Team Bios


Grettel Batoon - Co-Director
Grettel Batoon is a junior in the Film and Television Department and is concentrating in Animation. This is her third year with Fusion, her second as the Design Director, and her first year as Festival Co-Director. She is very thankful to be given the opportunity to work with incredibly talented students and faculty in bringing a student-run professional film festival to NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. In addition to working with Fusion, she is currently creating a one-minute animated short film called "Bubblegum" for her Intermediate Animation Production class and is interning for Debra Solomon, a NYC independent animator.

Rebecca Bellotto - Co-Director
Rebecca Bellotto is a junior in the Department of Dramatic Writing with a concentration in Screenwriting. She is also a Producing minor and has interned twice at the Folger Theatre in Washington, DC. She is currently interning in the Creative Department at Focus Features in Manhattan and is also working on a feature-length screenplay. This is her second year working on the Fusion Film Festival, her first year in an executive capacity, and she could not be more excited about bringing the Fifth Annual Festival to Tisch this spring.

Gina Petra Abatemarco - Co-Founder
Gina Abatemarco, the Co-Founder of The Fusion Film Festival, is a Writer and Director who graduated from Tisch's Film & Television Program in 2004. Upon the completion of her studies at Tisch, Gina missed her graduation to interview in Los Angeles with Director Brian De Palma. For the next year she worked as his Personal Assistant on The Black Dahlia where she had the opportunity to live in Sofia Bulgaria during the filming. Since then, her work with Mr. De Palma Gina has been "on the road". In 2006, she packed her bags and moved to Paris where she directed a short film entitled Belle Abandonnee, studied acting as a Director undercover, and wrote her first feature screenplay, Summer Alibi. While living in Europe, Gina had the opportunity to attend the Berlinale Talent Campus. In 2007 Gina traveled to India and Nepal, and later vagabonded across America while doing script research for her feature screenplay. Back in NY, Gina is finishing her feature and is proud to be working as a Fusion Mentor. To celebrate Fusion's 5th Year Anniversary, Gina has developed "The Fusion to Fusion Alumni Network" so that Fusion Team Members past and present can connect, share projects, work, and events from coast to coat and around the globe.
Email: gabatemarco@gmail.com

Emma Heald - Co-Founder
Since graduating NYU, Emma Mason Heald has divided her time between freelance filmmaking and pursuing her goals as a feature film writer/director. Her freelancing career has been exciting and varied from working as the Director of Photography for a feature length documentary, Spinster, and editing celebrity spots for Home Shopping Network, to shooting Miami hotspots for Fine Living and author/agent profiles for Simon and Schuster publishers and Turnhere.com. She was recently short-listed to host and produce her own international travel episodes for the Travel Channel's 'Not Your Average Travel Guide' and has been invited by executives at Current TV to create original video content for broadcast. When she's not freelancing, Emma is working on feature film projects with her writing partner or producing and directing indie music videos. She is currently meeting with production companies and agents regarding two action/adventure spec scripts for sale. Emma is also looking for collaborators and investors for her latest film project, a low budget, romance/drama about a war photographer, which she aims to direct as her debut feature film.
For more information please visit www.emmamasonheald.com.

Susan Sandler - Faculty Advisor
Susan Sandler has been writing professionally for more than 25 years. She is perhaps best known for her screenplay adaptation of her award winning original play, Crossing Delancey, starring Amy Irving and Peter Riegert. She has since been consistently sought out to write projects by many top level producers and talent such as producers Scott Rudin Notes on a Scandal; The Queen) and Jersey Films (Freedom Writers; Erin Brokovich) and actresses Goldie Hawn, Candace Bergen and Bette Midler just to name a few. While sought after in Hollywood, Ms. Sandler stays grounded with her theater work and home in New York. Currently, her plays include the ever running Crossing Delancey, with the Israeli premiere currently touring Israel after a sold out run at Israel's Beit Lessin Theatre, and Under the Bed, a new work which had its World Premiere this season at The Caldwell Theatre following a workshop production in New York at HB Playwrights Foundation and a premiere reading at the 92nd Street Y, starring Olympia Dukakis, Marilyn Sokol, and Scotty Bloch. Ms. Sandler's work is published by Smith and Kraus, Vintage Press's Take Ten Best Short Plays, and Samuel French. A Playwright member of Ensemble Studio Theatre, HB Playwrights Foundation, and the Actors Studio's Playwrights Roundtable, Ms. Sandler is also currently a Visiting Professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Department of Film and Television, where she has delightedly served as the Faculty Advisor to the FUSION FILM FESTIVAL.
Email: susan.sandler@nyu.edu
Telephone: 212.998.1792

Denise Dorn - Director of Development
Denise Dorn is a 1997 graduate from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts' Undergraduate Film & Television department. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honors and was a Tisch University Scholar. While in school, she produced a classmate's senior thesis film Beauty is Pain, which received the Russel Hexter finishing grant. She has since worked on numerous film and television productions as an Associate Producer, Post-Production Supervisor, Researcher, Voice-Over Director, and Writer. Most recently, she was an Associate Producer on the six-part PBS series The Jewish Americans, which aired nationally in January 2008. Past projects include Nickelodeon's Dora the Explorer for which she wrote the episode "Quack! Quack!", the Discovery Channel's docu-drama Inside the Twin Towers, The Food Network's Gordon Elliot's Doorknock Dinners, PBS' documentary feature Marie Antoinette and the four-hour documentary series on immigration, Destination America. She is currently enjoying being a new mother to a baby boy and co-writing a feature screenplay with her former classmate entitled The Game of Kings. Talia Mazzarella - Marketing and Promotions Director
Talia Mazzarella is a junior double-majoring in Film/TV Production and English Literature. In addition to reading anything with words and watching anything flickering out of a 35mm projector, she enjoys doodling, playing piano, and watching re-runs of "Cheers". Right now, she is in pre-production for her Color Sync film, "Dr Hedd and the Grim Reaper." It she survives that, she hopes to be a writer and director - or at least rise slightly above bringing lattes to writer or directors - when she "grows up."

Grant McDonald - Director of Special Projects
Grant McDonald is in his Freshman year as theatre major at New York University. Grant is also on NYU's Mock Trial team and has prior experience working in Media Relations at Edelman Public Relations in Washington, DC, Resource Development International in Cambodia, and The Vagabond Players, an acting troupe in Fort Worth, Texas.

Samantha Stratton - Publicity Director
Samantha Stratton is a senior at the Tisch School of the ARts Kanbar Institute of Film and Television. Her passion for writing and directing for film and television has led her to be prolific during her short time at Tisch. This summer she worked in the production office on the feature film, "Diminished Capacity" starring Michael Broderick and Alan Alda. She also recently received producer credits for her work on the esteemed BBC television program "Newsnight Review" in London, England. She has directed five 16mm shorts, two short documentaries, and has experience directing television in the multi-camera studio set-up both at NYU and at the BBC training facility. Currently Samantha is finishing up with post-production on her Intermediate Experimental short "Revolving Door" shot on HD. She has also recently been appointed as the Publicity Director of the 2008 Fusion Film Festival at NYU where it is her duty to act as the liason between the festival and the press. Samantha has just finished production on "Lucid", her senior Advanced Narrative.

Samantha Hanson-Waterhouse - Programming Director
Samantha Hanson-Waterhouse is currently a Junior at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, majoring in Film and Television. This is her first year with the Fusion Film Festival. Samantha is currently in production on an Intermediate Experimental film, and hopes to concentrate on screenwriting in the future. Samantha loves movies, and is very excited to bring her knowledge and passion to Fusion.

Lauren Cotugno - Programming Committee
Lauren Cotugno is excited to broaden her film festival experience by working on this year's Programming Committee for Fusion. Lauren is a senior at NYU, studying Cinema Studies and Journalism. She hopes to pursue a career in film or television after she graduations in May. She has previously interned for the Hamptons International Film Festival, and On Screen Entertainment and DLT Entertainment, both television production companies. Lauren grew up in Merrick, Long Island. She loves to travel, her favorite place she has visited is Paris, and cannot wait to see the rest of the world. She also loves to go to concerts, the movies, restaurants and take part in New York City nightlife. Her favorite film since age three is The Wizard of OZ. She is looking forward to this year's festival, and showing NYU and the rest of New York the importance of women in film production.

Andrew Katz - Programming Committee
Andrew Katz is a freshman in the Film and Television Department. After hearing about the largely student run Fusion Film Festival, he was very excited to get involved. In recent years Andrew has produced several student-oriented screenings in the Boston area including the Institute of Contemporary Art's "Fast Forward" teen filmmaking program. He is especially eager to help bring in some amazing programming for Fusion's fifth year.

Nicholas Feitel
Nicolas D. Feitel has lived and worked in New York City for all of his life (which is a little while) so far. His writing has appeared both in student publications (Polygon, High5.org) and in the NYC weekly "Gay City News", where he is a contributing film critic. As a BFA candidate in the Tisch School of Arts, he has authored several fiction and non-fiction works, the latest of which, "The Big Night", was honored as part of the Sigh and Sound Showcase. He is currently in post-production for his newest film, entitled "I Wanna Hold Your Hand."