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CCI-IFF 2009 Judges

More properly known as the Comic-Con International Independent Film Festival (or CCI-IFF), this popular programming track continues to present the best in genre-related filmmaking. The juried event, which consists of films in seven categories—action/adventure, animation, comics-oriented, documentary, humor, horror, and science fiction/fantasy—will culminate in trophies and prizes given out at a ceremony on Sunday, July 26. The Festival will run all four days, with the popular "Comic-Con Film School" preceding it. This year's celebrity judges are:

Beth Accomando

Beth Accomando has been the KPBS film critic for 20 years and is the author of the blog Cinema Junkie. She edited three sequels to The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. She's president of the San Diego Film Critics Society and director of Film School Confidential: A Showcase of San Diego and Tijuana Filmmakers. She covers independent and international cinema for National Public Radio and Public Radio International. She's received numerous Society of Professional Journalist Awards and San Diego Press Club Awards as well as 11 southwestern area Emmy Awards. She's been attending Comic-Con for almost 30 years.

Mark Altman

Mark A. Altman is currently a writer/producer on the hit ABC television show Castle. His films include the award-winning comedy classic Free Enterprise, starring Emmy Award winners Eric McCormack (Will & Grace) and William Shatner (Star Trek, Boston Legal), for which he was awarded the Best New Writer award at the AFI International Film Festival by the Writers Guild of America (WGA), where the film was also honored as Best Picture. Altman has written and produced numerous other popular genre films, including Dimension Films' adaptation of the bestselling video game DOA: Dead Or Alive. Altman is also the founder and former publisher of Geek Monthly magazine, the leading magazine devoted to popular culture and all things geek chic. He has spoken at myriad industry events and conventions, including ShowBiz Expo in Hollywood and the Variety/Final Draft Screenwriters Panel at the Cannes Film Festival, and he has been a juror at the prestigious Sitges Film Festival in Barcelona, Spain.

Marc Bernadin

Marc Bernardin has, in his 13 years as an editor for Entertainment Weekly magazine, worked on hundreds of stories and written nearly a thousand reviews—of movies, TV shows, books, comics, DVDs, videogames, websites, CDs—almost everything under the sun. In his increasingly sparse free time, he also writes comic books with his longtime bestie, Adam Freeman: The Highwaymen and Push for WildStorm, Genius for Top Cow, and Monster Attack Network for AiT/Planet Lar (soon to be a major motion picture from Disney).