LINA
Meet Our Creative Team
LINA wouldn’t be the same without the hard work and execution of our talented cast and crew. Our team includes some of the industry’s best and brightest; people who are striving to find new ways to tell a story and challenge their abilities. Take a look at their bios below.
Liz Manashil
Director
Post-graduation from USC Film School, Liz spent several years as a film critic for the PBS/Hulu series JUST SEEN IT (which she also helped produce and direct). Overlapping this, Liz worked with distribution guru Peter Broderick. In 2016, Liz became the manager of Sundance's groundbreaking Creative Distribution Initiative until the program's close in 2019. As a filmmaker, her debut feature, BREAD AND BUTTER, was called “an absolute must-watch for women everywhere” by HelloGiggles. It was released by The Orchard and can be seen on VOD nearly everywhere. Her second feature, SPEED OF LIFE, was released by Giant Pictures, can be seen on Showtime, and was called, "Delightful in just about every way" by noted film critic Tim Cogshell. After a year of working in impact distribution, Liz is now a freelance distribution consultant spending her time consulting, filmmaking, and hanging out with her partner, her son and her dog (Laura Palmer).
Julia Swain
Director of Photography
Julia Swain is a cinematographer known for her emotion-driven imagery and ability to portray the human experience on screen. During her time earning an MFA in cinematography from UCLA, she won the Women in Film Cinematography Fellowship and the American Society of Cinematographers awarded her the very first ASC Vision Scholarship. She lensed the feature SPEED OF LIFE, starring Ann Dowd, for director Liz Manashil that traveled to dozens of festivals worldwide including Atlanta. GOODNIGHT GRACIE, a horror short written and directed by Stellan Kendrick, premiered at SITGES. Most recently, her fifth feature film, LUCKY, for director Natasha Kermani and Epic Pictures Group, starring Brea Grant, was selected for a SXSW 2020 premiere. Her work ranges from dramatic narrative to commercials and music videos for artists like Hozier, Quinn XCII, Kelsea Ballerini and more. She is based in Los Angeles and is represented by WPA.
Marcie Maute
Production Designer
Marcie Maute is a local 800 Union Assistant Art Director with a demonstrated history of working in the motion pictures and film industry. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts focused in Design for Film & Video from Columbia College Chicago in 2012. Currently living in Los Angeles, she has production designed two indie feature films and two short films while continuously prepping for her third feature.
Erika Longo
Writer
A New York based actor and writer, Lina is the first film that Erika has written, and it is a deeply personal story. Inspired by her grandmother, Carmelina, whom she cared for during her illness, alongside her mother, Erika felt compelled to write about this experience as it has always stuck with her. Originally from New Jersey, Erika also holds a BA in Psychology and a certification in Elementary Education. She lives in Hell's Kitchen with her rescue cat Gus. Erikalongo77@yahoo.com
Kelsey Maples
Producer
Kelsey has accumulated numerous TV and Film Credits both as an actor and producer following a decade-long career in French-American business relations. She holds a BA in French and International Relations from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. An accomplished vocalist, Kelsey has performed with various ensembles and as a soloist at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and in various concert halls and recording studios throughout the U.S.
Kelsey founded Southern Door Productions in 2019. She is New York-based and in pre-production for her feature film "Trinities. "
Starr Parodi
Composer
Starr Parodi first entered the public eye playing keyboards as part of the house band on the hit late-night Arsenio Hall Show. Since then she has become a vibrant part of the Los Angeles composing community, scoring hundreds of episodes of TV & film as well as being a passionate and innovative solo artist, pianist and producer whose work has been featured on NPR, The BBC, KCRW and iHEART Radio.
Her scoring credits include The Starter Wife, Conversations With Other Women, Transformers: Rescue Bots, G.I. Joe Renegades, The Division, and hundreds of Hollywood's most iconic and visible film trailers/promo (Rogue One, Last Samurai, James Bond, Mission: Impossible II, The Peanuts Movie, Harry Potter, Dreamgirls, Night at the Museum, X-Men 3, etc.). Her darkly innovative production/arrangement of the JAMES BOND Theme (RIAA Gold Record) was credited by Forbes magazine as "reinventing the modern action movie trailer.”
As a multi award-winning composer, Starr is the first woman to have her orchestral works performed in the 85-year history of the Festival of Arts - Pageant of the Masters in Laguna, CA, where she is currently a featured composer.
Starr has released three critically acclaimed solo albums and collaborated on the writing and production of numerous recordings. Her album COMMON PLACES won “Record of the Year” from Solo Piano Radio and was lauded by KCRW’s host and tastemaker Chris Douridas “This deeply passionate and beautiful recording is one of the best albums of the year.” Her neoclassical release, THE HEART OF FRIDA, which celebrates the life, art and courageous spirit of beloved artist Frida Kahlo, won awards for Solo Piano Album of the Year from both International Radio Broadcasters, and solopiano.com.
In 2017, for ”The Women in the World Summit” hosted by Scarlett Johansson, the New York Times invited Starr to Lincoln Center to conduct “To All The Little Girls,” a music video and performance she produced and arranged with Oscar winning filmmaker Terry Sanders, which celebrates the potential of young women. In 2019 Starr was again featured at Lincoln Center with a world premiere of her concert work “The Joy of the Waters” as part of “Women Warriors:Voices of Change.”
A trailblazer onstage and in the studio, Starr is the President of the Alliance for Women Film Composers and is widely recognized as a leader in expanding the reach of women in the arts as a composer, producer, performer and cultural visionary.