**Alyssa Rallo Bennett**
Artistic Director
arb@stonestreet.net

Alyssa Rallo Bennett is an award-winning director & producer as well as a founder of Stonestreet Studios, an independent film studio, production house and a unique screen acting and directing conservatory for NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

Alyssa has also worked in both films and television in front of the camera with directors such as Woody Allen, Franco Zeffirelli, and Andre Gregory. In New York she has directed many short and full-length plays at Ensemble Studio Theater and the Harold Clurman Theater and was accepted into Sundance Institute’s Playwriting Lab here she worked as director, writer and actor, again developing new material for stage and screen. Alyssa attended NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and has a BFA in Drama & MA in Drama & Psychology, where she studied at Circle in the Square with Nikos Psacharopoulos and David Margulies. After NYU, she studied with the Group Theater’s Robert Lewis as well as the techniques of Sanford Meisner, Lee Strasberg, and Stella Adler.

Since its inception in 1991, Stonestreet has been producing independent feature films , shorts and pilots, with founders Gary and Alyssa Alyssa is currently in the last stages directing the feature film, ReRun, a modern day twist on It’s A Wonderful Life, written by Gary Bennett and produced by Stonestreet Studios.

She recently directed two pilots: End it all Now featuring Zach Galligan, Jen McCabe, and Videola, starring Sean Young, Gil Zabarsky, Michael Pemberton and Janet Zarish, both of which have just accepted to screen at the 2016 Hoboken Film Festival. Her last short, Trudy Gets Tindered just premiered at Manhattan Film Festival 2016. She is currently in production for a new pilot series, Paradise by the Dashboard Light.

Trudy Gets Tindered, a short that just appeared in the 2016 Manhattan Film Festival explores intimacy, identity and gender during a Tinder date. Oswald, a another short film she directed, imagines the last evening of Lee Harvey Oswald’s life before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In 2013, Oswald (one minute trailer here) was presented in the Hoboken Film Festival, Pittsburgh Independent Film Festival, and Manhattan Film Festival.

Alyssa’s first feature film The Pack which she directed, produced & co-wrote with Gary O. Bennett stars Lucie Arnaz, Elisabeth Moss, Roger Robinson, Molly Culver, Tibor Feldman, Adam Ferrara, Zach Galligan et al., and was originally released theatrically in New York and LA.

The Pack was accepted out of competition to the Tribeca Film Festival in 2009 and was featured at over a dozen festivals including Sedona International Film Festival, Manhattan Film Festival, Northampton International Film Festival, Jersey Shore Film Festival, Festival of Festivals, Connecticut Film Festival, Sweet Auburn Film Festival, First Take Film Festival, Toronto Independent Film Festival, Hoboken Film Festival, Bayou Inspirational Film Festival, Wildwood Film Festival where it won Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Rising Star Award, at the Baltimore Women’s Film Festival where it also won Honorable Mention Best Feature Film.

The Pack was re-released as Smoking Non-Smoking by FilmRise and is now available at City of Film and Snagfilms and recently was invited to be a Netflix Film pending a digital upgrade

Alyssa developed and associate produced Rain Without Thunder, starring Jeff Daniels, Linda Hunt, Betty Buckley, Frederick Forrest, Graham Greene, Ming Na Wen, Austin Pendleton, and Steve Zahn. Rain Without Thunder was theatrically released & distributed by Orion Classics, featured in over a dozen major film festivals and was recently bought by Sony Pictures.

Alyssa is the host and producer of the series Behind the Scenes at Stonestreet Studios. Guests have included Mike Myers, Susan Sarandon, Edie Falco, Kevin Bacon, Peter Gallagher, Michael Imperioli, James Earl Jones, Carrie Preston, Peter Facinelli, Jodie Markell, Elisabeth Shue, Chaske Spenser, Melba Moore, Vincent Pastore, Joey Pantoliano, Harris Yulin, Miles Teller, Zoe Lister-Jones, Daryl Wein, Darren Goldberg, Josh Ashtrachan, Lee Tergesen et al. The show focuses on the process and art of filmmaking for independent and studio films.

AR Bennett’s Director Channel on Vimeo: vimeo.com/channels/686932.