BIOS
Vincent Boudreau
Honorary President
Vincent Boudreau is President of The City College of New York. Boudreau has served as dean of the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at City College since 2013. He was previously director of the Colin L. Powell Center for Leadership and Service from 2002 through 2013. Other administrative positions Boudreau has held at CCNY include director of the M.A. Program in International Relations, chair of the Department of Political Science, director of the International Studies Program and deputy dean of the Division of Social Science. He is a professor of political science at CCNY and a member of the City University of New York graduate faculty. A specialist in the politics of social movements, particularly in Southeast Asia, his latest book is Resisting Dictatorship: Repression and Protest in Southeast Asia (Cambridge University Press). Boudreau is a graduate of Cornell University, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1991.
Juan Carlos Mercado
Founder - Chair
Dean of the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Center for Worker Education
Juan Carlos Mercado is the Dean of the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Center for Worker Education. Prior to his appointment as Dean, Mercado was a professor and the Chair of Foreign Languages and Literature at CCNY from 2000 to 2007; in 2011, he served as Acting Provost of the College. He also teaches at the PhD Program in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures & Languages at the CUNY Graduate Center. Mercado has worked on a myriad subjects including 19th Century Spanish American Literature, the history of ideas, and on the Spanish exploration of what is today the United States. He is the author of many books, reviews, and articles. His most recent publications are two annotated editions of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés: Cartas sobre la Florida (Letters from Florida) 1555-1574 (2002); Menéndez de Avilés y la Florida: Crónicas de sus expediciones (2006) (as well as the English language version), and an annotated edition (in collaboration with Isaías Lerner) of Juan María Gutiérrez's Escritores Coloniales/Colonial Writers (2012).
Maite Junco
Vince Chancellor of Communications and Marketing
City University of New York
Maite Junco is the Vice Chancellor for Communications and Marketing at the City University of New York. She oversees media relations, marketing, social media and multimedia along with the television station CUNY TV and CUNY Citizenship Now!, a program that provides free immigration law services.
Ms. Junco brings more than 30 years of experience in communications and journalism to CUNY. A skilled leader with an accomplished résumé in media, education, government and electoral politics, Junco has managed an array of communications operations and established a track record of building diverse, high-performing teams with a commitment to transparency.
Diana Vargas
Executive Director TAFFNY
Diana Vargas is a New York–based film programmer and television producer dedicated to promoting Latin American cinema. She has been part of the Havana Film Festival New York since 2001 and has served as its Artistic Director and Programmer since 2003. She is the founder of Corto Circuito Latino ShortFest New York and co-founder of The Americas Film Festival New York (TAFFNY). She has also curated programs for the HBO New York Latino Film Festival, the Lima Film Festival (Peru), the Bogotá Independent Film Festival (IndieBo), and the Ícaro Central American Film Festival. Diana is the U.S. representative of the International School of Film and Television (EICTV).
She is the Senior Producer of the Nueva York, for which she has received sixteen Emmy Awards, and co-creator of LATiNAS. She also works as a media consultant for film, music, theater, and cultural organizations in New York City.
Carlos Aguasaco
Adivsor
Carlos Aguasaco is an Associate Professor of Latin American Cultural Studies & Spanish at the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of The City College of CUNY. In 2010, Carlos won the India Catalina prize for best video in the art category at the Cartagena International Film Festival. He teaches both undergraduate and graduate classes on Latin American Civilization, Latin American Popular Culture, Latin American Cinema, Populism and Popular Culture, and Spanish. Carlos was born in Bogotá in 1975 and immigrated to New York in 1999. He received a Ph.D. at Stony Brook University (SUNY,) an M.A. from The City College of New York (CUNY) and a B.A. from the National University of Colombia. He is the founder of Artepoética Press -Hispanic Publishing House. As author, he has co-edited eight literary anthologies and published four books of poems, most recently Poemas del metro de Nueva York (2014) and Antología de poetas hermafroditas (2014). He is the author of ¡No contaban con mi astucia! México: parodia, nación y sujeto en la serie de El Chapulín Colorado (2014).
Gio Quinche
Festival Coordinator
Giovanni “Gio” Quinche is a Colombian visual artist, graphic designer, and cultural professional based in New York City, with more than 20 years of experience in the arts and film.
Alongside his work as a visual artist and freelance graphic designer, Gio provides coordination and creative support for film festivals and cultural events throughout New York City. His work includes film coordination, festival logistics, and the development of visual identities and branding for special events and festivals.
For nearly two decades, he has collaborated with the Havana Film Festival New York (HFFNY) and has also worked with The Americas Film Festival New York (TAFFNY), CortoCircuito Latino ShortFest, and other cultural initiatives across the city.
ADVISORY BOARD
Cynthia Benitez
Cynthia Benitez is film curator and scholar specializing in Native and indigenous film. She is currently the Film Programmer for Community and Public Programs of the Smithsonian National Museum of American Indian in New York City where she organizes hemispheric film showcases, international screenings and in-depth panel discussions. She has also been a panelist, moderator, selector and juror at international film festivals, including Skábmagovat Film Festival and Cine Las Americas Film Festival. For the past twelve years, Cynthia has worked as publicist for international film festivals and Native media organizations, including the American Indian Film Institute, Sundance Film Festival’s Native Forum and World Competition, and the Native American Film and Video Festival. She has also published several articles on indigenous artists and filmmakers. A graduate from Barry University, Cindy received her B.A. in Public Relations and completed her M.S. in Media Studies at CUNY Brooklyn College.
Jerry W. Carlson
Jerry W. Carlson is Chair of the Department of Media & Communication Arts at The City College CUNY. He is also a specialist in narrative theory, global independent film, and the cinemas of the Americas. In addition, he is a member of the doctoral faculties of French, Film Studies and Comparative Literature and a Senior Fellow at the Bildner Center for Western Hemispheric Studies. He has lectured at Stanford, Columbia, Escuela Internacional de Cine y TV (Cuba), the University of Paris, and the University of Sao Paulo, among others.
Moreover, he is an active producer, director, and writer with nine Emmy Awards. As a Senior Producer for City University Television (CUNY-TV), he created and produced the series CITY CINEMATHEQUE (which is about film history), CANAPE (which deals with French-American cultural relations), and NUEVA YORK (a Spanish language series about the Latino cultures of New York City).
As an independent producer, his recent work includes the Showtime Networks production DIRT, directed by Nancy Savoca, and LOOKING FOR PALLADIN, directed by Andrzej Krakowski. In 1998, he was inducted by France as a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Palmes Academiques. He was educated at Williams College (B.A.) and the University of Chicago (A.M. & Ph.D.).
Dee Dee Mozeleski
Dee Dee Mozeleski is the Director of Institutional Advancement for the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership and came to the School with 20 years of fundraising experience. She has managed fundraising campaigns for some of the largest nonprofits in New York City and around the country. A native San Diegan, she still considers anything below 75 degrees “chilly” but does manage to run at least three days a week, even in the middle of winter. In addition to her time spent at the School, she is currently working on a school building project in Adama, Ethiopia and enjoys writing for her blog and spending time with her daughter who recently transferred to the Colin Powell School.
Graciela Mochkofsky
Graciela Mochkofsky is the Director of the Spanish-language Journalism Program in the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. A native of Argentina, she has worked as a professional journalist in South America and the U.S. She was a political correspondent with La Nación in Argentina, has been a columnist and blogger for El País in Spain, and a contributor to publications in Latin America, Europe, and the U.S., including The California Sunday Magazine, The New Yorker online, and The Paris Review blog. She is the author of six nonfiction books in Spanish, two of them about the relationship between press and political power in her home country. Mochkofsky has served as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, a Cullman fellow at the New York Public Library, a Prins Foundation fellow at the Center for Jewish History, a visiting scholar at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, and a visiting scholar at the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life at Columbia University. She has taught undergraduate courses in reporting and writing and investigative and literary journalism in Buenos Aires, and she has lectured at Princeton, the CUNY Graduate Center, NYU’s Institute for the Humanities, and many other universities. Mochkofsky has also served as a juror for the Gabriel García Márquez Foundation Journalism Prize, Latin America’s most important journalism award. She has an M.S. in Journalism from the Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.