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Michelle Kantor co-founded Cinefemme as a graduate student at San Francisco State University, serving as Executive Director since 2007. She is an award-winning writer-director and producer dedicated to creating a more inclusive industry by empowering women to green light themselves through Cinefemme. Michelle has helped produce over 60 features, shorts, festivals and projects through Cinefemme's fiscal sponsorship incubator. Michelle produced the docuseries ROUTE 66 WOMEN, distributed by American Public Television and broadcast on PBS nationally. A scout educational curriculum was developed for the series for which Michelle designed a Girl Scout badge. Her documentaries COPPOLA MECANIQUE, RED STAR, and ANTIPODISTE explores significant historical stories and hidden worlds of artists. Her parody  HIGHWAY TO YODEL-AY-HEE-HUUU won Best Music Video at LA Femme Film Festival. Other distinctions include the Goldfarb Award for Best Student Film, and the Thunen Memorial Scholarship from the Illuminating Engineers Society. Michelle’s iWith a prolific background in television and shorts, Michelle worked as a producer on RuPaul's Drag Race, directed an episode of Galaxy Confidencial for Time Warner's Desportes Network, and shadowed a director on the Paramount scripted television series SHOOTER.  Industry credits include work for HBO, FYI, OWN, World of Wonder, The History Channel, Sony, Universal, MJA Advertising, NASA and the advertising agency BBDO.  he holds an MFA in Cinema from SFSU, and BFA in Film Production from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Michelle is also a certified paralegal, artist, and mother. The youngest daughter of political refugees who fled Communist Czechoslovakia in the 1960’s, she is producing two projects about her family's historic escapes: Red Star (currently in post-production) documents her father's return on the 50th anniversary of his escape, and The Rebel, a narrative feature film in development. After attending the famous experimental film program at CU Boulder, Michelle received her Masters at San Francisco State University, home to August Coppola. Michelle documented the eviction and rebirth of San Francisco's beloved penny arcade, the Musee Mecanique, which is now being released as COPPOLA MECANIQUE and features a rare interview with Francis Ford Coppola. She is currently co-writing a memoir by the founding bassist for Suicidal Tendencies and shooting a rockuseries about the band's OG musician reunion.  Michelle continues to producer her own projects as well as those of other women through Cinefemme. She speaks several languages including Czech, Slovak and French.