NYFA
Faculty Directory

Faculty Directory

Julie Deffet

Award-winning director Julie was born in a French-speaking town in southern Belgium. After graduating from ULB (Université Libre de Bruxelles) with a Master’s degree in Journalism, she moved to New York to study filmmaking at The New School for public engagement. Her personal work was screened at Cinequest, The Big Apple Film Festival, The Prague International Film Festival, and the Bowery Film Festival, among other places. She won several Awards both as a director and producer, including Best Picture at the Los Angeles Film Awards. Julie’s skillful editing has also made her a sought-after post-production professional. She has edited an international campaign for Tiffany and Co, award-winning short films, and commercial content. She recently was an associate producer for the movie The Drummer, starring Danny Glover, and the Emmy Awards-winning show After Forever as well as a freelance editor for companies such as Sony, Google, and Vice Media. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Christine de Frece

Christine has been teaching vocal technique for 19 years. Her students can be seen performing on Broadway, Off-Broadway, National Tours, cruise ships, and in regional theaters across the United States, Canada and internationally. She is currently a voice specialist at New York Film Academy and former Chair of Vocal performance at Circle in the Square Theatre School. As a Musical Director, Christine has directed productions of Cabaret, Urinetown, The Music Man, Gypsy, Meet Me in St. Louis and A Funny Thing Happened on The Way To The Forum. Christine is a graduate of the University of Lethbridge (BMus Vocal Performance) and Circle in the Square Theatre (Professional Musical Theatre Workshop). As an actress, Christine has been seen in productions such as Titanic, It Shoulda Been You, Ragtime, Rumors (Carbonelle Award Winner), A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, The Music Man, Bye Bye Birdie, Follies, And The World Goes ‘Round, Cinderella, and many more.

Andi Deliana

Andi Deliana is mostly known as a producer for various fiction and documentary features like “Amok” (screened at Cannes 2017), “Covenant” (winner of Best Canadian FIlm at Edmonton Fear Film Fest 2018), “Back to Q82” (Netflix 2021), or the critically acclaimed “The Perfect Gangster” (Nominated as Best American Indi Documentary at Fort Lauderdale Film Festival 2019).

Dave Demke

Dave Demke earned a BA in Theatre from Minnesota State University, an MFA in Performance from the University of Maryland, studied Meisner Technique with Fred Kareman, and is a Designated Linklater Voice Teacher. He is also the Artistic Director of Shakespeare On the Fly, and an Associate Faculty member at American Academy of Dramatic Arts. From 2000-2010 he was the Associate Director of Training for Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA; prior to that position he served as the Artistic Director of Stark Raving Theatre in Portland, OR. As an actor he has played many roles, favorites include Didi in Waiting for Godot for Tennessee Shakespeare Company, Dick in The Dick and the Rose at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and Bottom in A Midsummer Nights Dream in Beijing, China. Other international experiences include teaching a voice workshop for the National Theatre of Ghana in Accra, and a Shakespeare intensive at 16th Street Studio in Melbourne, Australia.

Randall Dottin Chair of Screenwriting

Randall Dottin is a writer/director who works both in documentary and narrative fiction. His Columbia University MFA thesis film, A-ALIKE, was licensed for a two-year broadcast run by HBO and has won numerous awards, including the DGA Award for Best African American Student Filmmaker and the 2004 Student Academy Award for Best Narrative Film. In 2009, Randall was named by IndieWire Magazine as one of the Top Ten New Voices in Black Cinema. From 2012 to 2015, Randall wrote and directed branded content for AOL.COM, Toyota, and Essence Magazine. Randall’s short film Lifted, was sponsored by Fox Searchlight’s program for emerging directors, the Fox Searchlab. Lifted premiered on CBS in 2015. His documentary series The House I Never Knew is currently in production and explores how six families in Chicago, Houston, and Boston fight against becoming casualties of a housing segregation policy. The House I Never Knew (nee The Chicago Franchise) was chosen to participate in IFP’s Spotlight on Documentaries Program in 2018. Last year, the series received a grant from the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund.

Bill Einreinhofer

Created Emmy Award winning nonfiction content; from traditional documentaries and news reports, to narrative driven “real-life” stories and magazine-show segments. Developed and produced programming for PBS (“PBS NewsHour,” “INNOVATION,” “China Now”), ABC (“Good Morning America”), CBS (“60 Minutes”), Discovery (“Spacewalkers,” “Cathedrals of the Sky”) and HBO (“Diary of a Red Planet”).

Producer/Director/Writer/Host, “China: Frame by Frame,” one-hour 2023 documentary tracing his 30+ years of making stories in and about China. Seen on 250+ Public TV stations, and the PBS App. Historic and original footage gathered for this project is the basis of the Bill Einreinhofer China Archive, at the University of Southern California’s East Asian Library. Past co-production partners include the ABC (Australia), Globo (Brazil), CCTV (China), SMG (China), ZDF (Germany), NHK (Japan), KBS (Korea) and SVT (Sweden).

Veteran educator. Chair, NYFA Broadcast Journalism department 2013-2022. Prior adjunct appointments: Parsons School of Design, Rutgers University, Saint Peter’s University. Lectured at United Nations and East China Normal University.

Honors include three Emmy Awards; Judge – National News & Documentary Emmy Awards; Judge – International Emmy Awards; two CINE Golden Eagles; two Telly Awards; Gold Medal, New York Festivals; Golden Gate Award, San Francisco International Film Festival. Member, Directors Guild of America.

Bob Eisenhardt

Bob Eisenhardt is an Academy Award nominee, three-time Emmy Award winner and recipient of the coveted “Eddie,” or American Cinema Editors Award. He has edited over 60 films, which have garnered another two Academy Award nominations, three more Emmys, a Peabody Award, three Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Award nominations, and even a Grammy nomination. Meru won the Audience Award at Sundance (2015) and was shortlisted for the 2016 Oscar. HBO’s Everything is Copy premiered at the 2015 New York Film Festival and earned another two Emmy nominations. Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood made its world premiere at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. Jerusalem, Meru, Valentino: The Last Emperor and Dixie Chicks: Shut Up & Sing are among the highest earning documentaries of all time. Other editing credits include Wagner’s Dream and Living Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders, which was also shortlisted for the Oscar. Bob shares a director’s credit, an Emmy Award, IDA Award and a DGA Award with legendary documentarian Albert Maysles.

Robert F. Ferraro

Robert Ferraro is an Emmy award winning television news producer with extensive experience in both local and national news production at the NBC and ABC television networks. He earned distinction and numerous awards as a writer/editor, and long form and documentary news producer.

Currently also producing and narrating audio books, Mr. Ferraro is a published writer with magazine, online and newspaper credits.

Mr. Ferraro served in the U.S. Peace Corps in Panama, and has taught News Production at Purchase College, NY and currently at the New York Film Academy.

Brennan Gallagher

A born and bred Massachusetts man, Brennan is an educator, actor, and sometimes poet. He spent many years as a classical actor both in New York City and regionally. He holds an MFA in Acting from Ohio University, and has taught students from the preschool age up through undergraduates. When not acting or teaching, you can usually find Brennan either reading, drinking coffee, spending quality time with his car, drinking coffee, or playing games and doing puzzles, while drinking coffee.

Kuldeep Sah Gangola

Kuldeep Sah Gangola is a distinguished editor/director with his debut film being featured in more than 15 film festivals in several countries and won three international awards. Mr. Gangola has also served as a judge and screener at the ‘International Documentary Association’ in 2019. His work and unique style of storytelling has been covered by the likes of Times of India, Thrive Global and GritDaily for the portrayal of the rooted problem of migration in rural India. He is an editing instructor and consultant at the New York Film Academy teaching across various departments. Kuldeep is a professionally certified Avid Media composer editor. He is also associated with teaching for the BAFTA workshops conducted in New York City.

Deidre Goodwin

Deidre Goodwin has been in 8 Broadway shows and has made numerous television and film appearances. Some of her Broadway credits include A Chorus Line (Shelia Bryant), Chicago (Velma Kelly), and Nine (Our Lady of the Spa). She can also be seen in the Oscar-winning film Chicago, Every Little Step, Ocean’s 8, and more. TV appearances include Chicago Med (NBC), Pose (FX), Broad City (Comedy Central), Madam Secretary (CBS), Divorce, Season 3 (HBO), and 30 Rock (NBC). As a voice-over artist, she can be heard on numerous promos on BET. She is currently The Voice of WCBS 880 and KYW Newsradio. Deidre is also a Choreographer and Director.

Lizzie Gottlieb

Lizzie Gottlieb has been directing film and theater in New York for the last 25 years. Lizzie’s most recent film, Turn Every Page, is a documentary about the prickly, funny, wildly productive half-century collaboration between Lizzie’s father, the editor Robert Gottlieb, and the author Robert Caro (The Power Broker, The Years of Lyndon Johnson). Caro, 87, and Bob Gottlieb, 91, are in a race against time to finish their life’s work. The film premiered in June 2022 at the Tribeca Film Festival and has since played at dozens of festivals, winning several audience awards, was named one of the best five documentaries of the year by the National Board of Review, and has received rave reviews. The film was purchased by Sony Pictures Classics and is currently playing in theaters across the country.

Her first film, Today’s Man, about her brother, who is on the Autistic Spectrum, aired on PBS (Independent Lens). Her film Romeo Romeo, about a young lesbian couple on a quest to have a baby, was also on PBS (America Reframed) and won the NLGJA award for excellence in Documentary.

She founded and ran an Off-Broadway theater company dedicated to producing new plays at accessible prices. With that company, Pure Orange Productions, she produced and directed plays, including Keith Bunin’s The Principality of Sorrows^[4] with Robert Sean Leonard, David Lansbury, and Joanna Going; Marking by Patrick Breen, starring Peter Dinklage, Amy Ryan, Adina Porter, and Maria Tucci. Other productions included Jonathan Marc Sherman’s Evolution with Josh Hamilton and Peter Dinklage, Noel Coward’s Private Lives with Sara Ramirez, and Fifth Planet by David Auburn with Christina Kirk and Michael Ian Black. Gottlieb directed plays for Naked Angels, New York Stage and Film, malaparte, and Julliard.

Ben Granoff

Ben Granoff has worked in New York City for twenty years as a visual storyteller with production houses, animation studios, advertising agencies, publishers and museums. Since his teenage years, he has been teaching cartooning for after-school programs, summer camps, charter schools, and social service agencies. He has been helping NYFA students bring their imaginations to life since 2017.

Dave Hanson Acting for Film Instructor

Dave Hanson is an internationally published and award winning playwright, television writer, actor, improvisor and comedian known for his work on Chelsea Lately, Inside Amy Schumer, Trainwreck and for his play Waiting For Waiting For Godot.
Originally from Seattle, Wa, Dave studied theatre at Whittier College, The Oxford School of Drama, and long form improv at UCB (LA/NY), IO West (LA) and The Second CIty LA.

Diana Henry

Diana Henry is an award winning professional actor with over 25 years experience in television, theatre, film, voice overs and commercials. Since 2009, Diana has been a series lead regular on ABC’s “What Would You Do?”, appearing in over 70 episodes. Other credits include: co-star roles in “The Equalizer”, “The Sinner”, “Law & Order”, “The Blacklist”; and female lead in the feature film “Fortunes”. Diana captured three NY Emmy Awards as the presenting host in “The Lineup: Best Sports Movies”, featuring Fran Healy, Spike Lee, and Chazz Palminteri. She is also a private coach for children and teens, focusing on the audition process for performing arts high schools and colleges. In 2010, she co-founded The Drawing Board NYC, a collective of screenwriters, playwrights, and actors dedicated to developing new works through table readings. Diana has an MFA in Acting at Rutgers University – Mason Gross School of the Arts, studying under William Esper and Maggie Flanigan; and a BFA in Acting at Miami University in Ohio.

Daniel Hernandez-Alonzo

Daniel Hernandez-Alonzo moved from Mexico City to New York to study Film and Video at the School of Visual Arts. Inspired by his professors’ work and downtown Manhattan’s arts and music scene, he decided to specialize in non-fiction. Daniel teaches Non-Fiction Videography and Personal Journalism for the Broadcast Journalism at the New York Film Academy; and is the department’s Technical Lead and Studio Director for NYFA News.

Outside NYFA, Daniel is a cameraperson and video producer, the Director of Photography at the NYU School of Law and a Professor of Cinematography at The New School.

Recently, Daniel was Director of Photography for China: Frame by Frame, a feature-length documentary airing on PBS. He also documented the New School’s ACT-UAW Local-709 Strike. Daniel is currently pursuing a graduate degree at Columbia Journalism School and lives in Brooklyn with his partner, with whom he runs a company that creates non-fiction video content.

1 2 3 4 5 6 … 9