Rodrigo Garcia has directed many award-winning films, including NINE LIVES, MOTHER AND CHILD, THINGS YOU CAN TELL JUST BY LOOKING AT HER, LAST DAYS IN THE DESERT, FOUR GOOD DAYS, and the three-time Academy Award-nominated ALBERT NOBBS. He served as showrunner for season one of IN TREATMENT, receiving a WGA Award. Other TV credits include THE SOPRANOS, SIX FEET UNDER, CARNIVÀLE and BIG LOVE, for which he received an Emmy nomination. He directed the pilot for BULL and is in post-production on the feature film RAYMOND & RAY, starring Ethan Hawke and Ewan McGregor. Garcia is the Co-CEO of Indigenous Media and author of A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes.

Sterlin Harjo is an award-winning Seminole/Muscogee Creek filmmaker who has directed three feature films and a feature documentary, all of which address the contemporary Native American lived experience, set in his home state of Oklahoma. Harjo is a founding member of a five-member Native American comedy group The 1491s and is currently in development on various projects while filming Season Two of the award-winning FX series RESERVATION DOGS, which he created with Taika Waititi. His latest film, a feature documentary titled LOVE AND FURY, chronicles the work and intersection of over a dozen contemporary Native American artists.

Barbara Kopple is a two-time Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker (1976’s HARLAN COUNTY USA and 1990’s AMERICAN DREAM) as well as a nine-time Emmy-nominated filmmaker. Her most recent work, DESERT ONE tells the story of the daring U.S. Special Ops’ mission during the Iranian Hostage Crisis and premiered at 2019 Toronto International Film Festival. Her many other award-winning films include THIS IS EVERYTHING: GIGI GORGEOUS (2017); MISS SHARON JONES! (2015); HOT TYPE:150 YEARS OF THE NATION (2014); RUNNING FROM CRAZY (2013); THE CHICKS: SHUT UP & SING (2014); FALLEN CHAMP: THE UNTOLD STORY OF MIKE TYSON (1993); and WILD MAN BLUES (1998).

Yoruba Richen is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work has been featured on multiple outlets, including Netflix, MSNBC, FX, HBO, Frontline and Field of Vision. Her recent films include AMERICAN RECKONING, the Emmy-nominated HOW IT FEELS TO BE FREE and the Peabody- and Emmy-nominated THE SIT-IN: HARRY BELAFONTE HOSTS THE TONIGHT SHOW, which is streaming on Peacock. Her film THE NEW YORK TIMES PRESENTS: THE KILLING OF BREONNA TAYLOR won an NAACP Image Award and is streaming on Hulu. THE GREEN BOOK: GUIDE TO FREEDOM was broadcasted on the Smithsonian Channel and was also nominated for an Emmy.

Adewale Olukayode is a writer, director, educator and comedian born in Lagos, Nigeria, and raised in New York. He graduated from Columbia University’s MFA program for Screenwriting/Directing in 2021. His films address themes of justice, transformation and healing. His style is influenced by African cinema, which he spoke passionately about at the College de France as a guest lecturer. Adewale won the 2019 Director’s Guild of America student award and has been recognized as a "Writer to watch" at the Austin Film Festival. His latest short film HOME has finished its festival run and is now streaming on Topic and Apple TV+. Olukayode’s current project EAST NEW YORK won the Princess Grace Louis Srybnik Award.

Project Synopsis:

EAST NEW YORK is a feature-length narrative film which chronicles the life of a Nigerian-American boy in his childhood, adolescence, and adulthood in the neighborhood of East New York, as he watches his community change. 

Nirav Bhakta is an award-winning director, actor and writer. While growing up as an undocumented immigrant in motels, Nirav utilized the restraints of his environment and geographical boundaries to create with what he had. Nirav’s background in storytelling extends from architecture to the North Indian classical dance form of Kathak. Due to the lack of authentic roles and experiences as an actor, Nirav began creating zero budget short films focusing on the immigrant experience. His short films have screened on platforms such as HBO, CBS, Disney+Hotstar, Lionsgate Play and a number of festivals such as Outfest and the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.

Project Synopsis:

NINE NIGHTS, inspired by a true story, follows an undocumented Indian-American widowed mother as she takes the relentless journey to reunite with her separated children and reclaim her American dream by smuggling herself through the US/Mexico border.

Erica Nguyen is a grassroots filmmaker and traveler who is motivated to encounter urgent stories and collaborate through mutual self study. Her interdisciplinary background in Sociolinguistics and Ethnography frames her process around how estrangement from our origins manifests in our bodies. A Vietnamese-American raised in California, Erica belongs to the modern diaspora that seeks to transform generational trauma into a reclaimed sense of belonging. Since becoming intimately involved in Peruvian documentary activism, she directed a nonfiction feature titled SHADOW WEAVERS, about the endangered languages transcribed in handmade Peruvian hats. She is currently based in New Mexico, facilitating therapeutic adventure programs for Native communities. 

Project Synopsis:

PHANTOM ROOTS is an experiential road memoir honoring the Vietnamese diaspora, connecting elements of ancestral landscape with acts of remembrance. Serenaded by grandmother’s beloved folk songs, a first generation Vietnamese-American encounters self through her grandfather’s devotion to Buddhist performance. The project is a visual diary of the journey taken by a first generation Vietnamese-American who seeks connection with her heritage. The characters have since departed from this reality; elders who took up their own longing for home. But through the portraiture of places dear to them and lyrical folklore that captivated their imaginations, these ghosts can be known.

Natalie Zimmerman is a Bay Area-based filmmaker and educator whose work has been exhibited worldwide in diverse contexts including: Independent Feature Project, World Affairs Council and Sigmund Freud Museum (Vienna). She is a former Fulbright Scholar, Headlands Center for the Arts Resident Fellow, and Resident Artist at the de Young Museum (SF) where she created Social Dream Lab—an exploration of the collective dynamics of dreaming and social revolution. In 2017, she co-organized a gathering of indigenous and western women engaged in climate change activism called On Fertile Ground: Integrating Perspectives Toward a Collective Future, which was funded by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. 

Project Synopsis:

OCEANIA is a documentary that spans opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean in search of what ties our seemingly fragmented histories, disparate experiences and fates—together. The story is centered on the island nation of Kiribati, which is predicted to be uninhabitable by the year 2030 due to rising sea levels brought by climate change. Intimate narrative threads woven together from both sides of the equator re-orient our relationship to climate science data and facts while inviting us to feel the emotional, social and psychological dimensions of the ecological crisis.

Alex Smith is a screenwriter, filmmaker and educator. He and his twin brother Andrew premiered their latest feature film WALKING OUT at the Sundance Film Festival. WALKING OUT stars Golden Globe winner Matt Bomer, Josh Wiggins, Bill Pullman and Indie Spirit Nominee Lily Gladstone. The film was distributed by IFC Films. The Smith's also wrote, directed and produced WINTER IN THE BLOOD, a feature film based on the landmark First Nations novel. The film, starring Indie Spirit Nominee Chaske Spencer, won numerous awards and screened at the Woodstock Film Festival. They also wrote/directed Sundance darling THE SLAUGHTER RULE, starring Ryan Gosling, David Morse and Amy Adams. 

Alex has written many professional feature film scripts and television pilots for HBO, Warner Brothers, Disney, Sony, FX and more. He adapted the graphic novel SON OF THE GUN by cult filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky for Fox Searchlight. He also adapted a Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel for filmmaker Rodrigo Garcia. Alex has worked with Lars Von Trier, Jodie Foster, Robert Redford, David O. Russell and adapted Anton Chekhov’s THE DUEL for Terrence Malick.

Alex taught Screenwriting and Filmmaking at Columbia University, NYU/Tisch, the University of Tulsa, the University of Montana and the University of Texas, Austin, where he was the Creative Director of the UT Film Institute. He is a mentor for the Sundance Co//ab online program; was a Michener, Sundance and Rauschenberg Fellow; and is a published writer of fiction.

Sabine Hoffman, ACE is a consultant and mentor to filmmakers and organizations such as Firelight Media, IFP, Tribeca Film and the Sundance Institute. She is also a member of AMPAS. After studying Philosophy, Film and Theater in Berlin, she became an editor of numerous award-winning films over the past 20 years. 

Credits include Rebecca Miller’s films THE BALLAD OF JACK AND ROSE, PERSONAL VELOCITY, THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE and MAGGIE'S PLAN, Julie Taymor's THE GLORIAS, Rebecca Hall's PASSING as well as collaborations with Rodney Evans, Kyra Sedgwick, Cherien Dabis, Julius Onah, Richard LaGravenese and Jesse Peretz.

Sabine has also edited several documentary films including the Academy Award-nominated FERRY TALES and served as co-producer on CATCHING THE SUN and CODED BIAS. She recently edited 2 episodes of PACHINKO and is currently working with Rebecca Miller on her upcoming SHE CAME TO ME.