Faculty Directory

Natasha Rudenko

Natasha Rudenko is a photographer and an educator, and has exhibited her work internationally. Her work was part of a few group shows in New York, Los Angeles, Moscow, Budapest and some others as well as a few annual publications of feminist and queer art, including Issues II and Femme Fotale Volume III Analog and Femme Fotale Volume IV Leafless.

In her work Rudenko interprets her personal experience as a human being. She addresses self-reflection and investigates the realm of her feelings and emotions. Through being honest and personal she aims to make people relate to the ideas explored in her work and provoke their own self-reflection. Rudenko also believes art education can change the world and make it a better place. MFA, New York Film Academy.

Crickett Rumley Senior Director of Film Festivals

The founder and Senior Director of the New York Film Academy’s Film Festival Department, Crickett Rumley received her MFA in Film at Columbia University. She has guided filmmakers to official selections and awards at festivals ranging from Sundance to Bronzelens and to nomination and shortlisting for the Student Academy Awards, the BAFTA Student Film Awards, and the College Television Awards.

Crickett has moderated both live and virtual events for the school, including Q&A’s with NYFA alum Mohamed Diab (director of Marvel Studios/Disney+ series Moon Knight) and TV writers Boo Killebrew and Gail Lerner as well as panels with staff from festivals such as New Filmmakers LA, Hollyshorts, Austin, and Reel Sisters of the Diaspora. Most recently, she hosted the Winter Film Awards International Film Festival’s Education Day on the NYFA campus in New York, presenting workshops on “Social Media for Creatives” and “How to Craft the Low Budget Screen Story”.

A regular juror for the Forum on Life, Culture, and Society’s International Short Film Competition, Crickett also sat on the jury for the 2021 Tallgrass Film Festival, one of MovieMaker Magazine’s 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee. She now serves as their Panels Director.

Paul J. Salamoff

Paul J. Salamoff has been working for over 30 years in Film, TV, Video Games and Commercials as a Writer, Producer, Director, Executive, Comic Creator, Storyboard Artist and Make-Up FX Artist. He was recently named one of The Tracking Board’s Top 100 up & coming Screenwriters and has developed projects with Mosaic Media Group, Hollywood Gang, Blumhouse, Wigram Productions, Silver Pictures, Valhalla Motion Pictures, Vertigo and Eclectic Pictures. Salamoff is the author of On The Set: The Hidden Rules of Movie Making Etiquette (Now in its 4th Edition) and the graphic novels Discord, Tales of Discord, Hired Guns, Logan’s Run and issues of Vincent Price Presents. His short stories and essays have been included in acclaimed anthologies including Midian Unmade: Tales From Clive Barker’s Nightbreed and The Cyberpunk Nexus: Exploring The Blade Runner Universe and he is a two-time Bram Stoker Award Nominee. Salamoff made his feature-film directorial debut with Encounter, a multi award-winning Sci-Fi/Drama based on his original screenplay that stars Luke Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Cheryl Texiera and Tom Atkins. Encounter won “Best Independent Film” at The 46th Annual SATURN Awards. For the Screenwriting Department in LA, he teaches Online Screenwriting, Genre Studies, Sequential Art, Script To Screen, and Feature Workshops.

Brad Sample

Brad Sample is an award-winning writer/director for film, television and the web. He holds an M.F.A. in Film Directing from U.C.L.A.’s School of Theater, Film and Television. His film credits include Stuck, a dark comedy short, and the Iraq War film Attention, which aired on the Showtime Network. Brad’s television work includes pilots ¡YO! Television, including the hip-hop dance battle show, Crunkiao, and the celebrity profile show, Mi Barrio. The highlight of his online work is Stand Up, a promotional video for the United Nations Millennium Campaign. Brad currently teaches directing at the New York Film Academy and is working on his next screenplay.

Dr. Mary Samuelson Dean of General Education; Chair of Liberal Arts & Sciences

Dr. Mary Samuelson received her Ph.D. and MA degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and completed her undergraduate work in Cinema-Television and English Literature at the University of Southern California (USC). For the past four years, Mary has taught courses and advised students in the Cinema and Media Studies and Writing Programs departments at UCLA, the Cinema-Television department at Los Angeles Community College (LACC), and here at the New York Film Academy (NYFA). Her essays “Radical Moment: The National Recovery Administration and Hollywood’s ‘New Deal’” and “Wartime News Flow: Government and Studio Newsreels, 1941-1945” will come out in collections focusing on film and the law (September 2016) and the U.S. newsfilm (June 2016), respectively. Mary’s dissertation “The Patriotic Play: Roosevelt, Antitrust, and the War Activities Committee of the Motion Picture Industry” is slated for book publication in Spring 2017.

Michael Sandoval

A filmmaker and film/arts educator, Michael Sandoval’s films have appeared at Berlin, Venice, Palm Springs, Slamdance, and Chicago. Michael led film collaborations with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim and the Whitney Museum. He has directed film education programs across the globe, including Beijing, Abuja, and Doha.

Michael once chaired the Filmmaking Dept at NYFA and directed the NYC Summer HS program for 15 years. Michael holds MFAs from NYU and the U. of Michigan and a BA from Brown.

Diana Santi Programs Director at NYFA Florence

Diana Santi is an award-winning short movie, and commercials director and producer. She graduated in Film Studies at the Università di Bologna with honors and worked as First AD on many big-budget Italian commercials. In 2004 Diana moved to Los Angeles where she attended the New York Film Academy at the Universal Studios obtaining a diploma in Filmmaking. Since 2005, she is the Florence Programs Director for the New York Film Academy where her major duties and responsibilities include: being the liaison with the Italian Film Industry (Cinecittá, Gruppo Mediaset, Panavision, Euro Lab), as well as the Florence and Tuscany authorities, and establishing contacts with top Italian Film Directors and Actors Nanni Moretti, Vittorio Storaro, Dario Argento, Giorgio Pasotti to name a few. In August 2011 Diana founded Purple Reel Productions and directed a 15-minute short comedy titled “Florence in Love” with the support of the Tuscan Film Commission and the City of Florence that made it to the top 30 of the David di Donatello awards.

Boris Schaarschmidt

Boris Schaarschmidt is a director, producer, and writer with 15 well-recognized short films under his belt. Each of his films has won numerous awards at film festivals around the world. Boris holds a BFA in cinematography from the University of Applied Sciences in Dortmund, Germany, and a MFA in directing from the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. He has been awarded several prestigious scholarships and awards, among them the German Academic Exchange Service Scholarship (DAAD), and the Pat Hitchcock O’Connell Scholarship Award.

Throughout his career, Boris has worked with well-accomplished and recognized professionals in the film industry, among them German director Romuald Karmaker and Quentin Tarantino, for whom Boris worked on the post-production of “Inglorious Bastards.” Following the success of his short film “Haleema,” Boris went to Iceland for a three-month artist residency and shot the experimental film “Eldur a Himni” about the Northern Lights.

Robert William Schneider

Robert W. Schneider received his BA in Political Science from California Lutheran University and his MFA in Directing from Pennsylvania State University. He holds academic appointments at Penn State University, New York Film Academy, and Mt. Union. He has guest lectured at Yale University, Kent State University, UCLA, USC, and throughout London. Professor Schneider is one of the most recognizable figures in the field of online education. His new book, 50 Key Musicals, will be published by Routledge Press in 2022.
As a director, Robert has worked with such theatres as Center Theatre Group, Walnut Street Theatre, Manhattan Theater Club, York Theatre, Second Stage Theatre, and Lincoln Center Theater, as well as for PBS and Fox Seachlight. His work has been acknowledged with the Ovation Award, StageScene LA Award, BroadwayWorld Award, and the MAC Award.
In this capacity, he has also collaborated on projects with some of this century’s greatest artists including Stephen Sondheim, Stephen Schwartz, Audra McDonald, Emma Thompson, Seth McFarlane, Christina Aguilera, Bernadette Peters, Sutton Foster, Christopher Durang, Kristen and Bobby Lopez, Jason Alexander, Joe Iconis, Jane Lynch, and many others.

Nathan Schrader

Nathan Schrader is the Coordinator of the New York Film Academy’s English Language Lab, a unique position he has held since 2014. He is a graduate of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) from Hunter College in 2018 and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Film Production. He is currently pursuing Doctoral studies in Education and Curriculum Design at Fordham University. The English Language Lab is a space for NYFA students whose first language is not English to practice and improve their English speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills. His approach is collaborative and relies heavily on discussion for meaning. Language Lab is flexible, and students come on an as-needed basis.

Michael Selditch

Michael Selditch is a veteran documentary filmmaker. In non-scripted television, he’s been a creator, showrunner, producer and director, earning him two Emmy nominations. His four-part series, “American Style” aired primetime on CNN. His documentary series, “Architecture School” for the Sundance Channel, won the IDA Award for Best Limited Series and was named in Time Magazine’s List Issue as one of the Top 10 Television Series of 2008. He was a director on the original “Queer Eye,” and showran a season of “Catfish: the TV Show.” Selditch has produced for many networks and streamers on a multitude of topics.

Selditch’s narrative film debut, “Fixing Frank” was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. His follow-up documentary, “Eleven Minutes,” played in theaters in eight cities. His new feature documentary, “Happy Clothes: A Film About Patricia Field” is having its world premiere at Tribeca Film Festival, 2023. He’s in development on his fourth film with a script he penned called, “In Burton’s Shadow,” based on a true story with Jared Harris and Alan Cumming attached.

Before his work in film and television, Selditch was a licensed architect, practicing architecture for 14 years in New York and Los Angeles, and teaching at Pratt Institute and Woodbury University.

Saoirse Sempowski

Saoirse Sempowski is a stop motion animator and fabricator, with a background in computer animation. Saoirse first came to NYFA as a camper when she was a teen just wanting to try her hand at filmmaking. She then attended Emerson College, focusing on Virtual Reality and experimental animation. Since then, Saoirse has worked on various independent stop motion short films and live action features, as well as several web-series for Warner Brothers and DC comics. Saoirse has taught at NYFA since 2020, first with the youth camps that started it all, before going on to teach in the BFA and MFA programs. She looks forward to teaching the wonders of animation to you!

Philip Shane

Philip Shane is an award-winning documentary producer, director and editor with over 25 years of experience. His film “Being Elmo” won a Special Jury Prize at Sundance. In a decade at ABC News, Shane edited programs including Ted Kopple’s “Tip of the Spear” (DuPont Award) and “Martin Luther King” (Emmy, Outstanding Historical Program). His short film collaboration with Peter Jennings, “Witness to History,” has become a part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Museum. Philip edited “Dancing in Jaffa” (Tribeca; Best Editing at DocAviv); produced, directed and edited “Einstein” (History Channel); and edited many films about performing artists, including “Wingspan” (with Paul & McCartney and director Alistair Donald), “The Beatles Revolution” (ABC), “Carly Simon” (Lifetime), “Bruce Springsteen” (Disney) and “The Boston Symphony” (NHK).

Jennifer Sharp

Jennifer Sharp is an award-winning director, editor, writer and graduate of NYU, Tisch School of the Arts. Her first feature film, I’M THROUGH WITH WHITE GIRLS, received numerous awards, and after a theatrical release, it was distributed on Showtime and Netflix, among many other cable networks. Her most recent feature, UNA GREAT MOVIE, was a life-long dream of hers until she decided to stop dreaming and make it a reality. So she made it a reality by not taking “no” for an answer, producing it herself, and getting a small Mexican town to support her in shooting the movie there.  UNA GREAT MOVIE can be seen on Amazon, Tubi, GooglePlay, and YouTube Movies.

She is a believer that Art has the power to change the world, and that artists have a responsibility to facilitate that change through sharing their truths. An all around filmmaker, she has numerous other credits as producer and art director. She was the art director on Marlon Wayan’s, A HAUNTED HOUSE 2 and Netflix’s, WITHIN. She is in post production for her 4 part docuseries, DARE TO DREAM WHAT YOU CANNOT IMAGINE, and is editor on the docuseries, FEET OFF THE GROUND, which is slated to release in 2025.

She is currently an instructor at Sundance Collab and NYFA teaching classes in Directing, Producing, and Production Design.

Jan Epstein Schwaid

BFA in Writing for Screen and Television, USC/Cinema-Television
Jan has written for 15 years across games, podcasts, marketing, and short films. She wrote games for Aeria Games & Entertainment, PlayNext Inc, and Kayat Games/Singta Games. She was the head writer on Nosh: Bite Size Adventures, an animated children’s cooking show. Wrote the short film The Noodle Man, which is streaming on Amazon Prime. Has written for Glamour.com and Fox Digital. For the Screenwriting Department in LA, she teaches Podcasting, and Story Generation.

Tony Schwartz

Tony began working in the film industry in 1986. He spent most of his career in production working as an assistant director and line producer in both feature films and network television. He has been a part of many critically acclaimed films and series, including One False Move, Freaks and Geeks, Firefly, Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, and The Unit. Along the way, he has worked with luminaries such as Carl Reiner, David Mamet, Dan Petrie, Sr., Judd Apatow, Joss Whedon, Carl Franklin, and many others. Since leaving production in 2011, he has continued to develop original content with Kohler Schwartz Productions. He is currently working on a bio-pic about AIDS activist Marty Delaney.