MR. CHRIS A. SHOEMAKER
Executive Director/Founder

Mr. Shoemaker is the co-founder and for the past 16 years, executive director of the International Family Film Festival (IFFF), the first worldwide festival showcasing family and children’s films in Hollywood, CA.  Under his direction, the IFFF also presented a sister festival, The Garden State International Family Film Festival in New Jersey.  Along with his wife Suzanne and Ms. Patte Dee McKee, he also co-founded and executive directed the Burbank International Children’s Film Festival in Burbank, California.  He has organized and served as a member for a total of 19 international festival juries in addition to adjudicating youth films for Scholastic’s national film competition in New York City. 

As an author, Mr. Shoemaker most recently received critical praise for The Great Mrs. Claus (2009), a lavishly illustrated children’s storybook that has garnered the National Mom's Choice Award (Gold), the National ?Independent Publishers Book Award (Silver), the ?Moonbeam Children's Book Award (Bronze) and is currently distributed nationwide in America and in France.  More books are in development for release this year and for 2011.  He is also a national award-winning columnist, having received the prestigious ?Parenting Publications of America’s “Editorial Gold Award” for his work with the Los Angeles Family Magazine.

As an independent video producer, Mr. Shoemaker received the Houston Worldfest Film Festival Platinum Award (Television and Cable Production - Pilot category) for

Kidquest – a Viking Trail.  He has written and produced video and animation for a wide variety of entertainment projects, including film festivals, interactive experiences and theme park presentations. 

Mr. Shoemaker has worked continually in the entertainment industry since his youth.  He attained his undergraduate BFA (Theatre) at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.  In Paris, he continued his postgraduate studies at L’Ecole Internationale Du Cirque (Anna Fratellini) and L'Ecole Jaques LeCoq, the internationally acclaimed school of creativity and movement.  While in Europe, Mr. Shoemaker produced and acted at LaGalerie 55 (Paris), in the play Seahorse at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland and performed in several films (Beyond Therapy and Aria) directed by Robert Altman.   

Hired as a cultural expert in China, he collaborated with the Wuhan, Shanghai and Beijing People’s Art Theatres on various theatre and TV projects.  While in Wuhan, he also organized an outdoor bi-weekly film festival that screened western film classics.  Fascinated with storytelling and dramatic techniques, Mr. Shoemaker relocated from China to Hawaii to pursue advanced studies in Asian Drama at the University of Hawaii (Manoa), where he also taught acting, incorporating performance styles and character development techniques from around the world.

In Hawaii, he co-founded Acts of Creation, a multi-media, creative IP and entertainment production Company.  Founded in 1990, the company conceptualizes and produces cutting-edge entertainment projects for clients in the television, theme park, internet, family entertainment center, cruise line, animation, museum, publishing, corporate & special events industries.

In 2006, he and his wife established a new media company, Freshi Films, LLC that has quickly become a scalable film training method for children ages 8-18.  Now operating in over 29 states and in several countries outside the United States, Freshi is rapidly becoming a leader of digital media programs for youth. 

In addition to being an accomplished writer and producer, Mr. Shoemaker enjoys reading, world travel and being a film enthusiast.  He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Suzanne.

DR. SUZANNE SHOEMAKER
Director of Business Development/Founder

Suzanne Shoemaker, Ph.D., earned her advanced degrees from the University of Missouri, Columbia and Oxford. Her 30-year career as a creative talent and administrator, scriptwriter, costume designer, director and producer in the entertainment industry has taken her all over the world and given her facility with a wide range of cultural materials and language skills.

She is a founder and principal of Acts of Creation, a full service entertainment company specializing in themed entertainment, character design and animation, location based entertainment conceptualization and live show production, as well as, Freshii Films, Inc., an educational company specializing in Digital Media education k-12 grade.  Dr. Shoemaker has served as a Director with the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada, the Milwaukee Repertory Theater and as a Foreign Expert in the Performing Arts to the People's Republic of China.   

She was one of the invited foreign Jurists for the Cairo International Children’s Film Festival in 2010.   She is also an invited guest of the 2010 Beijing Film Festival for Youth Welfare”, where she will present at the Festival Forum.   Most recently, she is leading her Acts of Creation company through the concept and design development phases of producing a family entertainment /recreation center called “FUN CITY” in New York.

PATTE DEE McKEE
IFFF & Youth Fest! Administration & Film Festival Programming/Founder

Ms. McKee was one of the Founders of the International Family Film Festival (IFFF) in 1993 and has served as a Director and the Programmer for the IFFF and IFFF-Youth Fest! Festivals since that time. She was also the Program Director for the Burbank Children's Film Festival from 2000 to 2002, and the IFFF-Algonquin, in Manasquan, New Jersey.

Ms. McKee has a long history in the entertainment industry, which started with a very successful career as a fashion model with many fashion houses like Cole of California and Blackwell, where she traveled all over the world and worked on the runway, in magazines, television commercials and radio. 

Howard Hughes decided that she had excellent potential as an actress, and she was put under contract with RKO Pictures when the "studio system" was still in effect, and this is where she received training in singing (opera and musical comedies) and acting along with a Fine Arts background. The next stage in her career was performing in musical comedies and choral groups in the Los Angeles area.  Patte Dee raised four children and became a published needlework designer for clothing. It was a natural progression to become a Costume Designer for feature films for ten years.  

For the last 16 years, she has been the Program Director for the annual International Family Film Festival, the FreshiFilm Festival, and the FreshiFilm Camps.

CHRISTOPHER WELCH
Board Member

Treasurer

Chris Welch has over 18 years of experience as an entrepreneur having developed and operated many businesses in multiple industries including retail food, automotive services, digital media and education.

Chris’ background includes more than four years as co-founder and Managing Director of Freshi Films, a digital media education company and eight years working in corporate finance and business development for Raleigh Enterprises, a company with holdings in real estate, hotels, an independent film studio in Los Angeles and other businesses. He also worked for 4 years as CFO to Baruk Petroleum, a company which has owned dozens of automotive-service franchises across the country (Jiffy Lube, Midas Muffler and Q-Lube).

Chris has also served as a consultant and business advisor to Hollywood Rentals, a large film and TV equipment rental company, with operations in Los Angeles, Orlando, New York, and North Carolina.

He has served on the boards of several non-profit organizations which have built affordable housing in Los Angeles and an AIDS memorial in Lincoln Park.  He currently serves as Chair of the City of Glendale's Transportation and Parking Commission.

Chris has a BA in architecture from the University of California – Berkeley and an MBA from the Anderson School of Business at the University of California, Los Angeles.