Skip to main content

Is the senior programmer for the Palm Springs International Film Festival. She has been a film curator for more than 25 years and does program consulting work through her company Cine Qua Non. She was named a 1999 "Chicagoan of the Year" for her innovative work as associate director/programming at the Film Center of the School of the Art Institute, a position she held for 11 years. After earning a B.A. in British Studies from Yale, an M.A. in film history and criticism from the University of Iowa, and a M.A. in arts administration from the School of Business at the University of Wisconsin- Madison, Alissa began her programming career at the Film Department of the Walker Art Center, moving on to the International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House. She has served on international film festival juries in Karlovy Vary, Ljubljana, Belgrade, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Sarajevo, Sochi, Cluj, Torino, Montreal, Vancouver, Plzen and Trencianske Teplice. A member of FIPRESCI, the international film critics' association, she writes about films and film festivals for the trade paper Variety and coordinates Variety's "Ten European Filmmakers To Watch" program at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.