Our Directors & Key Staff

Michael Taglianetti, Founder/Executive Director of the Festival
Michael Taglianetti is an entrepreneur, independent filmmaker, freelance writer, TV commercial director, stop-motion animator, painter, sculptor, illustrator, and winemaker. Basically, he’s a Renaissance man. He is also an avid collector of movies and has a DVD collection consisting of well over 2,000 titles. Mr. Taglianetti’s lifelong love of film and his keen interest in the themes of science fiction, fantasy, horror and the supernatural have not only determined the course of his professional career but also inspired him to create the organization, Movie Nation Festivals, LLC, which he did in 2004 after being fed up with the absence of decent festival programming in those genres.

Paul M. Smith, Associate Festival Director/Student Competition Director
Paul M. Smith is a 3D artist, video game designer and animation instructor at the Art Institute of Los Angeles - California. Mr. Smith was the Lead Environmental Artist with Gigawatt Studios, the now defunct Hollywood based video game company that made the PC games: Men in Black, Sci-fi Pinball and designed the Mighty Ducks Pinball Slam main attraction ride at Disney World in Orlando, Florida.

Mr. Smith went on to co-found and serve as Art Director of Tremor Entertainment, the Burbank, California based video game company which created Kiss Psycho Circus and SEGA Swirl for the SEGA DreamCast gaming system and Railroad Tycoon II for both the Sony Playstation and SEGA Dreamcast console gaming systems, just to name a few.
Mr. Smith sold his interest in Tremor in 2001 and teamed with Mr. Taglianetti to form Harbinger Media, Inc., an animation, visual effects and computer graphics design firm, in May, 2002.

Mr. Taglianetti and Mr. Smith, along with their small team of friends, all of whom are working as actors, writers, editors, event producers, corporate communications designers, motion graphics artists, comic book artists and stunt performers, who also love movies and are passionate about the science fiction, fantasy, horror, and supernatural genres.