Mission Statement

At Medusa’s Gaze Films, our mission is to amplify the voices of women and gender minorities by reframing film through an intentionally diverse gaze. By filling 75% of behind the camera above-the-line and below-the-line roles with women and gender minorities, Medusa’s Gaze Films empowers creators in significant creative roles to help them showcase stories through their own lens.

Founded by storytellers with backgrounds in independent filmmaking, entertainment law, women’s/gender studies, ghostwriting, and screenwriting, we develop and distribute films which spotlight narratives often overlooked by mainstream media.

We believe in the power of both the creative output and the on set experience when you foster female and gender diverse talent behind the camera. With creativity, inclusivity, and authenticity, we are building a more diverse and equitable film industry, bringing underrepresented perspectives to the forefront.

Who we ARE

Mary Craven Adams

Stephen V. Stone

Autumn Karen

Ellie Pobis

Autumn Karen is a filmmaker, journalist, ghostwriter, and educator who uses writing to elevate traditionally unheard stories. She's English faculty at High Point University, a longtime contributor to local independent paper Triad City Beat, and was an Honors Fellow at UNCG for a half decade.  Autumn holds a BA in Women's Studies, an MAT in Special Education, has doctoral work in Clinical Psychology, and holds an MFA in Screenwriting from UNCSA. As an educator, she has developed and regularly teaches courses on ghostwriting, constructing novellas, narrative medicine, professional writing, and film analysis.

Her award-winning work as a journalist, author, and screenwriter centers on themes such as gendered life experiences, grief, and complex societal relationships.Among her credited co-authored books in her last decade as a ghostwriter are Mississippi Still Burning: From Hoods to Suits, the story of Black preacher James Hart Stern, who took over the KKK from prison, and Amy: Book One, an empowerment erotica novel published through the University of Pleasure. Her award-winning short screenplay, Infinity Care, is based on her own experience losing a daughter to epilepsy.

Dive into her work on her personal website, www.autumnkaren.com

Stephen is an award-winning filmmaker who created the first long form photoanimation film in history. Stephen's father purchased a manual 35mm camera for him when Stephen was 12 and the love of images began. Stephen set out to be an astronaut but a chance viewing of Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” in a public library at age 17 struck like a lightning bolt and film has been Stephen's core passion ever since. 

Stephen has been the filmmaker (write/direct/DP/edit/post) on over twenty short narrative, documentary, experimental and animation films that have screened at numerous festivals and in cyberspace as well as co-produced/DP’d a low budget action horror feature.

Stephen spent 15 years creating his multiplane photoanimation labor of love, “In Saturn’s Rings”, narrated by LeVar Burton, a science meets art documentary produced for giant screen and fulldome planetariums, currently in globally theatrical release.

Although diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome in 2021, Stephen has transformed an approach to allow the passion for filmmaking to continue, including supporting the rights of all disabled artists. Stephen lives in Greensboro, NC with artist partner Marie Stone and three cats, Obi, Kylo & Gypsy.

Mary Craven Adams is a Screenwriter, Producer, and Lawyer. She holds a law degree from Wake Forest University School of Law and an MFA from UNCSA. She has volunteered with film centered nonprofits for over a decade, including being chair of the RiverRun International Film Festival, on the executive committee of the Piedmont Triad Film Commission, and a board member of Project 411 Space. She volunteers on the Sports and Entertainment Law Council of the North Carolina Bar Association.

She has written and co-written multiple produced short films, including Women of Acadia Street and Bridge of Dreams, and is the executive producer of Spitting Image. Most of her feature screenwriting is in the coming-of age and drama genres. Her background as a litigator has proven fertile ground for conflict driven stories that explore the goals that characters are willing to sacrifice anything in order to obtain. Her greatest accomplishment of 2024 is kicking a 35 year old Diet Coke addiction.

she/they

⚧ /⚧ s

she/hers

she/hers

Ellie Pobis is a Screenwriter, Director, and Cinematographer from Columbia, SC. She currently resides on Hilton Head Island where her craft is deeply inspired by the natural beauty of marsh grass, sunsets, and cicada song-laden nights.

Ellie holds a BA in English from Reed College and an MFA in Screenwriting from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Ellie's rigorous academic journey at Reed culminated in a thesis exploring unconventional narratives and the feminist reinterpretation of the coming-of-age model. This work still steeping in the back of her mind, Ellie went on to write her Master’s Thesis, The Tale of Maggie Comer.

While in graduate school, she also co-wrote, co-produced, and co-directed the short film Peanut Butter Whiskey, sparking her love of being on set. A poet and cinephile from a young age, she is passionate about transforming ideas and words into stories large enough for the silver screen.

Other credits include: Women of Acadia Street, Feedback, and Astrogenesis