IPRHFF 2025 Judges Panel
Meet The Judges
Deidre McDonald
Deidre McDonald is currently Founding Artistic Director for the BronzeLens Film Festival. The festival is a charter member of ARRAY (a national distribution entity for independent film founded by Ava DuVernay). In 2016 BLFF was designated as an Academy Award Qualifying Film Festival in the Shorts Category. Previously she served as Project Leader for the Georgia Entertainment Media Work Ready Region (GEM), an economic development initiative focusing on career development in radio, television, film, music and gaming. In addition, she has been a college level educator who has been involved with curriculum design and student career enhancement. As Senior Producer for Programs and Projects for WXIA-TV she is an eight-time Emmy Award winning producer/writer who created programming shot locally, nationally and internationally. She has received numerous local and national awards for her programming and projects.
She is a former President of Women in Film and Television/Atlanta and served on its board for many years. In addition, she was the Board Chair for the Black Women Film Network and continues to serve on their board. In 2018 she was selected for the Metro Atlanta Arts Leader class under the auspices of the Atlanta Regional Commission.
James Manos Jr.
James Manos Jr. is an Emmy Award-winning writer for The Sopranos, and the creator of Showtime’s hit tv series, Dexter. He produced the three time Emmy Award-winning HBO film, The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom, starring Holly Hunter and Beau Bridges which also won the Cable Ace Award for Best Picture. In addition, he produced the Emmy nominated, Apollo 11 as well as the Cable Ace Award winning, The Ditchdigger’s Daughters. Mr. Manos was the consulting producer on The Shield and has written numerous TV pilots and movies. He is also an actor who recently completed a starring in the film I’m Not Her.
