Zayd Ayers Dohrn is a writer, professor, and director of the MFA in Writing for Screen and Stage in the Department of Radio/Television/Film at Northwestern University. He is creator and host of the original documentary podcast Mother Country Radicals, which won the Audio Storytelling category at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival. Dohrn’s plays include The Profane (Playwrights Horizons), Outside People (The Vineyard/Naked Angels), Want (Steppenwolf First Look) and Reborning (The Public / Summer Play Festival). https://communication.northwestern.edu/faculty/zayd-dohrn.html
|
Donald Conley is a producer of scripted & unscripted stories whose work revolves around themes of influence, rehabilitation & ties that bind. Donald has produced documentaries that have been distributed by Netflix, PBS, and HBOMax among others. He is the Co-Producer of Racquet, a series of four mini documentaries based on articles published by Racquet Magazine. Executive produced by Topic, Racquet Shorts opened at the 2019 Whitney Museum Biennial. In 2021, Donald produced Change the Name, a documentary short selected for Tribeca Studios' Queen Collective program & distributed by BET Networks. Donald is also the Associate Producer of HBOMax's Atlas of the Heart with Brené Brown. Donald's most recent directorial effort, Matriarch, premiered at the 58th Annual Chicago International Film Festival in 2022 and will screen as part of the Doc Chicago Short Film Showcase at the Gene Siskel Film Center on Nov 5. https://www.donaldconley.com/
|
Rubin Daniels Jr. is a freelance editor based in Chicago, IL. He holds a B.S. in Communications from the University of North Florida, as well as an M.S. in Cinema Production from DePaul University. Most recently, Rubin was an editor on Philly D.A., a PBS eight-part doc series, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2021.The documentary, Unapologetic was Rubin's first a feature-length film as the lead editor. He has also worked with Kartemquin Films as an assistant/associate editor on City So Real, a National Geographic series directed by Steve James. As well as working on the Steve James series America to Me, both premiering at Sundance Film Festival. In 2015, he served as an editor for Standing on Common Ground: New Orleans Ten Years Later. The short won a 2016 Midwest Emmy.
|
Ryan Gleeson is a documentary filmmaker based in Chicago and has spent the last twelve years helping craft stories about people in and around the Midwest. He served as additional editor on Atlanta Documentary Film Fest’s Jury Award winning Raising Bertie and post-production supervisor on Oscar-nominated films Minding the Gap, Abacus, Edith + Eddie. He works as a freelance editor, producer, and serves as Post-Production Supervisor for the Sundance Documentary Edit + Story Lab. He is currently directing a feature film about the Y2K crisis and would love to talk to you about his favorite fruit, tomatoes
|
Matt Lauterbach is a documentary filmmaker and editor, an educational media developer, and an advocate for accessible media. He crafts engaging non-fiction content for classrooms, museums, and the big screen. Matt served as Post Production Manager (2012-2014) at Kartemquin Films during two of the most productive years in the organization’s 50-year history. As an editor, he has shaped over a dozen documentaries, including: American Arab (2013, America ReFramed); The Trials of Muhammad Ali (2014, Independent Lens); Saving Mes Aynak (2014); There Are Jews Here (2016, America ReFramed); Unbroken Glass (2016, America ReFramed); ’63 Boycott (2017, WORLD Channel); Look Away, Look Away (2021); and For the Left Hand (2021). He recently founded All Senses Go, an initiative that empowers filmmakers to create barrier-free media with captions, audio description, and accessible websites and screenings. https://www.matt-lauterbach.com/
|
Cindy Martin is an award-winning Filipina-American Documentary Filmmaker from Chicago committed to enhancing voices from underrepresented communities, with a focus on BIPOC and women's stories. In 2022, she was named a Diverse Voices in Docs Fellow at Kartemquin and a CNN/Film Independent Fellow. She lived and worked in London and Los Angeles for over 20 years as a Broadcast Journalist with Reuters, AP, Getty Images, ABC News, Sky News, CGTN and AJ+. She graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a degree in Broadcast Journalism, specializing in Psychology and Politics. She is a member of the Sundance Institute, Asian-American Documentary Network (A-Doc), Mezcla Media Collective and Doc Chicago. She holds dual US and UK nationality and is currently directing her first feature documentary. https://www.kinghorsefilms.com
|
Paloma Martinez is an award-winning documentary director and editor, who began her storytelling career as a labor organizer in her native Houston, Texas. With her films, she hopes to empower communities and spark dialogue. In 2018, Paloma was named one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker. Her short documentaries have been broadcast nationally on PBS, featured in The Guardian, The New York Times Op-Docs, and The Atlantic and screened at leading festivals including Hot Docs, AFI Docs, Doc NYC, and San Francisco International Film Festival, winning multiple awards. https://www.palomamartinezfilm.com/
|
Judith McCray is a multiple Emmy award-winning broadcast journalist, documentary filmmaker and media activist with over 30 years in television and media production. She has worked for public broadcasting stations WNET/New York, WTTW/Chicago, WBEZ/Chicago, WYCC/Chicago, and more. Through her company Juneteenth Productions, Judith has long embraced using media as a vehicle to examine social justice issues and advocate social change. Judith is currently the Senior Professional in Residence in DePaul University’s journalism program.
|
Will Miller – I’m a documentary filmmaker and co-founder of Documist, a production company based in NYC and Toronto. My work mostly focuses on environmental conflict, migration, and human rights. I’ve worked in over 30 countries and speak English and Spanish fluently, as well as Portuguese and French conversationally. The first feature film I produced, The Territory (dir. Alex Pritz), premiered at Sundance 2022, where it won two awards and was sold to National Geographic Documentary Films. Before that, I worked primarily on short films and digital features, winning dozens of awards including an Emmy (three nominations and one win), as well as a Canadian Screen Awards nomination. My work has been published by the New York Times, The Guardian, National Geographic, the Economist, the New Yorker, CNN, NBC, and the BBC. I have also worked extensively for commercial and NGO clients around the world. https://www.willnmiller.com/about
|
Dinesh Sabu is an independent documentary filmmaker. His feature and short work has appeared on PBS, HBO, and at film festivals around the world. Dinesh co-produced his feature directorial debut "Unbroken Glass" with Chicago's Kartemquin Films and it was broadcast on the 5th season of PBS’ America ReFramed in 2017 alongside dozens of festival and community screenings. Dinesh teaches documentary production as Assistant Professor of Digital Media at Marquette University. Dinesh’ short documentary Srkana (The Stop) will screen as part of the Doc Chicago Short Film Showcase at the Gene Siskel Film Center on Nov 5.
|
Risé Sanders-Weir is a documentary producer, director and writer. She produced America to Me for Kartemquin Films, which premiered at Sundance. She has directed documentaries for PBS, History, National Geographic, CNBC, A&E, MSNBC, The Weather Channel, and others. Her work has been recognized with Cinema Eye, Hugo and Telly awards. She has also received nominations for Emmy and NAACP Image awards. As Director of Production and Post for Kartemquin Films she worked with filmmakers to utilize fair use and shepherded more than 10 films to completion, including two Oscar-nominated films. Her independent directorial debut Gadget Girls was selected for the U.S. State Department’s American Film Showcase and has been screened around the world. https://www.bivouacfilms.com/
|
Jiayan "Jenny" Shi is an Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker and video journalist who is passionate about stories that find shared humanity and compassion. Her debut documentary "Finding Yingying" (MTV Documentary Films) has won numerous awards including the Special Jury Recognition for Breakthrough Voice at the 2020 SXSW Film Festival and a China Academy Award of Documentary Films, and was nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy award. Jenny's work has appeared on Paramount +, MTV, BBC News, PBS NewsHour, and Insider. She has also contributed to work on Netflix, Discovery Channel, Tencent, and Google, among others. Jenny is a Kartemquin's Diverse Voices In Docs fellow, a Women at Sundance Adobe fellow, a Logan Nonfiction Program fellow, and a DOC NYC "40 Under 40" filmmaker. https://jiayanjennyshi.myportfolio.com/
|
Leslie Simmer is an award-winning documentary editor and Director of Editing as well as Senior Editor on staff at Kartemquin Films in Chicago. Along with Gordon Quinn, she directed the documentary For the Left Hand which premiered in 2021. Most recently she has been an editor on My Love (Netflix, 2021, the US episode), Principals of Pleasure (Netflix, 2022, Episode 3), The First Step (2021), and America to Me (Starz, 2018). Other projects included Raising Bertie, which she edited and co-wrote, and which premiered at Full Frame in 2016 and screened on POV in 2017. Leslie edited and co-wrote the Emmy Award-winning film, The Homestretch, which premiered at Hot Docs 2014 and screened on PBS’s Independent Lens in 2015. https://kartemquin.com/about/leslie-simmer
|
Ines Sommer is a filmmaker, film programmer, and educator, who has directed character-driven documentaries alongside essay films and experimental projects. She is drawn to stories about humans and nature, politics, and history. Her directing credits include the MacArthur Foundation-supported grassroots democracy doc “Count Me In" and the award-winning “Seasons of Change on Henry's Farm,” about the impact of climate change on a sustainable Midwest family farm. Ines advocates for regional filmmakers and has long organized public programs, including film series, festivals, and conferences. Ines founded Doc Chicago in 2019 and teaches fulltime at Northwestern University, where she serves as Associate Director of the MFA in Documentary Media program. http://www.inessommer.com/
|
Susanne Suffredin is an editor and independent filmmaker whose 30 + year career spans non-fiction, scripted and commercial genres with a keen emphasis on long form documentaries. Her work has screened at major festivals around the world including Sundance, Cannes, Venice, Tokyo, Chicago International Film Festival and the San Francisco International Film Festival to name a few. An associate of Kartemquin Films, Susanne was post-production supervisor of “Hoop Dreams,” among her many other credits with the famed production house. Susanne’s association with the award-winning Kindling Group includes “@home” as director and editor which broadcast nationally on PBS in 2015. Her prior work includes the landmark series “The Calling” which she co-produced and edited for PBS’s Independent Lens. She was named one of Chicago Film’s 50 Screen Gems by Newcity Magazine in 2017. She is a Senior Professional Lecturer and Co-Chair of the Documentary Program at DePaul University’s School of Cinematic Arts.
|