Working and leads Ray Dray Presents LLC, an “edutainment” company blending performance and advocacy. Her work uplifts creativity, community, and access to opportunity.
Tori D. Gamel
Tori is in her 2nd year of her Ph.D. in the Department of Anthropology. Much of her film work centers on visual anthropology through the CORVA Lab, with an upcoming ethnographic film on the Coast Salish Woolly Dog. Her dissertation research is in collaboration with the Indigenous communities of the Pacific Northwest, focused on their textile traditions and how environmental and governmental policies have changed their traditions. She loves classic films, walks with her dog (Lucinda) at Tudek Park, and live music.
Pearl Gluck
Pearl Gluck, Co-Founder and Artistic Director of the Centre Film Festival, is a filmmaker whose work explores identity, class, and faith through narrative and documentary film. She is also the Penn State Laureate (2025–26) and an Associate Professor of Film Production at Penn State. Her films have screened at Cannes, Tribeca, Sundance, and international festivals. Her feature documentary Divan received a Fulbright to Hungary and premiered at Tribeca; her hybrid film, The Turn Out, won awards for its engagement with human trafficking awareness. Most recently, her short Castles in the Sky (2023) won Best Short at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, and her forthcoming Stars and Bars is in post-production. She is also developing A Place with No Men, a feature documentary supported by two Fulbright awards (Poland and Israel), expanding her ongoing work with women’s stories and Jewish history.
Kevin Hagopian
Kevin’s been teaching film in college since he was 20 years old- and he’s loved the movies since he was a lot younger than that. He teaches film studies at Penn State, where his research specialties include the Hollywood cinema and the colonial & post-colonial cinemas of the world. He’s very proud to work with the Centre Film Festival team to bring the art, the ideas, and the community of film to Central Pennsylvania.
Yuliya V. Laydgina
Yuliya V. Ladygina is assistant professor of Slavic and global and international studies at the Pennsylvania State University. Her research in Eastern European literatures and cultures, focuses on questions of cultural memory and cultural exchange. She is the author of Bridging East and West: Ol’ha Kobylians’ka, Ukraine’s Pioneering Modernist (Toronto UP, 2019), and she is currently working on her second book project, The Reel Story of Russia’s War against Ukraine, which examines the post-2014 cycle of Ukrainian war films. Her articles on related subjects appeared or are about to appear in East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies, East European Jewish Affairs, Harvard Ukrainian Studies, Journal in Cinema and Media Studies, KinoKultura, Slavic Review, Studies in World Cinema, and Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture.
Pablo Lopez
“Pablo Lopez is a Certified Film Commissioner and Film Production Manager for Centre County, Pennsylvania, with The Happy Valley Adventure Bureau. A graduate of Penn State University’s Bellisario School of Film and Video, Pablo is deeply committed to empowering the next generation of filmmakers. He designs and leads film bootcamps, panels, and workforce training programs to cultivate technical skills, business acumen, and professional opportunities for students, emerging filmmakers, and underrepresented voices across Pennsylvania. With a slate of original projects, and a vision to make Happy Valley a filmmaking destination, Pablo Lopez continues to champion creativity, community, and industry growth in the region.”
Deepak Sethi
Deepak Sethi has over fifteen years of experience writing for primetime animated television, with credits including Fox’s Family Guy, Comedy Central’s Brickleberry, HBO Max’s Close Enough, Apple & Onion, and Disney-Pixar’s Monsters at Work. He is currently developing a new show for Disney Plus and serves as executive producer of Tubi’s first adult animated series. His short film Coffee Shop Names was a Tribeca X finalist in 2021, won the Soho House Script House Award, and was acquired by HBO Max. Since 2016, he has taught at Penn State’s Hollywood Program, where he was recently appointed director.
David Sidore
Dr. Sidore has been teaching film and media for thirty years and working on film festivals for the past fifteen. His research focuses on Post-Cold War culture, especially as represented in the media of the period. He is enthusiastic about helping bring a diverse collection of films and voices to the communities of central Pennsylvania.
Lior Sternfeld
Lior Sternfeld is an associate professor of history and Jewish Studies. He is a social historian of the modern Middle East, with a focus on the Jewish communities and other minorities of the region. His first book, Between Iran and Zion: Jewish Histories of Twentieth-Century Iran (Stanford University Press, 2018), explores the development and integration of Jewish communities in Iran within the context of Iranian nationalism, Zionism, and constitutionalism. He is currently working on two book projects: The Origins of Third Worldism in the Middle East and a study of the Iranian-Jewish diaspora in the U.S. and Israel. He teaches courses on the modern Middle East, Iran, Jewish history, and Israel-Palestine.
Yermiyahu Ahron Taub
Yermiyahu Ahron Taub is a poet and writer in English and Yiddish, a translator of Yiddish literature into English, and a lifelong cinephile. He is the author of two books of fiction and six volumes of poetry, including A Mouse Among Tottering Skyscrapers: Selected Yiddish Poems (2017). His recent translations from the Yiddish include Dineh: An Autobiographical Novel by Ida Maze (2022) and Blessed Hands: Stories by Frume Halpern (2023). Please visit his website at https://yataubdotnet.wordpress.com.