Jon Cavallero is Professor of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies at Bates College and the Founding Director of the Bates Film Festival. Under his leadership, the BFF has quickly grown into a regionally respected, bi-annual event. In just three iterations, the festival has screened over 75 films originating from 6 different continents, and welcomed over 40 guest filmmakers. In addition to his work with the Bates Film Festival, Cavallero is a widely published author. His book Hollywood’s Italian American Filmmakers: Capra, Scorsese, Savoca, Coppola, and Tarantino was published by the University of Illinois Press in 2011, and his second book Television Directors, Race, and Gender: Written Out of the Story will be published by Routledge in August 2024. He is also the co-editor of Italian American Review’s special issue on “Italian Americans and Television,” and his essays have appeared in numerous journals including Cinema Journal/The Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, Journal of Film and Video, The Journal of Popular Culture, MELUS, and The Journal of Popular Film & Television. Cavallero currently sits on the editorial boards of Journal of Film and Video and Diasporic Italy. At Bates, he teaches courses on US and global media with a particular focus on the representation of race, ethnicity, and gender. He earned his B.A. from Georgetown University, his M.A. from Penn State University, and his Ph.D. from Indiana University – Bloomington. He lives in Yarmouth, Maine with his family.