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AWFJ Welcomes Twelve New Members in 2019 – Jennifer Merin reports

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The Alliance of Women Film Journalists is welcoming twelve outstanding female film journalists as new members, starting in January 2019. They are film critics, commentators and reporters who hail from around the world and represent a wide range of media platforms, including popular and erudite publications, daily newspapers and other print publications, broadcast and online outlets.

AWFJ accepts very few new members each year. Congrats to those who are joining us in 2019, and sincerest apologies to the many highly qualified women whose applications we could not accommodate this year.

Here, in alphabetical order, are the 2019 new members of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists:

MAE ABDULBAKI

Mae Abdulbaki is a film critic and podcast co-host. She founded Movies with Mae back in 2013 and has been passionately typing away at her computer ever since. She currently serves as TV Editor and film writer for The Young Folks and has also written for Examiner, Punch Drunk Critics, and Heroic Hollywood.

 

ULKAR ALAKBAROVA

Ulkar Alakbarova has been writing about movies since childhood. She loves black-and-white cinema. She worked as an independent film journalist in Azerbaijan. Starting in 2013, she has worked as a Toronto-based film critic/interviewer. She is a founder of www.moviemovesme.com and regularly covers major film festivals, such as TIFF, Fantasia Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Hot Docs and Sundance.

LAUREN BRADSHAW

Lauren Bradshaw is a film critic in the Washington, DC area. Her reviews are featured on ClotureClub.com and she has also contributed to JoBlo.com and The Tidewater News.

 
 

KAREN GORDON

Karen Gordon is a film critic, arts journalist, radio producer, as well as a story editor and narration writer for documentary TV and film. Her recent project the IMAX film “Volcanoes: Fires of Creation” premiered in fall 2018, and will roll out internationally through 2019. She hosts, and does live Q&A’s at film events.

 
 

ROXANA HADADI

Roxana Hadadi is a pop culture writer. She is a staff contributor for Pajiiba, Chesapeake Family, and Punch Drunk Critics, and has contributed to Bright Wall/Dark Room and The Washington Post Express. She is a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer-approved critic and a member of the Washington, DC Area Film Critics Association.

 
 
TARA KARAJICA

Tara Karajica is a Belgrade-based film critic and journalist. Her writings appear in Indiewire, Screen International, Variety, Little White Lies and Film New Europe, among many other media outlets, including the European Film Academy’s online magazine, Close-up. Tara is a regular at film festivals as a film critic, moderator and/or jury member.

 
LOIS ALTER MARK

Lois Alter Mark is an award-winning writer who reviews films on Midlife at the Oasis. A former contributing writer for Entertainment Weekly for more than a decade, she also reviewed films for NickJr.com for many years. She is a member of San Diego Film Critics Society and tweets from @loisaltermark.

 
 
NADIA NEOPHYTOU

Nadia Neophytou is a South African journalist, from the same town as Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron. Based in NYC, she reports daily for Eyewitness News, a major South African news network, and freelances for the Mail and Guardian, Quartz, The Week, Glamour, GQ, Marie Claire, The Sunday Times and OkayAfrica. She regularly covers Cannes, Toronto and Sundance Film Festivals, and has received the Nedbank Arts Journalist of the Year award.

MARINA RICHTER

MARINA RICHTER

Marina D. Richter is a Vienna-based freelance film critic who regularly contributes reviews, interviews and film industry news to Cineuropa. She’s also a prolific contributor to the daily Balkans newspaper ‘Politika’ and to the weekly ‘Vreme.’ Her texts are published in the Estonian cultural weekly SIRP, the Slovak film journal, Austria’s Artmagazine & Morgen and diverse Croatian outlets.
 

 

SHEILA ROBERTS (Rejoining after a year’s hiatus)

Sheila Roberts is a Native Angeleno and alum of UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television where she graduated with Masters degrees in Producing and Cinema & Media Studies. Over the years, she has written about film and entertainment for Collider, MoviesOnline, Hollywood News Wire, MovieScope Magazine, and Cineplex Entertainment, among other outlets.
 
 
SARAH WARD

Sarah Ward is a freelance film critic and writer. She is the Australian-based critic for Screen International, and writes for ArtsHub, Concrete Playground, Goethe-Institut Australien, SBS, SBS Movies and Flicks Australia. She has also contributed to the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Junkee, FilmInk, Birth.Movies.Death, Lumina, Senses of Cinema, Metro Magazine, Screen Education and the World Film Locations book series.

LANA WILSON-COMBS

Lana Wilson-Combs has more than 20 years experience as a journalist. She graduated from San Francisco State University with a Bachelor’s of Arts Degree in Radio/Television, but began her career as a sports writer in the Bay Area at the Oakland Post newspaper before becoming a movie critic and entertainment writer in Sacramento, California where she currently resides.

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Jennifer Merin

Jennifer Merin is the Film Critic for Womens eNews and contributes the CINEMA CITIZEN blog for and is managing editor for Women on Film, the online magazine of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists, of which she is President. She has served as a regular critic and film-related interviewer for The New York Press and About.com. She has written about entertainment for USA Today, The L.A. Times, US Magazine, Ms. Magazine, Endless Vacation Magazine, Daily News, New York Post, SoHo News and other publications. After receiving her MFA from Tisch School of the Arts (Grad Acting), Jennifer performed at the O'Neill Theater Center's Playwrights Conference, Long Wharf Theater, American Place Theatre and LaMamma, where she worked with renown Japanese director, Shuji Terayama. She subsequently joined Terayama's theater company in Tokyo, where she also acted in films. Her journalism career began when she was asked to write about Terayama for The Drama Review. She became a regular contributor to the Christian Science Monitor after writing an article about Marketta Kimbrell's Theater For The Forgotten, with which she was performing at the time. She was an O'Neill Theater Center National Critics' Institute Fellow, and then became the institute's Coordinator. While teaching at the Universities of Wisconsin and Rhode Island, she wrote "A Directory of Festivals of Theater, Dance and Folklore Around the World," published by the International Theater Institute. Denmark's Odin Teatret's director, Eugenio Barba, wrote his manifesto in the form of a letter to "Dear Jennifer Merin," which has been published around the world, in languages as diverse as Farsi and Romanian. Jennifer's culturally-oriented travel column began in the LA Times in 1984, then moved to The Associated Press, LA Times Syndicate, Tribune Media, Creators Syndicate and (currently) Arcamax Publishing. She's been news writer/editor for ABC Radio Networks, on-air reporter for NBC, CBS Radio and, currently, for Westwood One's America In the Morning. She is also a member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association. For her AWFJ archive, type "Jennifer Merin" in the Search Box (upper right corner of screen).