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is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Chicago Comedy Film Festival. She works with Brent Kado under their film company Flowfeel Films to develop short and feature films. They have produced three feature comedies. In 2010, when she was researching comedy film festivals she discovered that there are few. That was when she decided to launch CCFF. The festival has been recognized by MovieMaker magazine for being one of the top film festivals worth the entry fee. Hardy strives to support comedy filmmaking as a vital and influential art form. She is a proud member of SAG-AFTRA. She has appeared in commercials, television, and independent films. She is a graduate of The Second City Chicago conservatory and studied with Acting Studio Chicago and Lesly Kahn Studios in Los Angeles. In 2015 she was the showcase showdown winner on the Price is Right!
Brent Kado is the Executive Director of the Chicago Comedy Film Festival. He is a filmmaker, director, and screenwriter recognized for his work in the Chicago Sun Times, TimeOut Chicago, Indiewire, and MovieMaker Magazine. He is an executive producer on Festival: A Documentary which had its world premiere at the Rhode Island International Film Festival August 2016 and now is distributed by Red Bull TV. His recent feature film A Short History of Drugs in the Valley just released on Amazon Prime. Kado is an adjunct professor at Columbia College Chicago. He attended DePaul University for his MA in Cultural Studies and attended Purdue University for his PhD in American Film Studies. He left his PhD program so that he could pursue more filmmaking endeavors and late night burrito binges.
Bella Thornton is a Production Coordinator with the Chicago Comedy Film Festival, where she previously worked as a Script Reader Intern in Spring 2021. She is currently the coordinator for the Columbia College Chicago student group that volunteers as part of the Ignite program for young filmmakers at the Sundance Film Festival. She is on the Alumni Board for The School of the New York Times, where she studied with Times journalists during the program’s inaugural years. Currently a junior in the Comedy Writing and Performance, she performs with the all-female improv troupe, False Positive. She is a filmmaker and founder of the burgeoning Drowned Fish Productions, a group that emphasizes new voices and strange storytelling. She was the writer-director of the short film “My Stepdad’s Bird” which is in the process of being submitted to various fests, and is in pre-production on her new short film, “Honey.” Bella began working with CCFF because she believes that we need excellent storytelling. So when she asked herself how she can help artists create a world of possibilities with an audience, the resounding answer was to go back to where it all started for her: a kid sitting in a theatre burning to hear a really good story.