2024 Festival Jurors Announced!

​Gina Bryant is a director, producer, production designer, and costume designer from Wichita, KS, currently with Illumination Cinema. She has always loved fashion and putting on a show. She started taking dancing and acting lessons when she was 5 and dreamt of being a child star, though her mother wouldn't let her move to Hollywood. She did take drama classes from then on and developed a life-long love of acting.

Even though Gina loves the stage, she also loves behind the scenes work. You could often find her in the costume shop in high school and she worked in the costume shop at Southwestern College where she designed costumes, props, hair and makeup for various shows. She went on to earn a BFA in Studio Art at Wichita State University with her senior project consisting of wearable art influenced by historical fashion. Eventually she made the transition to film. 
 
Gina has been both a featured and background actor for several small independent films including several short films she produced under America's Front Porch Film Co. She has also been the production designer and costume designer for several more short films and two features produced locally. Though she still loves acting, she prefers directing these days. Her films have been featured in festivals across the country, winning numerous awards. She is currently finishing up her first feature film as a director: ARRIVE ALIVE.

​DARRYL COX is a professional SAG/AFTRA actor whose career spans the spectrum of major film and television productions.  Among his credits are over 90 principal roles in film (including ARLINGTON ROAD, ROBOCOP, BOTTLE ROCKET, MINARI, and A PERFECT WORLD) and TV (including FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, PRISON BREAK, L.A. LAW, RESERVATION DOGS, and NYPD BLUE). He taught On-Camera Acting at Adam Roarke’s Film Actor’s Lab in Dallas and the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, later at Oklahoma City University and the University of Central Oklahoma, and for 25 years at the University of Oklahoma.  A former officer in the U.S. Navy, he served onboard the destroyer U.S.S. Forrest Sherman, including a deployment to the Persian Gulf in 1980.  In 1977 he graduated with a B.A. from the University of Oklahoma, and currently resides in Norman, Oklahoma.

MELANIE ADDINGTON has worked in the film festival world since 2006, first as a volunteer, and then eventually becoming the Oxford Film Festival Executive Director in August 2015. She used to be a reporter for the Oxford Eagle (a community newspaper) and then Pizza Magazine Quarterly (Global trade magazine). She still loves pizza. She is from Southern California originally but lived in the South for 20 years. She joined Tallgrass Film Festival in May 2021 as Executive Director. She has family in Wichita and considers it a great new home. She also writes, directs, and produces films. She is married and has one son.