Why Our Jury Reflects the Full Art of Poetic Film
Poetic films live at the intersection of language, performance, visual storytelling, and cinematic craft. For that reason, the Monologues and Poetry International Film Fest brings together a diverse jury of poets, actors, filmmakers, and directors. Each contributes a distinct and essential perspective to the review process.
Our poets listen to the strength, originality, rhythm, and emotional truth of the written word. Actors consider the authenticity, presence, and expressive power of the performance. Filmmakers and directors examine how effectively the camera, sound, editing, pacing, imagery, and overall creative vision bring the words and story to life.
This multidisciplinary approach allows every submission to be reviewed as a complete artistic work, not solely as a poem, monologue, performance, or film, but as a meaningful combination of all four.
Jurors are encouraged to respect the individuality of each project and to evaluate it according to its own creative intentions. A production does not need a large budget or elaborate equipment to make a powerful impression. We value originality, emotional resonance, thoughtful storytelling, artistic courage, and the ability to use film to deepen the impact of the spoken or poetic word.
By drawing on jurors from these unique but relatable, creative backgrounds, the festival ensures that each submission is carefully, fairly, and meaningfully considered. Every juror brings a different lens, but together they seek the same thing: work that speaks with purpose, connects with its audience, and demonstrates the remarkable possibilities that emerge when poetry, performance, and cinema share the screen.
Meet Our 2027 Festival Jurors
Kim Estes, Actor
Emmy Award Winner
Estes was born and raised in Los Angeles (Jefferson Park/Crenshaw district) and attended college at CSU, Cal Maritime Academy in Vallejo, CA, and post-graduate work at the University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business. He joined the US Merchant Marines and the US Navy upon graduation. After sailing for 14 years, he became a Chief Engineer on ocean-going vessels. Estes also worked as the corporate head of the Environmental, Health, Safety, and Sustainability group for a major Fortune 500 company. He has served as a consultant and special investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board and has worked on environmental and safety disasters worldwide to help make the world a better place.
Kim Estes received the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Actor in a Short Form Comedy or Drama Series - 2017 - Dicks, and this year, 2026, earned a second Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Performer in a Short Form Comedy or Drama Series for his excellent performance in Big Law, as character Boyd Bennett.
His television credits include How To Get Away With Murder; I'm Dying Up Here; Brooklyn 99; Hot Wet American Summer 10 Years Later, Pitch, The Real O’Neals, Secrets and Lies; Fresh off the Boat, Stalker, State of Affairs, and Pretty Little Liars. The list continues with additional films such as The Matador, Rake, The Fosters, The Bridge, NCIS, How I Met Your Mother, Private Practice, Law & Order: LA, House, Dexter, The Closer, Hawthorne, Body of Proof, Cold Case, Criminal Minds, Numbers, and others.
His stage credits include the staged performance reading of Buried in the Night at The Blank Theatre, Private Eyes at the Little Fish Theatre, HellCab at the Lillian Theatre, Frankincense and Henry V at the Pacific Resident Theatre Company, Changes in the Mating Strategies of White People at the Lounge theatre (Nominated by NAACP for Best Actor 2014) and Treat Yourself Like Cary Grant (Nominated by NAACP for Best Actor 2012) at the Lillian Theatre. We are thrilled to have Kim Estes as an ongoing member of our juror panel.
George Maguire, Acclaimed Actor
Pursuit of Happyness, Fight Club, True Lies
George Maguire is a renowned stage and film actor, director, and voice-over artist. His career began as a teenager in 1964 with Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera; it encompasses Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional theaters, Shakespeare Festivals, and numerous films and TV shows. He has been a member of Actors’ Equity Association and SAG/AFTRA for over 50 years. His career spans both coasts and includes Broadway, Off-Broadway, National Companies, and many of the top regional theaters in the states, including Actors Theater of Louisville, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Great Lakes, Marin, and Northshore Shakespeare Festivals, PCPA Theaterfest, ACT, Berkeley Rep, Magic Theater, Shotgun Players, Clarence Brown Theater, and many more. His over 30 film and TV credits include Fight Club, Pursuit of Happyness, Metro, The Sweetest Thing, Opal, The Dog Lover, James Franco’s Yosemite, Clint Eastwood’s True Lies, Youth, films and pilots for NBC, ABC, CBS, and PBS, and Lt. Governor Mel Wexler on Nash Bridges. In addition to Nosferatu, The Stand at Paxton County, Disrupted, The Night, and Mr. Invincible, other projects include 13 Reasons Why and Generations, among others.
His directing credits include CenterRep, PCPA, the Eugene O’Neill Foundation, SRT Santa Rosa, New Conservatory Theater, Indra Theater Company, Broadway By The Bay, and Playground, of which he is a proud member. He is Professor Emeritus at Solano College Theater, co-founded the Actor Training Program, and teaches Advanced On-Camera Acting for Nancy Hayes Casting and the Academy of Art University. IMDB PRO IMDB.com
Kathleen Herrmann, Poet Laureate Emerita, Vallejo, CA 01/01/2024-12/31/2024
Kathleen Herrmann, an educator, holds a Bachelor of Arts with honors in English Literature from the University of California at Berkeley and a Master of Arts in Teaching Leadership from St. Mary’s College of California. She is a teaching artist in the Vallejo City Unified School District under VTA (Vallejo Teaching Artists) and is part of the current Youth Poetry Letters international project. Her original work appears in 14 anthologies, including I Can’t Breathe and Coming Out of Isolation (Kistrech International Poetry Festival, Kenya, 2021, 2022), Friendship and Loss (Pure Slush, Australia, 2021, 2024), Work & the Anthropocene (Ice Floe Press, Canada, 2022), Poetic Edge Publishers (UK, 2024), B Cubed Press, Moonstone Press, Napa Valley Writers, and Benicia Literary Arts. She has also been published in the Going The Distance column in the Benicia Herald. She was awarded Best in Show at the Solano County Fair in 2022 and 2023. She is an occasional guest reader and host as DJ Kat on OZCAT radio’s Art Beat Poetry Hour.
She has read poetry at Vallejo’s Martin Luther King March (sponsored by the NAACP), Black History Month Celebration, Winters LitFest 2, Benicia’s Fiestas Primavera, Vallejo’s Second Friday Art Walk and Earth Daze Festival, Girls On The Rise: Find Your Place in the Legal Field, sponsored by the Solano Superior Court, Solano Bar Association and Solano Commission for Women and Girls, the Solano County Fair, the Brushstrokes For Earth exhibit, Vallejo’s Mad Hatter July Fourth Waterfront Festival, the Visions of the Wild Festival and the Mad Hatter Holiday Festival. She was co-host of Tea House Poetry Open Mic with her poetic partner, Jacalyn Eyvonne. Her poetry book, Cane In The Sand, will be released in 2026.
Valdez Hill, Poet/Composer
First Place Diamond Quill Award Winner
Valdez Hill is a classically trained pianist, poet, arts advocate, and educator whose work bridges music, literature, and visual art into a unified creative practice. A recipient of numerous awards in piano and clarinet, Hill has served on the Board of Directors of the Young People's Symphony Orchestra (YPSO) in Berkeley, California, for the past sixteen years, has served five years with the Oakland East Bay Gay Men's Chorus (OEBGMC), and is the founder and Artistic Director of Giving Concerts, which raises funds for charities and music scholarships.
Since publishing his first poems in 2025, Hill has authored more than ninety published works appearing in literary journals, magazines, online publications, galleries, and anthologies throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. His poetry has been featured by Moonstone Arts Center, Verseve, Not a Pipe Publishing, Code Blue Publications, Discretionary Love, Jerry Jazz Musician, Rooted Lit Magazine, and many other national and international publishers. He is also a featured poet, speaker, juror, and presenter throughout Northern California.
Hill is the recipient of a First-Place Diamond Quill Award and two Bronze Diamond Quill Awards in the international peer-voted competition and was a finalist for the Best Haiku of 2025 anthology. His debut collection, My First Haiku: Winter Collection, was published in 2025. His forthcoming books include When Truth Is Feared More Than War, Black Voices, and What the Seasons Remember: A Cycle of Haiku and Haibun. Hill has served as a juror for several music panels and Poetry Out Loud through the Solano County Arts Council, has taught poetry workshops at Crystal Middle School in Fairfield, California, and hosts Voices at the Table: Poetry and Music Open Mic in Vacaville, California. Hill holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration with an emphasis in accounting. After a distinguished 35-year career with Citibank as a Bank Manager, Auditor, and Corporate Trainer, he retired following numerous awards recognizing his leadership, innovation, technical excellence, and professional achievement. He is currently attending nursing school with the goal of becoming a Registered Nurse (RN) while continuing to write, teach, perform, and promote the literary and performing arts. Poetry Website - https://apoetofprose.com/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/valdez.hill.3
Debra Miller, Poet/Actor
Composer/Playwright/Editor
Debra Miller an American-born Poet/Actress from Arkansas. Her film credits include San Andreas, Steve Jobs, Ant-Man 1 and 2, Venom, Sense 8, and Jordan Peele’s thriller US. Along with film credits, she has added a number of TV shows to her list, including Murder in the First on TNT, Wives with Knives on Investigation Discovery, HBO's Ballers, and ABC’s miniseries When We Rise. Additionally, Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why and a speaking spot in A Taiwanese Tale of Two Cities. She has appeared in numerous commercials with several Golden State Warriors basketball players, such as Stephen Curry, Stronger Feels Good for Muscle Milk, Wins and Losses for Kaiser Permanente, Draymond Green Beats by Dre for Beats by Dre, Headphones for Apple, and Andre Iguodala NBA Hands for NBA. Debra has booked roles for Sutter Health, Princess Cruise, Samsung, Apple, Geico Insurance, Vistaprint, Microsoft Office 365, Wells Fargo, and Bank of the West.
In 2018, Debra landed a featured spot in a national commercial with singer/musician John Legend and then Golden State Warriors’ Kevin Durant for Google Assistant called Make Google Do It! In 2019, Debra booked a brief but visible role in a commercial for Post’s Honey Bunches of Oats and David’s Bridal. She has acted in shorts and feature films, including Jacalyn Evone’s Stripes and Sisters. She played mom to Oakland rapper Fabby Davis Jr., aka Mr. Fab, on Season 1 of The North Pole Show.
In 2018, Debra agreed to participate in research to obtain FDA approval of a groundbreaking ultrasound machine to detect early signs of "breast cancer." Allowing an alternative to painful Mammograms. Her sharing of personal breast cancer scares and family history of the killer disease.
Debra is a wife of 30+ years, mom of 6 amazing adults, and grandmother to 8 adorable youngsters; her faith, singing, cooking, dancing, yard work, writing scripts, poetry, and perfecting her skills are of utmost importance.
Debra Ray Sims, Writer/Producer
Award Winning Director
Deborah is an award-winning independent Director/Writer/Producer. She is a recipient of the International Black Independent Film, Video & Screenplay Competition Screenplay Finalist award for the screenplay Dreammakers (Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame Inc.). Her credits include former series, Producer/Writer for local Emmy-nominated, award-winning Detroit Black Journal and Detroit Black News of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) WTVS, where she produced news, public and cultural affairs programming. For PBS, Deborah received the National Black Programming Consortium’s “Prized Pieces” Award for the documentary Mudra Afrique, shot on location in Senegal, West Africa. At PBS, Deborah was a producer on the Emmy award-winning documentary about the Third New World Festival of the African Diaspora,, shot on location in Suriname, South America.
The American Black Journal Archives features a collection of programs produced by Deborah on the following website: http://abj.matrix.msu.edu/shows.php?year=1980. She also served as Television Training Instructor for the Nigerian Television Authority (Jacaranda International LTD), in Lagos, Nigeria.
Deborah is developing a screenplay titled A Delicate Balance for production as a feature film. She wrote and directed the short film CHOICES, which was recognized as an Official Selection for the North Bay Art and Film Festival (Benicia, CA), received a Special Mention award from the Global Shorts online film festival (Los Angeles, CA), and is a recipient of the Best Shorts Competition’s Award of Recognition: Women Filmmakers (2018). Her film CHOICES was also nominated for the best short film category in the 2019 San Diego Black Film Festival and is currently streaming worldwide on several streamers.
She holds a B.A. in Television/Radio/Film from Michigan State University and a Master of Science degree in Telecommunications Management from Golden Gate University. She also attended New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program at the Tisch School of the Arts. She was a student at the Writers Boot Camp (Los Angeles, CA), the Blueprint for Breakthrough Filmmaker's Success Lab (Los Angeles, CA), the Spike Lee Filmmaking Master Class, and the Shonda Rhimes Writing for Television Master Class. Website: www.deborahraysimsfilms.com