Artist Foundry 2026 Pitch Competition

Bianca Cline has had a prolific career as a cinematographer making films and commercials around the world. Bianca was the cinematographer on the A24 Oscar Nominated feature film Marcel The Shell With Shoes On which played in theaters around the world. In 2021 Bianca photographed the Netflix limited series Murder
Among The Mormons with director Jared Hess. In 2023 she lensed the feature film One of Us, starring Kit Connor, as well as completing photography for the feature film Rust. In 2024 Bianca filmed the limited series Truth&Conviction in Lithuania.

Bianca believes cinematography has the ability to help an audience feel all the things in a film that go unsaid. Cinematography has the ability to convey the subtext of a film to an audience without them realizing it. How the subtext of a film is conveyed, depends on the point of view of the artist and their life experiences.

Markus Bishop-Hill, p.g.a. – member of the Producers Guild of America and the Television Academy – is a Film/TV Producer originally from California, who made his debut in Utah when he brought the very first Hallmark Channel Original Christmas Movie to film in the state in 2014, titled Christmas Under Wraps. He continued to bring over a dozen cable television feature films to Utah, generating millions of dollars
of local spending between the years of 2014 and 2018.

In the midst of his cable TV career, he executive produced the award-winning Anthony Hopkins indie thriller Where Are You, alongside two-time Academy Award nominated cinematographer, Dante Spinotti, and spent 5 years in streaming television on Hulu’s Into The Dark (Seasons 1 & 2) and American Horror Stories (Seasons 1 & 2).

Since moving to Utah full time in 2024, Markus has been a part of the producing team for the Angel Studios hit movie and TV series, Homestead, which just wrapped production on its second season.

Tony F. Vainuku is an Emmy Award–winning filmmaker whose work explores identity, faith, and masculinity within Polynesian and American communities. His documentary In Football We Trust premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won a News & Documentary Emmy. He later directed UNTOLD: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist for Netflix, chronicling the rise and fallout of Manti Te’o’s story.

Vainuku also directed the five-part Netflix docuseries Muscles & Mayhem: The Unauthorized Story of American Gladiators. He is currently developing his first narrative feature, Lame Nights, a coming-of-age crime drama set in Salt Lake City, with Jared Hess attached as Executive Producer. He recently wrote and directed the short film Finau, executive produced by Hess.

Virginia Pearce is the Director of Utah Film Commission. Virginia Pearce has been the Film Commissioner for the state of Utah since 2014, after spending time at both Sundance Institute and Spy Hop Youth Media. Under her leadership, the Utah Film Commission has brought network television series and numerous award-winning projects to the state, creating over $800 million of new spending in the state.

Virginia has a passion for the many iconic locations in Utah and for nurturing new voices and has created a number of programs in the entertainment industry, including a low-budget incentive, workplace harassment policies, a workforce development program, and a new rural initiative.