Summer is the perfect time to connect with your creative community.
For a limited time, New York Women in Film & Television is making it easier to become a member: through August 20, we’re waiving the initiation fee entirely for new members. You’ll pay your membership dues and nothing more to get started.
Throughout this special summer campaign, we’ll be highlighting members and the ways NYWIFT membership has made a real difference in their professional lives. First up is producer Alyssa Rallo Bennett, whose film State-Crossed Lovers is benefiting from NYWIFT’s Fiscal Sponsorship Program, one of the many resources available to members.
Through fiscal sponsorship, NYWIFT can provide eligible member projects with nonprofit status and fundraising support, helping filmmakers raise funds while pursuing work that can have a meaningful impact. For Alyssa, NYWIFT’s ongoing support has helped close a significant gap in fundraising for her film. It’s a powerful example of how a membership benefit can translate into tangible support for a project and the people behind it.
NYWIFT recently brought together members with fiscally sponsored projects for a special networking brunch, where participants could connect with one another and learn more about fundraising and money management. It was another opportunity for members to build relationships, gain practical knowledge, and make the most of the resources available through NYWIFT.
Membership opens the door to opportunities like these, along with professional development, networking, screenings, mentorship, advocacy, publicity, and more.
Join NYWIFT during our Summer Flash Sale and pay no initiation fee through August 20. Become part of a community that supports your work and helps you move your career and creative projects forward.
Meet our members:
Alyssa Rallo Bennett is an award-winning multi-hyphenate director, producer, and composer/performer — known professionally as Rallo Bennett — from NYC, recognized for creating inclusive and socially conscious films.
Her directorial debut feature film, The Pack, accepted into Tribeca Film Festival and featured in over a dozen others, tackled personal responsibility with an open-ended narrative that pays homage to Twelve Angry Men. The film, starring Lucie Arnaz, Elisabeth Moss, and Zach Galligan, streams on major platforms such as Amazon Prime Video and Tubi, along with her second feature, Aberrant, a dramatic thriller starring Jack Quaid and Tibor Feldman, distributed by Green Apple.
Her feature film ReRUN, starring Christopher Lloyd, premiered as the closing night film at the 2018 Woodstock Film Festival, earning her a Maverick Award nomination and multiple festival wins and critical acclaim, streams on Amazon, Fandango, Plex, YouTube TV.
The Arrival, her fourth feature, released recently by Gravitas Ventures featuring Pooya Mosheni and Peter Bradbury, received critical acclaim, premiering as one of four films at the Martha’s Vineyard Women’s Film Festival, and subsequently as the closing night film at Big Apple Film Festival in NYC.
As a producer and actor, she developed and co-produced Rain Without Thunder, a dramatic film starring Jeff Daniels, Linda Hunt, Steve Zahn, and Ming-Na Wen, about reproductive rights that premiered at San Francisco Film Festival and in NYC at Human Rights Watch Film Festival, considered a cult classic pre Handmaid’s Tale and featured in over a dozen international festivals including, Berlin and Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
Rallo Bennett’s shorts have premiered in festivals such as Newport Beach, Santa Cruz, Cinequest, Soho FF, Northampton, BAFF… including Compulsion, Them, Crowbar, Floating Rectangles, Uberpool, the series The Madness of Art, and most recently, The Dishwasher just back from Phoenix & Sedona Film Festivals.
Recently, she directed a new feature & pilot, Scarecrow, starring Marin Hinkle, currently in development as a new series.
She has continued to produce, develop, and support emerging artists, diversity, equality, and inclusion at Stonestreet Studios, an independent film studio she co-founded with her partner, writer/director Gary O. Bennett. Known for its socially conscious films, the studio often creates work that deals with human rights alongside the renowned Stonestreet Screen Acting & Production Residency, a unique immersive program she founded that is the exclusive screen acting program for NYU Tisch Drama actors, directors, writers, and producers. The residency program has given many actors and hyphenates their start: Rachel Sennott, Miles Teller, Rachel Brosnahan, Danny Ramirez, Idina Menzel, Nik Walker, Xosha Roquemore, Jocelyn DeBoer, Beanie Feldstein, Camila Mendez, Alberto Rosende, Coral Pena, Jack Martin, Francesca Reale, Ximena LaMadrid, Jack Quaid, et al.
Known in the music world as Rallo Bennett, her music background has been an integral part of her filmmaking—whether listening to the variation in a score or an actor’s voice, or telling visual stories via song. American Pancake wrote about her debut album ANYMORE: “The fluid, diverse indie rock storytelling of Pinch That Vein feels like a movie you want to watch.” The ANYMORE album and her singles also received great notices. Closets, The Pitch, and Don’t Wake Me have taken off globally, streaming on all platforms. Her most recent song, Eggshells & Rollercoasters, received critical acclaim.
We were proud to feature Alyssa in our Meet the New NYWIFT Member blog series.
Learn more about her NYWIFT fiscally sponsored project State-Crossed Lovers on its page on our website. Bennett says the film “allows for advocacy through the arts & drama without being polemic.” The film was recently featured in The Hollywood Reporter.
Learn more about Alyssa R. Bennett’s work on her website www.stonestreet.net and on all social media platforms. You can also see more at alyssarallobennett.com, listen to Rallo Bennett wherever you stream music, and follow on socials at @rallobennettmusic for music videos, live shows, announcements & more!
(All images courtesy of Alyssa R. Bennett)
