MEGAN ABBOTT (Advisory Council) is the Edgar® nominated author of Queenpin (Simon & Schuster, 2007), The Song is You (2007) and Die a Little (2005), as well as the nonfiction study, The Street Was Mine: White Masculinity in Hardboiled Fiction and Film Noir (Palgrave, 2002). Her stories have appeared in Damn Near Dead: An Anthology of Geezer Noir, Wall Street Noir, Detroit Noir and Queens Noir. She is the editor of the collection, A Hell of a Woman: An Anthology of Female Noir (Busted Flush Press, 2007). She lives in Queens, New York.

JAMES ELLROY (Advisory Council) is the greatest living writer of noir fiction. His “L.A. Quartet” novels—The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz—were international bestsellers and revitalized noir fiction for a new generation. American Tabloid, the first of his “Underworld USA” trilogy, was Time’s Novel of the Year for 1995. His memoir, My Dark Places, was a New York Times Notable Book for 1996. He is also the recipient of the Jack Webb Award for “Strength and Inspiration,” bestowed by the Los Angeles Police Historical Society.

BRUCE GOLDSTEIN (Advisory Council) Bruce Goldstein is one of the most respected programmers in America. For many years he has programmed innovative, wide-ranging, and influential classic-film series at the nation's premier repertory house, the Film Forum in New York. He is also the CEO of Rialto Pictures.

MICHAEL SCHLESINGER (Advisory Council) is widely acknowledged as the dean of classic film distributors, having worked for more than two decades at MGM, Paramount and (since 1994) Sony, keeping hundreds of vintage movies in theatrical release, and instigating the restoration of many more, including the completion of Orson Welles' 1942 documentary It's All True some 50 years later. He recently moved over to Sony Home Entertainment, where he is consulting on the long-overdue DVD release of many classic Columbia pictures. Behind the camera, he wrote and produced the American version of Godzilla 2000, and produced the forthcoming comedies The Lost Skeleton Returns Again and Dark and Stormy Night. He is a sucker for redheads.

DENNIS LEHANE (Advisory Council) is the prize-winning author of the bestselling novels Mystic River and Shutter Island, as well as an immensely popular series of detective novels featuring his characters Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro. He’s also written for the stage (Coronado) and television (The Wire). Somehow he also found time to teach a course at his alma mater, Eckherd College, entitled “Noir in Fiction and Film.” Before becoming a full-time writer, Lehane worked as a counselor with mentally handicapped and abused children.

EDDIE MULLER (Founder and President) is a writer, filmmaker, and noted noir historian. His books include Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir; Dark City Dames: The Wicked Women of Film Noir, and The Art of Noir: Posters and Graphics from the Classic Film Noir Era. He has recorded numerous audio commentaries for DVD reissues of classic noir films. Muller’s crime fiction debut, The Distance was named “Best First Novel” of 2002 by the Private Eye Writers of America. He is co-author of the bestseller Tab Hunter Confidential.

ALAN RODE (Board of Directors) has been a staff writer for Filmmonthly.com, regularly scribes at his One Way Street blog, while contributing vintage DVD commentaries and special features for VCI Entertainment and Fox Home Entertainment. He has performed numerous on-stage commentaries and interviews with film actors, writers and producers at the Palm Springs Film Noir Festival, the Santa Fe Film Noir Festival, the Danger and Despair Film Series in San Francisco, the Sci-fi, Horror and Fantasy Film Festival in Los Angeles, and is an associate producer and guest moderator of the annual NOIR CITY Film Festivals in San Francisco and Los Angeles. As of October 2007, Alan's book, Charles McGraw: Biography of a Film Noir Tough Guy will be available from on-line and commercial book outlets and may also be obtained via his web site.

ABBY STAEBLE (Board of Directors) acts as the Film Noir Foundation Secretary/Treasurer. She has a B.A. in Cinema from San Francisco State University and a paralegal certificate from UCLA Extension. She has served as Legal Affairs Specialist for public television and radio broadcaster KQED for the past five years. Her fascination with the illegal affairs of film noir goes back much further.

LEONARD MALTIN (Advisory Council) is one of the country’s most recognized film critics and historians. He has written many books, and edits the annual paperback reference Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide, along with its companion volume Leonard Maltin’s Classic Movie Guide. He is now in his 25th year with Entertainment Tonight, hosts the weekly show Secret’s Out on ReelzChannel, and introduces movies on DirecTV. He also hosts and co-produces the Walt Disney Treasures DVD series. He teaches at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, and last year was appointed by the Librarian of Congress to the Board of Directors of the National Film Preservation Foundation.

MARSHA HUNT (Advisory Council) Marsha Hunt began her Hollywood career in 1935, signing with Paramount Pictures at the age of 17. Before she turned 20 she had made more than 12 films, costarring with the likes of John Wayne, Robert Cummings, and Jack Benny. By the mid-1940s she was being called Hollywood's youngest character actress, starring in such films as Pride and Prejudice, Flight Command, Blossoms In the Dust, Seven Sweethearts, None Shall Escape, and the 1944 best picture nominee The Human Comedy. Raw Deal, the 1948 crime drama she made with Mann, is considered one of the finest examples of film noir ever produced. Hunt's career was dramatically curtailed by the communist witchhunt of the late 1940s after her name appeared in the infamous periodical Red Channels. While continuing to pursue her acting career on television and the stage, Hunt redirected her attentions to humanitarian causes, working with the United Nations as a global activist. In 2008 she returned to the screen in The Grand Inquisitor, a "noir fairy tale" written and directed by FNF president Eddie Muller.

JOHN KIRK (Advisory Council) is an editor and film preservation specialist, has helped restore many important films, including Kiss Me Deadly, Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and Fellini Satyricon. During that time he lectured on these (and other) projects at universities, film festivals, and cinematheques in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. He serves on the advisory boards of the Film Department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Legacy Project, a joint film preservation of Outfest Los Angeles and the UCLA Film and Television Archive.

KAREN FRANK (Advisory Council) is Director of the Business Department of San Francisco law firm Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin, and a member of the firm’s Intellectual Property Counseling and Transactions group. She has extensive experience in copyright, trademark, right of publicity, Internet, multimedia and publishing law, and frequently speaks on intellectual property for the Practising Law Institute. Karen provides legal counsel for the Film Noir Foundation.

FOSTER HIRSCH (Board of Directors), Professor of Film at Brooklyn College, is the author of sixteen books on film and theatre, including two books on film noir, The Dark Side of the Screen: Film Noir, and Detours and Lost Highways: A Map of Neo-Noir. He is the host of American Film Institute tributes in New York and a frequent guest moderator at a number of venues including the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the British Film Institute. He has recently lectured on film noir in India and China.

ANITA MONGA (Board of Directors) has been involved in film exhibition in the Bay Area for the last 25 years. As Director of Programming at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre she established an internationally-recognized film arts program within the landmark movie palace. A founding member of the Film Noir Foundation, Monga is NOIR CITY’s Programming Director, as well as a consultant to many other festivals. Currently, she programs SIFF Cinema in Seattle.

GREG OLSON (Advisory Council) has been film curator for the Seattle Art Museum since 1976, for the past 28 years programming an annual film noir series—the longest-running noir festival in the the world. His essays have appeared in Film Comment and Japanese Premiere. He’s contributed to Vietnam War Films, Contemporary Literary Criticism, and the Scarecrow Video Moive Guide. His critical biography, The Art Life of David Lynch, will be published in Fall, 2006.