Michael Curtis Johnson, Department Chair

Associate Professor

Johnson's film Savage Youth was selected for the Venice International Film Festival's Biennale College Cinema program and had its premiere at the Slamdance Film Festival. It screened at the Atlanta Film Festival and won the Grand Jury Award at the Florida Film Festival. His first feature film Hunky Dory won jury awards at the Slamdance, Atlanta, Nashville, Naples, BendFilm, San Francisco Indie, and American Film Festival. His feature films and shorts have been screened and won awards at over 100 international film festivals. He was awarded a fellowship to the Harris Manchester College Summer Intensive at Oxford University for his upcoming feature film project. He was chosen for the Berlin International Film Festival's Berlinale Talents program. Johnson is a Narrative Features Programming Captain for the Slamdance Film Festival and has been a co-director of the George Lindsey UNA Film Festival for 10 years. He is an alumnus of the directing program at the American Film Institute Conservatory.

Charlton James, Visiting Professor

Nora Stone, Assistant Professor

Nora Stone is a film scholar and filmmaker. Her monograph, How Documentaries Went Mainstream: A History, 1960 - 2022, was published by Oxford University Press in 2023. She has published work in Film Quarterly, Media Industries Journal, and Historical Journal of Film and Television, among others. Her short narrative film Lakebed won the Mitchell-West Women in Film Award at the Lindsey Film Festival and screened at numerous venues around Alabama. Her short doc-hybrid film Dear Esther was featured on the Los Angeles Review of Books and played at the Maryland Film Festival, Better Cities Film Festival, and Festival Film a Architektura in Prague. She holds an MA and PhD in film from the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Suzanne Reese-Mills, Assistant Professor

Suzanne Reese-Mills is a Florence native who received her training and early professional experience in the Northeast before returning home to invest in the Shoals artistic community. In her work with both vocalists and actors, she specializes in Voice and Speech exploration, guiding performers to discover their natural voices and examine US and world dialects. Suzanne received her Master of Fine Arts in Musical Theatre from The Boston Conservatory and spent five years working with Boston area theatres as a performer and dialect coach. She also has a BS in Psychology from UNA with a minor in Music. In addition to teaching at UNA, Suzanne currently oversees and teaches for the Ritz School of Performing Arts and directs for the Ritz Theatre in Sheffield.