Miguel Angel Caballero is an award-winning Queer Mexican-American/Chicano writer, director, and producer, and the son of Mexican immigrant farmworkers. His latest sci-fi short, The Ballad of Tita and the Machines, executive produced by Lena Waithe, premiered at Tribeca, screened at TIFF (Rising Voices), and won both the Humanitas Prize and the Latinx Award at HollyShorts. His earlier short, Acuitzeramo, acquired by HBO/MAX, won 21 awards, and Broken Sunflower Hearts was named one of the year’s Best Latino Short Films by Remezcla. Miguel is a Film Independent Project Involve and Fast Track Fellow, a Humanitas Prize winner, an Academy Gold Alumni from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences, and one of ISA’s Top 25 Screenwriters to Watch. His feature screenplay Angel in Retrograde was selected for Tribeca’s Untold Stories. He is currently co-adapting a sci-fi novel for TV with Ley Line Entertainment.

Luis Antonio Aldana is an award-winning Queer Chicano writer, actor, and producer, and the co-founder of Cabaldana Alchemy, a company dedicated to telling bold, socially resonant stories from underrepresented communities. As a producer, Luis has shepherded a range of acclaimed narrative projects from development through distribution. His producing credits include the feature Cry Now, Showtime’s The Invitation, and the award-winning shorts Broken Sunflower Hearts and Acuitzeramo—the latter acquired by HBO/MAX and recipient of 21 awards. His most recent project as a writer is the Oscar®-qualified sci-fi short The Ballad of Tita and the Machines, premiered at Tribeca, won the Latinx Award at HollyShorts, and continues its global festival run. Luis is a Film Independent Fast Track Fellow, an Outfest Screenwriting Lab Fellow, a recipient of the Warner Bros. Discovery 150 Artist Grant and the Humanitas Prize, and was named one of ISA’s Top 25 Screenwriters to Watch. With a deep background in theater and a sharp production instinct, he excels at guiding elevated, character-driven stories with commercial reach. He is currently working on a sci-fi television show with Ley Line Entertainment.

From the South Coast of Brazil and based in Los Angeles, Helena Sardinha is a creative producer with her work recognized at festivals such as Sundance, Tribeca, SXSW, and DOC NYC. In 2018, she co-founded Driven Equation, a boutique production company bridging Los Angeles and São Paulo, alongside Rafael Thomaseto. Helena's work has garnered awards at the Humanitas Prize, Outfest, the Imagen Awards, and the UNESCO Award for Awareness and Sustainability. A Sundance Producing Lab and Film Independent fellow, Helena continues to push boundaries with projects like Piratas, supported by the SFFILM Rainin Grant and Angel in Retrograde, a finalist in the AT&T Untold Stories at Tribeca. On streaming, she has Barry and Joan, now on Netflix, and Beautiful, FL, available on Disney+. Her latest feature Satisfaction just premiered at SXSW. Her latest short, Villa Encanto, will premiere at Tribeca this June as part of the inaugural year of the Colectivo Fellowship.

Aliza Gandhi is a screenwriter, producer, comedian, and co-founder of Cherubs Productions. She has a BFA in Dramatic Writing and a minor in Economics from NYU Tisch. After working as a production assistant at The Daily Show and moderating at Tribeca Festival, she is developing her scripts EXposure and Queerdos, wacky explorations of queerness, friendship, and pop culture. As a comic, her material focuses on periods, her deafness, being called a terrorist, but it is for hot girls (you!). Catch her producing shows at venues like Soho Playhouse and Brooklyn Comedy Collective.

Ryan Cunningham (she/her) is a queer writer/director and Emmy & Peabody award-winning producer whose work lives at the intersection of comedy and catharsis. Her feature debut Lone Wolves has picked up multiple Best Film and Best Actor festival awards, and her directing credits include Expecting Amy (HBO Max), Ilana Glazer: The Planet is Burning (Amazon), and Club Cumming Presents a Queer Extravaganza! (Showtime). On stage, she’s directed everything from the hit solo show Sugar Daddy (off-Broadway and London’s Soho Theatre) to Samantha Bee Presents Wits End, a comedy game show. As a producer, her work spans genre and platform, with credits including Broad City, Search Party, Ziwe, and the Tribeca-winning feature Keep the Change. Ryan is the founder of Running Woman. She’s a RISD alum and trustee, co-owner of the NYC post house Running Man, and lives in Brooklyn with her daughter, who is on the autism spectrum and, according to her, funnier than everyone Ryan’s ever worked with. Ryan recently gave a TED Talk on the power of neurodivergent comedy.

Isa Barrett is a New York City-born and raised actress and producer. She graduated magna cum laude from NYU Tisch. She is also an alumna of the acclaimed LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. Isa’s training includes The Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute and the International Experimental Theater Workshop in Amsterdam. She made her Off-Broadway debut at St. Ann’s Warehouse in The Patient Gloria, a New York Times Critic’s Pick. Her television credits include Ramy and Gossip Girl. She co-founded Cherubs Productions, a femme-led independent production company focused on creating genre-bending film and theater.

Ruby Karp has been doing comedy since she was 11 years old, if you can believe. Ruby just starred opposite Charlie Puth in the fully improvised comedy The Charlie Puth Show. She is currently a Digital Coordinator at After Midnight on CBS. She formerly was a Video Producer at Betches, where her videos amassed upwards of 50M+ views. Her live show We Hope You Have Fun has been running since 2012. She published a book, Earth Hates Me, in high school, which she hopes you do not read. She's been featured on JFL, Comedy Central, MTV, and more. Her one-woman show, I Don't Trust Adults, is headed to Soho Playhouse for six weeks in the spring.

James is a self-taught filmmaker. He has directed 11 short films that have won awards at festivals including SXSW, Slamdance, Fantastic Fest, Palm Springs, and Seattle. His latest short, Wrecked a Bunch of Cars, Had a Good Time had its world premiere at TIFF in 2024. His previous film, Deerwoods Deathtrap, premiered at Sundance 2022 and went on to screen at over 30 festivals. In April 2023, it had a theatrical run in 7 cities across the USA. Online, his films collectively have over 500k views, have been selected as Vimeo Staff Picks, and featured on sites like Roger Ebert, Wired, Upworthy, Short of the Week, and NoBudge. As a freelance director, James has created engaging work for The New York Times, Nordstrom, HGTV, and GQ.

Matt is an award-winning creative director and filmmaker. He has worked with dozens of global brands, including Google, Campari Group, GM, Disney, CBS, MSNBC, and Honest Tea, creating compelling advertising campaigns. His work has garnered many of the ad world’s top awards including a Cannes Gold Lion, Clio Awards, One Show Pencils, and a Webby. He has pitched campaigns to Barry Diller, Howard Stern, Mel Karmazin, George Clooney and Matthew McConaughey. He has written, directed, and shot several short films, including Wrecked a Bunch of Cars, Had a Good Time, which premiered at TIFF in 2024; Terrapin; and Smoke Bomb Boys in collaboration with James Gannon, which have shown at several film festivals. Matt holds both a BFA in Graphic Design and a BFA in Photography from Tyler School of Art, Temple University.

GHOST + COW is a directing duo composed of John Carlucci and Brandon LaGanke, whose collaboration is responsible for multiple highly-acclaimed and widely known music videos, shorts, commercials, and branded content. Their first feature film, Drunk Bus, premiered at SXSW in 2020 and won several awards. Some of their work includes L1ZY, a hybrid short/music video made in collaboration with the artist Big Data, which was DIGG’s short of the week and a Vimeo Staff Pick. Drone Boning made world news and garnered the attention of late-night hosts such as Stephen Colbert, Conan O’Brien and Seth Meyers. They also have collaborated multiple times with Funny or Die.

Manya Glassman received her MFA in Film Directing from NYU Tisch in 2024. She uses visual imagery to explore love, family, mortality, and what makes us human. Manya’s upcoming short film, How I Learned to Die, (Executive Produced by Spike Lee) will have its world premiere at Tribeca in June 2025. Her short is currently being developed into a feature-length film, and the script was just selected for NYU’s Purple List (a competition for top production-ready scripts.) Manya’s films have won awards, including New England Best Director (2022) and Audience Pick (2021) at Flickers Rhode Island International Film Festival (Oscar-qualifying). She also received the Spike Lee / Sandra Ifraimova Film Production Grant, Willard T.C. Johnson Fellowship, Rolly Bester Scholarship, and Antonio Cirino Memorial Scholarship, Rhode Island Foundation.

Jocelyn Blockinger is an NY-based producer with experience in production, production management, talent management, and independent film sales. Prior to moving into producing full-time, she spent three years at Cinetic Media working across departments including Management, Sales, and Tracking. She is currently producing the feature adaptation of How I Learned to Die (D/W: Manya Glassman), based on the short film of the same name that made its world premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival.

Wes Andre Goodrich is a Brooklyn-based writer/director. Since graduating from Columbia’s MFA Film Program, he has been on the festival circuit with two shorts: Speak Up Brotha!, a musical romance in the style of ‘90s Black films, and Palm Sunday, a southern gothic film about a Jamaican man attempting to assimilate into an all-white church in 1970s Raleigh, North Carolina. He recently directed a short film, Meal Ticket, for Hillman Grad’s Rising Voices Fellowship, which premiered at Tribeca in June. Wes was selected by Filmmaker Magazine as one of the 2023 “New Faces of Film.”

Patrick Nichols is a creative producer and screenwriter based in Atlanta. He received his Creative Producing MFA at Columbia, where he was a recipient of the 2023 Richard Brick Fund for Special Distinction in Line Producing and the 2021 Michael Hausman/Filmhaus Foundation Award. In 2022, Patrick was a finalist for the PGA’s Debra Hill Fellowship. Over the past five years, he has produced and co-produced over a dozen projects. His narrative short film credits include Palm Sunday, Speak Up Brotha!, Esperance to Fremantle, and Inoculation, which premiered at RiverRun and was supported by the United Arts Council of Raleigh and Wake County and the North Carolina Arts Council. Most recently, Patrick co-wrote and produced Meal Ticket. Currently, Patrick is writing and developing several shows and films, including the narrative feature film Greensville, which he is co-writing with writer/director Andrew Harrell. He is also finishing post-production on the narrative feature film Face of the Earth, which is slated to be released in 2025.

Oscar is a student of the craft of filmmaking. While attending the University of Texas, Oscar practiced his craft outside of class—directing three independent productions, shooting each film himself with his hefty little non-reflex Bolex.Through study, practice, and patience, Oscar taught himself to be a purposeful filmmaker: to use intentional filmmaking to expand upon simple, satisfying stories. Oscar’s goal has always been to make a feature film that he could call his own. With Goodnight, Operator, he’s done just that. A year ago, there were only eight words. Now, there’s a film.

Kate is a filmmaker, screenwriter, and podcast developer whose work blends visual and audio storytelling. A 2024 graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, she was named to the Portland Film Festival’s 2024 Independent Filmmaker list for producing her recent collaboration with director Oscar Labovich, the short film The Trunk (2023). Her love of sound-driven narrative led her to write this feature about a woman who navigates the world by overhearing and analyzing the oral stories around her.

Annalise Lockhart is a writer & director, born and raised in NYC. Her short film, Inheritance, won numerous awards, including Best US Short at Palm Springs Shortfest 2021, the Lionsgate/Starz Award for Best Speculative Fiction at BlackStar, and Best Director: Fantastic Shorts at Fantastic Fest. She was profiled in Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film.” Her short film, Mirasol, produced in conjunction with Fuji Film US, won the Climate Justice Award at BlackStar in 2023. Her feature documentary debut, Beyond Survival, the story of New York’s Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act, is set to premiere in 2025. She has worked extensively as a 1st Assistant Director on projects such as Reservation Dogs (FX), Random Acts of Flyness (HBO), The Assistant, and The Fits. She received her B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing while at Stanford University.

Zachary Shedd is a producer and the founding partner of Feast Studio, an independent production company based in New York, as well as the founding member of the former Flies Collective. He has more than a dozen feature film producing and EP credits to his name, including Jane Schoenbrun's We're All Going to the World's Fair, Aaron Schimberg's Chained for Life, and most recently Haley Elizabeth Anderson's Tendaberry. His films have premiered at Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca, and the Berlinale. He is the producer of Annalise Lockhart's award-winning short Inheritance.

Jessye McGarry is a writer and filmmaker. She is a longtime staff writer at ClickHole, the satirical comedy website, and has contributed jokes to SNL’s Weekend Update. Credits include: The Onion, Reductress, Wondery.

Jessica DiMento is a producer and founder of the production company Analoga LLC, under which she has produced for directors including Alex Ross Perry and Michael Rees. Credits include: Netflix, History Channel.

Anna Baryshnikov is an actress who recently made her starring debut in Idiotka, which premiered at SXSW. Credits include: Love Lies Bleeding, Dickinson, Manchester by the Sea.

Juliana Canfield is an actress who received a 2024 Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her performance in Stereophonic. Credits include: Succession, American Horror Story, On the Rocks.

Mauro Mueller is a Mexican-Swiss filmmaker with an MFA from Columbia. His short A World for Raúl won a Student Academy Award; Dear Chickens, with Philip Baker Hall, was Oscar-qualified. His work has been supported by Tribeca, Sundance, Rotterdam, and Berlinale. He directed three features: The Janitor (2025), A Few Days in the Sun (2025), and 111: Echoes of Halifax (2026). He co-directed the Swiss series Wilder and showruns the sitcom Our Little Embassy. He produced various features, among them Copenhagen (2014); Cosmic Dawn (2022); and the Howard Waldrop segment The Ugly Chickens (2024), alongside George R.R. Martin, currently doing the festival run. A 2022 Sony Pictures Television Diverse Director Fellow, Mauro co-founded Fidelio Films and is an AMPAS member.

David Figueroa García is a Mexican filmmaker. He graduated from CUNY in Classic Literature and has an MFA in film from Columbia. As a director, Ratitas (2012) was the best short film at Brooklyn and FIC Monterrey; his thesis short film Perfidia (2013) was presented at San Sebastián and was the Best Mexican Short Film at Guanajuato. The Janitor, his debut feature as co-director, is currently looking for its festival premiere. His series writing credits include Falco (2018, Amazon), Tijuana (2019, Netflix), Ruido Capital (2020, Movistar Play/HBO Max), Dale Gas (2022, Netflix), and The Head of Joaquín Murrieta (2023, Amazon).

Leslie Holleran was nominated for an Academy Award for producing Chocolat, which earned five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. She had previously co-produced The Cider House Rules (7 Oscar nominations, 2 wins). Her collaborations with Lasse Hallström continued with The Shipping News, An Unfinished Life, Casanova, and The Hoax. She also produced Hanna, starring Cate Blanchett, and the pilot for New Amsterdam. Holleran is currently producing the biopic about Italian cycling champion and WWII resistance hero Gino Bartali, starring Miles Teller and directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin.

Sonja O'Hara is an Emmy-nominated queer writer, director, and actress represented by VERVE and Gotham Group. She was selected as one of Independent Magazine's “10 Filmmakers To Watch.” Sonja created the AMC Shudder limited series Doomsday. Sonja directed back-to-back feature films: Lionsgate's Mid-Century (currently streaming on Peacock) and Root Letter, which is streaming on TUBI. Sonja is currently attached to direct upcoming features for Anonymous Content, Zero Gravity, The Exchange, and MOJO. She has been a Guest Speaker at SeriesFest and SXSW, where she also serves as a Filmmaking Mentor. Sonja's script Cottagecore is currently trending on The Black List, where it was described as "an intoxicating and brilliantly disturbing satire from a tremendously talented author.

Peter Phok is an award-winning film producer behind Ti West’s X, Pearl, Maxxxine trilogy for A24. He has also produced Ti West’s revenge western, In a Valley of Violence, with Blumhouse Productions. In 2012, Phok joined producers Eli Roth and Jacob Jaffke for West’s The Sacrament, which world premiered at Venice and was released through Magnolia. Phok began his career as Associate Producer on West’s first feature, The Roost. Phok has also served as an IFP Narrative Lab Mentor since 2008 and is a Film Independent and Producers Guild of America member.

After spending his childhood in the shadow of the Northern Indiana steel factories, Adam Hoelzel relocated to Los Angeles. He has developed projects for Bad Robot, Atlas Entertainment, and Warner Brothers. Upon signing with UTA and Range Media Partners, he sold his first spec, Beast of Burden, which was shot in Savannah, Georgia, and starred Daniel Radcliffe and Grace Gummer. Adam’s short, Subject 19, was featured on Gunpowder & Sky’s sci-fi channel, DUST, and he will be directing the feature version with XYZ Films and Pulsar. Adam is currently in post-production on his debut feature, Tender, which stars Jesse Garcia and Jess Weixler, which is represented by UTA for sales.

Stavros Petropoulos was born in Zakynthos in 1984. He is a graduate of the Department of Sociology at the University of Crete and the Department of Media and Communications at Goldsmiths College (University of London). In 2013, he founded the production company ALASKA FILMS with Leonidas Konstantarakos. As a director and producer, he has created a variety of audiovisual works, including fiction films, documentaries, and television productions. He has participated in both international and domestic film festivals, earning distinctions and awards.

Leonidas Konstantarakos was born in Athens in 1983. He lives and works in Athens as a director and producer. He studied Film and Television Directing at the L. Stavrakos Film School. After years of experience in various production roles in film and commercial projects, he co-founded Alaska Films in 2013, a creative production company specializing in film, advertising, and audiovisual content. He has produced and/or directed a diverse range of audiovisual works, including feature-length documentaries, short fiction films, commercials, and animated corporate videos. His films have participated in and won awards at various international festivals. He was awarded by ARTWORKS (2022) and is a Fellow of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Support Program, as well as an active member of SAPOE.

Peggy Tserwen Tseng is a Taiwanese filmmaker and producer based in New York City, whose work spans independent film, streaming platforms, and cross-cultural content creation. Her award-winning short film Jade screened at over 15 international festivals, and she is currently in post-production on her debut feature Miss Mermaid, a deeply personal immigrant narrative that successfully raised $20K through crowdfunding. Peggy explores identity, displacement, and the female experience in her storytelling—drawing from her upbringing in Taiwan and life as an Asian woman navigating New York.

Sheng-Ting Shen is a Taiwanese producer and filmmaker based in New York City, working across independent film and commercial media. Her work spans emotionally grounded dramas and bold, genre-driven stories. She’s an alum of the Hong Kong–Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF), the Filmonomics International Lab, and the Bucheon Fantastic Film School.

Eve Van Dyke is an Emmy-winning filmmaker and writer. Starting her career in music videos, she now works across narrative, documentary, and commercial projects. After living in Mexico City as a Fulbright scholar, she moved to NYC to work on documentaries with The New York Times and VICE on HBO, where she won an Emmy in 2019 for Zero Tolerance, a documentary about the family separation crisis on the U.S/Mexico border. In 2024, she completed a mentorship under director Karyn Kusama as part of the DGA Squad program. Her narrative short film Rejectors premiered at Hollyshorts, and Digestif premiered at Austin. Her screenplay Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner was selected as a top-10 unproduced screenplay in 2021. Her other scripted work has been selected for the Gotham TV Series Lab and placed in the Academy Nicholl Fellowship.

Lauren Chen is an independent producer based in New York City. Her company, Black Box Features, is currently in development on several feature films. Chen was previously Director of Production and Development for James Schamus at Symbolic Exchange and worked at Maven Pictures. Other credits include Adam and The Tomorrow Man, both of which world premiered at Sundance 2019. Chen started her career in the entertainment industry as a film and television actor. In 2021, she produced several narrative podcasts with Best Case Studios. Chen has Post-Production Supervised multiple recent projects, including Resurrection, The Last Movie Stars, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer, and We Grown Now. Chen is originally from Princeton, NJ and received her B.A. from Wellesley in English Literature.

Caitlin Bruner is a Los Angeles–based creative producer and strategist with a background in development, production, and festival strategy. She began her career at VICE Media and Sundance before joining WME and Fifth Season, where she supported a slate of independent films through financing and production. She went on to serve as Head of Development at Noah Hawley’s 26 Keys, setting up projects at Apple, Searchlight, and Fox, and later as VP of Development at Fremantle’s Passenger Pictures, where she focused on international co-productions. As an independent producer, she’s drawn to bold, character-driven stories from emerging filmmakers with a fresh point of view.

Jackie! Zhou is non-binary and ageless. They are a Los Angeles-based multidisciplinary artist, director, and sound designer who is keen on blurring the lines between formats and disciplines. Their recent work includes the narrative short Order for Pickup, the music video for Chappell Roan's "HOT TO GO!", and developing their first feature Rumspringa as a 2024 TAAF | Sundance Collab scholar. Their newest short Good Boy Banjo premiered at Baltimore New/Next 2024 and is on its current festival run, including Palm Springs ShortsFest, Dallas International Film Festival, and IFFBoston. They dream of being able to make 50 projects in 50 states (yes, they are a Sufjan Stevens fan). Additionally, they originated the role of Jimmy Chin in Free Solo: The Musical. They identify as a maximalist, and their work is playful and tender. Regardless of format, they strive to champion humans both on and off camera; the making of art is always sweeter shared. Above all, they believe good listeners make great storytellers.

Reef is a Los Angeles-based producer. His projects have screened at world-class film festivals such as SXSW, Tribeca, SIFF, Clermont-Ferrand, Raindance, and AFI. His work has been awarded by the likes of CamerImage, Art Directors Club, YDA, D&AD, UK MVAs, and Cannes Lions. Reef works as a producer at Riley Keough & Gina Gammell’s production company, Felix Culpa, with Academy Award-nominated producer Sacha Ben Harroche on various feature film and television projects. He’s currently in post-production on two documentaries and a feature film.

Brittany Ashley is a Midwestern filmmaker living in LA. Her work often explores messy women on the verge of imploding.

Mary Johnson is a writer, improviser, and sketch comedian originally from San Francisco, now based in Los Angeles. Her work is rooted in improv and fueled by a love of comedy that’s silly, smart, and unexpected. She brings a quick-witted, collaborative spirit to every project, and her background in visual art and design gives her a sharp eye for how stories can translate into distinctive, visually driven worlds.

Lexi Diamond is a writer, director, improviser, and producer from Los Angeles, currently based in the Bay Area. A proud Vassar College alumna, she began her career in theater and new play development, working with acclaimed regional theaters across the country including Trinity Repertory Company, the Brown University/Trinity MFA Program, and Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Lexi’s work now spans creative mediums, from live comedy, theater, film, and animation. She performs and produces comedy weekly in SF and Oakland, develops original work for both stage and screen, produces, and serves as a casting associate at Pixar Animation Studios. She is also a member of the Casting Society of America.

Gbenga Komolafe is a Nigerian filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist currently based in Los Angeles. Gbenga’s work stitches together personal narratives with greater universal motifs to explore the possibilities of a collectively imagined future where queer, black, and marginalized stories are not only seen but celebrated. Gbenga was a recipient of the 2023 SCAD Savannah Grand Jury Award and the 2021 California Art Council Emerging Artist Grant. Their work has been exhibited at The Broad, Felix Art Fair, Tribeca Festival, and most recently, as part of the 2024 Whitney Biennial.

Tee Park is a filmmaker originally from Seoul, currently based in Los Angeles. In 2022, she wrote the short film Tofu as part of the Indeed Hillman Grad Rising Voices program, which premiered at Tribeca. She was a 2023 Sundance Trans Possibilities fellow and a 2024 Sundance TAAF fellow. Her short film Winter Insect Summer Flower screened as part of the 2024 Whitney Biennial. Her feature directorial debut Cece’s Interlude is currently in post-production, which she also wrote and starred in. A USC film school graduate, Park’s work explores unconventional bonds, alienation, and flawed women.

Joanna Leeds. Writer. Actor. Director. From Florida, but tells people she’s from New York. Graduated from Harvard University. Her acting credits include Curb Your Enthusiasm, Good Girls, NCIS, and Superstore. Her writing credits include dozens of scripts she’s never shown anyone due to low self-esteem. Please tell your dog she says hi!

Andrew Leeds has written over 15 pilots for networks including ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, Showtime, and others. Three were produced by NBC. His play wedding bash was produced off-Broadway at 59E59 and is published by Samuel French. As an actor, he has appeared on such shows as Barry, The Patient, Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, Bones, Veep, and The Dropout.

Veronica Reyes-How grew up in Detroit and is a graduate of the University of Michigan with a Mathematics/Finance degree. After working as a technology consultant, Veronica switched careers, landing a role in the national tour of RENT. Acting credits include Blue Bloods, The Blacklist, Person of Interest. She was a 2022 Sesame Street Writing Fellow, previously working as a head writer / EP, developing kids’ TV content focusing on making math fun. She recently created, wrote, and EP'ed Mother, May I Have a Kidney?, which will have its world premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival.

Paul Schnee is originally from Wilmington, Delaware and is a graduate of Kenyon College. After graduating, Paul worked at ICM for agent Sam Cohn, then as assistant to director Mike Nichols. He and Kerry Barden formed Barden / Schnee Casting in 2008. Paul is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the British Film and Television Academy, and the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. He lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife and daughters.

Ewen Wright is an award-winning writer, director, and producer known primarily for narrative work that is comedic in tone and inventive in visual style. His projects have landed at Showtime, FX, Rolling Stone, Spin, Buzzfeed, Vimeo Staff Picks, Canal+, and at festivals around the world. Ewen has received filmmaking awards from USC and UTA, the New Mexico Film Office, The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and numerous film and theater festivals. Ewen is originally from New Mexico and currently lives in Los Angeles.

Gideon Grody-Patinkin is a deeply private extrovert who got addicted to sharing his eccentric parents on social media. Since first capturing their antics during COVID lockdown, he has toured a live show called A Conversation with Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody through theaters across the US, and built this TV show exploring their absurdity, humor, and heart alongside his friend and long time collaborator Ewen Wright. While Gideon's past is shrouded in mystery, acrobatics, and fondue, he looks forward to the future of Seasoned and the increasingly wild scenes he'll guide his parents through. Gideon probably wrote this bio.

Christopher Booker is a special correspondent and producer for PBS NewsHour & PBS Weekend. From music, culture, and the downstream politics of America, he speaks with people about what they do, why they do it, and how they found it. He also teaches at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. In 2023, Booker founded Tree Branch Films, an independent film & television production company based in New York.

Nick Jung Ho Capezzera is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, photographer, and co-founder of Player Piano Productions. In 2020, his directorial debut, Universe premiered at Sheffield and won the IDA Award for Best Music Documentary. Capezzera was most recently a co-producer and cinematographer of Building a Bridge, about a priest’s journey to make the Catholic Church more accepting of the LGBTQ+ community. Executive produced by Martin Scorsese, the film world premiered at Tribeca, had its broadcast premiere on Sundance TV, and is currently streaming on AMC+. In 2024, Nick was awarded the CAAM Documentary Fund Grant for his most personal film yet, The Other Side of Memory.

Born in Shanghai and raised in the Midwest, J. Faye Yuan is a New York-based Chinese American curator, producer, and documentary editor. With support from Tribeca Creators Market, Doha Film Institute, and Women Make Movies, Faye produced and edited her first feature about a maverick Chinese animal activist. The following year, she began producing a first-person essay film about a Korean adoptee’s decade-long search for his birth family, which has garnered support from American Public Television, CAAM, Seoul Film Commission, Korea Film Commission, and NYSCA. She is a 2023 PBS Ignite Creative Voices filmmaker, where she produced and directed for PBS Digital Studios, a 2024 Asian American Documentary Network Impact Fellow, and a 2024 IDA Getting Real Fellow. In addition to filmmaking, she is a curator for the Queens Memory Project and the host of its multilingual podcast about Asian immigrant communities in Queens, NY.

Sam Cullman is a critically acclaimed, award-winning filmmaker and founder of Yellow Cake Films. Sam shot and directed The Lion’s Share, a feature documentary in the Netflix Remastered series, for which he received an Emmy in 2020. Art and Craft (2014), which Sam shot, produced, and directed, was recognized by the National Board of Review as one of the Top 5 Documentaries in 2014, shortlisted for the 2015 Academy Awards, and nominated for an Emmy in 2016. Sam also produced and shot the Peabody and Sundance Grand Jury prize-winning The House I Live In (2012), directed by Eugene Jarecki. Sam’s first film, If a Tree Falls (2011), which he co-directed, produced, and shot, won the U.S. Documentary Editing Award at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival before being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Sam has shot, produced, and directed two short documentaries: Black Cherokee (2012), released in the shorts compilation True New York by First Run, and Our League (2022), distributed by PBS/Independent Lens.

Chris Frierson was nominated for the Albert Maysles New Director Award at the Tribeca Festival for his debut documentary feature Don’t Try to Understand: A Year in the Life of DMX, which was released on HBO in 2021. Chris has also directed Blowin Money Fast (Jigsaw/G-unit), a multi-part documentary series focused on the criminal organization commonly known as the Black Mafia Family (Starz, 2022), and The Legacy of J Dilla, an episode for season three of The New York Times Presents (FX/Hulu, 2023). As a producer, Chris’s doc feature work includes The King (Cannes 2017/Sundance 2018), for which he received both Emmy and Grammy nominations for Best Music Film. In 2019, he created, produced, and hosted the award-winning documentary podcast Freaknik: A Discourse on Paradise Lost, about the storied annual spring break festival in Atlanta.

Caitlyn is a filmmaker born to a long line of Louisiana Cajuns and raised in the American South, who currently splits her time between Brooklyn and New Orleans. She loves complex tales that break the mold and has crafted them in everything from six-second shorts to six-part series. Caitlyn received a Primetime Emmy and an ACE Eddie Award for her editing on The Jinx, HBO’s Peabody Award-winning documentary series. Her recent documentary short The Diamond was acquired by The New Yorker after premiering at Camden, where it won CIFF’s Vimeo Staff Pick Award. Her previous short films have screened at festivals around the world and taken home several jury awards along with a Vimeo Staff Picks' Best of the Year. Other editing projects include the vérité documentary feature When Lambs Become Lions, for which Caitlyn was awarded Best Editing at Tribeca and nominated for an IDA Documentary Award, as well as FX’s documentary series A Wilderness of Error, from Marc Smerling and Errol Morris. The River is Caitlyn’s feature directorial debut.

Sara Archambault is an independent producer who champions films with bold, creative vision that center a practice of equity, care, and collaboration in their creation. Recent producing credits include the Indie Spirits-nominated Riotsville, USA; Truth and Consequences; A Decent Home; and Richland. Her award-winning films have screened in festivals around the world and received support from Sundance, Ford Foundation, SFFILM, Catapult, IDA, Perspective, and the Democracy Fund, among others. Sara was a 2024 Rockwood/JustFilms Fellow, a 2020 Impact Partners Producing Fellow, a 2013 Sundance Creative Producers Lab Fellow, and was named the 2020 SF DocFest Vanguard Awardee. Sara’s professional experience includes her work as Director of the Documentary Film in the Public Interest Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. She lives in Providence, RI and loves going to the movies by herself.

Emma is the director of The School of Canine Massage (SXSW 2024) and the producer of Mistress Dispeller (Venice/Toronto 2024), nominated for three Cinema Eye Honors. She also produced Gotham Award-nominated What We Leave Behind (Netflix / ARRAY Releasing), a New York Times’ “Critic’s Pick.” Named one of DOC NYC's "40 Under 40" and one of Filmmaker Magazine's "25 New Faces of Independent Film," she was a 2023 Sundance Producing Lab Fellow and 2024 JFI Filmmaker in Residence. Her work has been supported by organizations including Anonymous Content, Impact Partners, Ford Foundation, Sundance Institute, and Field of Vision.

Colby wrote the Netflix film Spaceman (Berlinale 2024), and wrote and executive produced In the Blink of an Eye (Searchlight Pictures). He was executive story editor for the upcoming season of Apple TV+’s For All Mankind. Colby wrote, directed, and produced the short film Lead/Follow (Austin Film Festival) and produced Emma D. Miller's short documentary The School of Canine Massage (SXSW 2024).

Florrie began her career at Rise Films, during which time she worked on Mayor, Once Upon a Time in Londongrad, and Emmy-winning George Carlin’s American Dream. She co-produced the BAFTA- and Oscar-nominated All That Breathes, the first film to win the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and Best Documentary at Cannes. She is the producer of Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine’s Middletown (Sundance 2025) and is currently co-producing Toby Bull's Re-Evaluation with Kat Mansoor's Snowstorm Productions.

Rodrigo Olivar is a filmmaker from CDMX, based in Brooklyn for over a decade. For over eight years, Rodrigo was the Head of Video at Remezcla, the leading U.S. Latin digital publisher and lifestyle agency, winning the first ever web latino for a Latino publication and a Super Bowl commercial for a taco truck. His work has earned accolades and nominations from prestigious organizations such as the Webby Awards, ANA Awards, Shorty Awards, and Clio Awards. Rodrigo’s films have screened at major festivals, including New Orleans, NYLFF, and Morelia. His latest project, Thank You, Have a Nice Day, won the MAX Latino Short Film Competition and is currently streaming on MAX.

Brenda is a filmmaker and educator born and raised in Mexico City. Her films mostly focus on transnational stories, spaces, and identities. Brenda is a current Sundance Documentary Producers Lab Fellow, a former BAVC and Rockwood/Just Films Fellow, and was part of the inaugural cohort of DOC NYC’s “New Leaders”. Her work as a producer has been supported by ITVS, Ford Foundation, Redford Center, Sundance Institute, LEF Foundation, DOCS MX, and more. Brenda was recently a producer of Emergent City (Dir. Kelly Anderson/Jay Sterrenberg -PBS/POV), which premiered at Tribeca in 2024. Brenda is also a professor at UCSC and a board member of the Watsonville Film Festival.

Armando is a New York-based Mexican editor with a diverse body of work in both fiction and documentaries. His credits include Straighten Up and Fly Right (Slamdance Unstoppable 2022 winner), Loudmouth (Tribeca 2022 closing gala), The Infiltrators (Sundance NEXT Audience Award), Jay Myself (Oscilloscope), and Netflix’s Out of Many, One. Most recently, he worked on the documentary Stone Mountain, which won DOC NYC in 2024.

Alejandro Mejía is a Mexican-born, Emmy-nominated, and award-winning cinematographer who recently won Best Cinematography in a U.S. Narrative at Tribeca in 2024 for The Knife. He also shot the feature film In the Summers, which won the U.S. Dramatic Competition at Sundance in 2024. In 2020, his work on 499 won the prestigious Golden Frog award at Energa Camerimage. Since 2018, Mejía has been a proud member of the Mexican Society of Cinematographers (AMC) and the ICG. He is based in Brooklyn, NY, and is represented by Innovative Artists and 9AM Cinematography.

Carla Gutiérrez is a documentary filmmaker with over 20 years of experience and multiple Emmy and Oscar nominations. Her directorial debut Frida, about the iconic Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, premiered at Sundance in 2024, where it won the prestigious Jonathan Oppenheim Award for Best Editing. Frida was shortlisted for the Best Documentary Oscar and was nominated for the Critics’ Choice, Cinema Eye, Independent Spirit, NAACP, Imagen, and IDA Awards. Carla’s work as an editor includes the Oscar-nominated films RBG and La Corona. She edited Julia (Telluride, TIFF) and the Netflix Original film Pray Away (Tribeca, Telluride). Her work has received awards at Sundance, Tribeca, Berlinale, Outfest, the National Board of Review Awards, and the DuPont Columbia Awards. Carla has been a creative adviser for the Sundance Edit Lab and is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures and the American Cinema Editors. She received a Master's in Documentary Film from Stanford University.

Kristofer Ríos is an Emmy-winning filmmaker and journalist whose work centers on underrepresented narratives: specifically those obscured, ignored, or forgotten. Most recently, Kristofer was the co-director and co-executive producer of Menudo: Forever Young (HBO Max), a four-part investigative documentary series about the rise and fall of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo. He also produced the Emmy-winning documentary series Science Fair: The Series (National Geographic). Kristofer was a producer with ABC News Nightline, where he worked on longform and documentary features for the nightly news show. He was a lead producer on Asylum (Hulu) for ABC News Documentaries. Kristofer's work has been recognized by the GLAAD Media Awards, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and the Edward R. Murrow Awards. He is a 2023 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and has a Master of Science in Journalism from Columbia.

Katia Maguire is an Emmy-nominated documentary producer and director. Most recently, she produced Frida, the 2024 Sundance award-winning documentary that was short-listed for the Best Documentary Oscar and nominated for multiple awards, including three Emmys. She was the post-production supervisor on the theatrical hit documentary RBG, which was nominated for an Oscar in 2019. Her longtime association with public television includes co-directing the PBS film Home Truth; producing the feature documentaries Kingdom of Shadows and The Graduates/Los Graduados; and serving as a senior associate producer on the documentary series Women, War & Peace. Katia produced for veteran journalist Bill Moyers on several of his weekly public affairs television programs and podcasts. She was an associate producer on Quest for Honor, a documentary that was shortlisted for the 2010 Academy Awards. She began her career at PBS' award-winning documentary series American Masters. She lives in New Jersey and is a mom of two.

Will Thwaites is a documentary filmmaker based in Brooklyn, NY. He's worked on projects for Netflix, Amazon, National Geographic, and PBS. Will was a producer on two acclaimed Netflix series: Full Swing and My Next Guest with David Letterman. He started his career at Kartemquin Films (Oscar-nominated producers of Minding the Gap and Hoop Dreams), where he worked on the Emmy Award-winning film The Homestretch.

Lerone D. Wilson is an award-winning filmmaker, technologist, and software developer with a B.F.A from NYU Tisch, and an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia, where he was a Joseph Pulitzer III Fellow. Founder of Boondoggle Media, Wilson has produced and directed several documentaries for PBS and public television, including Colored Frames - A Visual Art Documentary; Startup America; Concert for Newtown (Bill Moyers Special); and No Child Left Behind. He was the co-editor and developer of Blackline, a critically-acclaimed interactive magazine (the first to run on HTML5) and has worked as a consultant for several software companies. He also has served as a technical consultant/developer for the National Black Programming Consortium (Black Public Media).

Andrea Mustain is a producer, journalist, and editor who specializes in long-form video and audio. She has produced work for WNYC, Marketplace, PRX, and PBS, among others, and her written stories appear in print and on the web, from Scientific American to the Christian Science Monitor. Andrea has a B.S. from Northwestern University in theater and Russian language and literature, and an M.S. from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, where she has subsequently taught writing and reporting. She was most recently the host and executive producer of Raw Data, a STEM podcast focusing on how information becomes power.

Jason Zeldes is a documentary director and editor. He edited the 2013 Academy Award-winning film Twenty Feet From Stardom, earning him an ACE Award. In 2015, Zeldes made his feature directorial debut, Romeo is Bleeding, which won the top prize at over 20 festivals. Zeldes has directed acclaimed docuseries such as Ugly Delicious, Abstract: The Art of Design, Song Exploder, Watch the Sound, What’s Next: The Future with Bill Gates, and most recently SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night for NBC and Peacock. Luna Luna is Zeldes' second feature documentary.

Nora is a documentary producer and SVP of Development for Tremolo Productions, a production services company led by filmmaker Morgan Neville. In her 6 years with Tremolo she has helped bring acclaimed documentary features and series to the screen, including Luna Luna (2025), Forever We Are Young (2025), Piece By Piece (2024), What’s Next: The Future With Bill Gates (2024), Hack Your Health: The Secrets of your Gut (2024), Mickey: The Story of a Mouse (2022), Watch The Sound: With Mark Ronson (2021), and Miss Americana (2020).

Emily Kunstler & Sarah Kunstler run Off Center Media, a production company that produces documentaries exposing racism and other injustices in the criminal legal system. The sisters founded Off Center Media in 2000, and have produced and directed many short documentaries that have contributed to campaigns to stay executions, convinced decision makers to reopen cases, and exonerated the wrongfully convicted. Their film William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe (Sundance '09, POV/PBS) was shortlisted for the Best Documentary Academy Award. In 2021, the sisters co-directed Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America (SXSW), which was acquired by Sony Pictures Classics and was theatrically released in over 250 cities. In 2023, they co-directed How to Rig An Election: The Racist History of the 1876 Presidential Contest (SXSW), an animated documentary short narrated by Tom Hanks that was released nationally by The Washington Post.

Jeffery Robinson is the founder and chief executive officer of The Who We Are Project, which aims to be one of the central voices in correcting the narrative on our shared history of anti-Black racism in the United States. Since graduating from Harvard Law School in 1981, Jeffery has over four decades of experience working on criminal and racial justice issues. Jeffery is a nationally recognized trial attorney and respected teacher of trial advocacy. He is a faculty member of the National Criminal Defense College and has lectured on trial skills all over the United States. He is a past president of the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and both a past member of the board of directors and a life member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Jeffery is also an elected fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. One of Jeffery’s groundbreaking presentations forms the basis of the feature-length documentary, Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America.

Diana Cherry is a writer, producer, and activist. She's written for Hello Darling, The Creative Mama, Seattle’s Child; produced and marketed video and podcast content for Munchkin’s brand Milkmakers; and was a trending editor and marketing specialist for the Seattle-based parenting magazine, ParentMap. Diana started her career as a college administrator, building “Safe Zone” and other DEI training and curricula with an emphasis on social justice work at California Lutheran University. She now combines her education and career experience in these various fields as a content researcher, writer, and producer for The Who We Are Project.

Jen Maylack’s recent work includes producing the docuseries The Price of Milk, premiering at Tribeca 2025, and co-producing projects like Netflix’s Britney Vs Spears and Amazon’s Desperately Seeking Soulmate: Escaping Twin Flames Universe.

Nicholas Bruckman is an Emmy-nominated director and CEO of People's Television, a New York and DC-based production company that produces features, TV, and branded content. He previously directed Not Going Quietly (Hulu) and Minted (Netflix), and the upcoming docuseries The Price of Milk (Tribeca 2025), produced by People’s TV and XTR. He also produced the narrative feature Valley of Saints, which won the Sundance Audience Award.

Yoni Brook is a Peabody Award-winning filmmaker who co-created, co-directed, and lensed the docuseries Philly D.A. (Sundance/PBS Independent Lens/Topic/ BBC Storyville), called “the second coming of The Wire in docuseries form” by New York Magazine. Other producing/DoP credits include Holding Liat (Tribeca 2025, Berlinale Documentary Award).

James Doolittle has helped guide innovative commercial, documentary, and children’s programming for the likes of PBS, Google, NBCUniversal, and The Huffington Post, among others. Doolittle continues sprinkling his producing chops against streaming series such as Worn Stories and In the Valley of Sin, along with Sundance faves Philly D.A. and 32 Sounds.

The author of four books, Josh Tickell has worked on environmental issues for over 20 years. His career spans a unique mixture of science, political activism, investigative journalism, and filmmaking. His directorial debut, FUEL, is the 2008 Sundance Audience Award-winning documentary that investigates the possible replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy. For his rescue mission in the aftermath of the Katrina hurricane in Louisiana, Tickell’s nonprofit organization was selected by President Bill Clinton as an inaugural part of his Global Initiative on Climate Change. As a film director, he has worked with actors such as David Arquette, Woody Harrelson, Amy Smart, Michelle Rodriguez and Peter Fonda, Pierce Brosnan, and Dan Aykroyd. Tickell holds an MFA in film from Florida State University. He is a regular guest on talk shows and gives keynote presentations internationally on sustainability, millennials, and filmmaking.

Fair Worlds is a creative agency specializing in the development of immersive experiences, spatial content, and publishing. Primary offices are located in Seattle, WA and Austin, TX, with an extended team of talented artists and developers distributed throughout the United States.

Jazmine (JT) Green is an audio documentarian by trade and artist by practice. She is the founder of Molten Heart, a duPont-Columbia award-winning creative and commercial studio focused on the texture of sound. Molten Heart’s collaborators include The Met, Stitcher Studios, and Audible. Her practice explores the spiritual qualities of improvisation, the convergence of technology and the human body, and the intersection of gender and race through visual, performance, and sound art. She writes and produces electronic music as CMD+JAZMINE. Her projects and performances have been exhibited at The University of Chicago and ICU VCA, received recognition such as the 2021 Third Coast Award for Best Documentary Short, and featured at festivals such as On Air and RESONATE.

Tania Mohammad is a Karachi-born storyteller and global citizen who grew up in Canada, the U.S., and Saudi Arabia but now calls New York home. Tania was most recently the host and producer of Undiscarded: Stories of New York, a collaboration with The City Reliquary Museum in Brooklyn and CitizenRacecar. The podcast garnered critical acclaim, winning a Signal Award, an Anthem Award Silver, and a Webby nomination (2024). Her past shows include Act Two New York, which celebrated New York's arts revival post-pandemic, and The Big Shut-In. Her work focuses on the intersections of place, history, and culture. She is currently producing a few episodes on the new season of Mobilize (from Silver Sound) and developing Juneteenth-themed shorts for Cincinnati Public Radio with Urbanist Media.

Shahjehan Khan is a Pakistani-American actor, musician, and media professional from Boston. An Ambie and Webby-nominated podcaster (King of the World), Earphones-Award-winning narrator (Audible, PenguinRandomHouse, Macmillan), his first TV appearance was on Succession (HBO). You can now watch him on Deli Boys (Hulu) and Aftermath (Netflix). He co-founded American Desi-punk rock legends The Kominas and currently plays with RAVI SHAVI, SONNY SINGH, and GOD$.

Yowei is an award-winning podcast producer, host, and emotional investigative journalist™️. She's the creator of Proxy, a podcast that investigates niche emotional conundrums through conversations with strangers who have relevant experience. In her previous life, she spent many years making the NPR Invisibilia podcast, first as producer and eventually as co-host & editorial lead. Her work has also been featured in places like This American Life and Pop Up Magazine. In her spare time, she makes fan art of her friends and dabbles in bodywork, mostly to get to say "Yowei Shpa."