Thomas Southerland is a filmmaker and educator from Lexington, Kentucky. A graduate of AFI, he's taught Screenwriting, and various Film Production courses for many years. His first narrative feature, Proud Citizen won the Jury Prize at the New Orleans Film Festival in 2014 and eight other Jury and Audience awards at film festivals around the country. His second narrative feature, Fort Maria won the Jury Prize and Best Cinematography award at the Ashland Independent Film Festival and the Best Director award from the BendFilm Festival in 2018. His recent short documentary, Window Treatment has screened at IFFBoston, RiverRun, and the Florida Film Festival. His documentary film I'm the Girl - the story of a photograph, is streaming on Kanopy and televised nationally via PBS. His short documentary Lonely Kingdom won the Best Documentary Short Jury Prize at the Charlotte Film Festival. Southerland collaborates with his wife Naomi Uechi, the poet Katerina Stoykova, and filmmaker S. Cagney Gentry on most of his projects. He currently teaches filmmaking at Eastern Kentucky University.