Our board is staffed by volunteers from the community who work together to create and manage all of WIF-PDX’s programs and events. The current WIF-PDX board of directors is comprised of professionals working in visual media in varying capacities.
Learn more about our Board below!
STEPHANIE HOUGH
PRESIDENT // stephanie@wifpdx.org
Stephanie Hough (she/her) is an independent filmmaker whose films have screened globally, including the Portland International Film Festival, Tacoma Film Festival, McMinnville Short Film Festival, Engauge Film Festival, BendFilm, TriBeca Film Center, Lacuna Festival and more. She has worked with film festivals including BendFilm, Sundance, Denver Film, Palm Springs International Film Festival, and the Portland International Film Festival. She spent a decade with the Northwest Film Center as Equipment Manager and Educator. Commercially, she has worked as a Producer with Alpha Media, as Health & Safety Manager (TLC, The History Channel, MTV/Viacom) and recently as an Associate Producer with TLC. As an educator she shares the joys of analog filmmaking techniques with the community.
ERIKA BOLSTAD
Erika Bolstad is a journalist and documentary filmmaker in Portland, Oregon, and the author of Windfall, a 2024 finalist for the Oregon Book Awards. She spent a decade in Washington, DC, covering politics and environmental issues for Climatewire and the McClatchy Washington Bureau. In 2008, she was a Pulitzer finalist for her work at the Idaho Statesman. She was also a staff writer for the Miami Herald, where she covered Hurricane Katrina and other national stories. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Scientific American and many other publications. In 2022, she was the recipient of an environmental arts grant from the Anonymous Was a Woman Foundation. The grant supported a companion short film to Windfall. She’s currently directing Monumental, a feature-length documentary.
MELINA KIYOMI COUMAS
Melina (she/her) is an award-winning filmmaker from O’ahu, Hawai’i. With a B.A. in Film Studies, she shoots primarily on celluloid film formats, exploring themes surrounding memory, identity, perception and place. Professionally, Melina works as a film programmer and program director for various film festivals and arts organizations. She is also a consultant for both filmmakers and festivals with a passion for increasing representation on both sides of the lens.
EMILY LAUE
Emily has worked in feature films, shorts, commercials, and music videos in Portland, Seattle, LA, and NY as a writer, producer, director, assistant director, and actor. Her directing work has played at festivals such as Oregon Independent, Katra, and Bend. Her acting work has screened at Festivals in Whistler, Calgary, and at MoMA in NYC. A graduate of Stonybrook/Killer Films Graduate Film Directing program and the University of British Columbia’s BFA Theatre Acting program, she currently freelances on Portland and New York-based film projects, works as a voice actor, dabbles in acting and is writing her next films.
KRISTEN MILLETTE
Raised bi-coastally, Kristen’s three-decade career began in live production as a PBS editor and morning news floor director. She later transitioned into visual effects, contributing as a Senior VFX Compositor to iconic franchises like Star Wars and Black Panther, as well as artisanal films like Coraline. Her global experience spans every medium from live-action to stop-motion at major studios including ILM, Sony, and Laika. Beyond her technical and creative work, Kristen has performed in theater and voiceover for animated features. Today, she channels her foundational roots in storytelling into mentorship and local education outreach.
AUSTYN STEELMAN
Austyn Steelman is a documentary filmmaker and visual journalist with a background in editing and motion graphics. Her company Overgreenland Productions, founded in 2013, manifests community stories through cinema that support non-profit fundraising and education. Outside of her client work, Austyn has created two independent documentaries. Paddles On The Water (2021), earned the Audience Favorite Award at the 2021 Portland Film Festival and screened at the Friday Harbor Film Festival and the Colorado Dragon Boat Film Festival. Hip Hop Below Zero (2006), screened in the Atlanta Hip Hop Film Festival, and the Vancouver International Hip Hop Film Festival. Austyn’s films have won awards, inspired, and connected viewers all over the world, helped raise millions of dollars, and generated hundreds of thousands of views on social media. Austyn holds an MS in Multimedia Journalism from University of Oregon.
NATALIE TAYLOR
Natalie is a nonfiction and documentary producer based in Portland, Oregon. Currently, she works at Blue Chalk Media, creating everything from branded content for clients like TIME Magazine, the New York Times, and Nike, to educational videos for Pearson Education. Most recently, she was the showrunner and director on a docuseries for the Magnolia Network called From the Source, in which a chef explores the backstories of ingredients she loves.
ADDISON WOODSIDE
Addison (she/they) is a writer, filmmaker, and co-founder of Woodland Sung Productions, a non-profit production company that offers holistic support to emerging media artists. Their undergraduate thesis film The Woodside Sisters Present was an official selection of the Portland International Film Festival in 2020 and her current project Beaver State is a comedy variety show about Oregon. Her work is often a funhouse mirror of her real life with a focus on spirituality, identity, and disability. After growing up in four different countries outside of the U.S., they seek to collaborate with creators from around the world in underserved communities.