Nilima Abrams is a documentary filmmaker and social entrepreneur with extensive experience in India. As an undergraduate she integrated self-taught documentary filmmaking with coursework, and wrote an award-winning honors thesis on schools and media in India. She also made a film on child labor prevention in India, and went on to complete an MFA in documentary film at Stanford. She has taught kids filmmaking in India, as well as native Vermont and Somali refugee youth, in a summer camp she co-created. Nilima received a Fulbright Fellowship to spend a year in India filming for a feature film and guiding students on THE TENT VILLAGE. Nilima teaches social issue and cause marketing documentary film courses at the University of Vermont. Besides filmmaking, Nilima works in various media to make “good causes” accessible.

Ludovic Bonleux has directed five documentaries about violence and politics in Mexico. Guerrero (2017) was shown and awarded in various festivals all over the world and received the Diosa de Plata for best documentary from the Association of Mexican cinema critics (PECIME). His short documentary Why kill them? (2018) has been selected to Morelia and Toulouse Film festivals, among others. Ludovic is a grantee from the Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte FONCA 2019-2022 (Mexico) and the SUNDANCE Institute (USA). He was also part of BERLINALE Talent 2018 (Germany). He studied a History license at Bordeaux 3 University and a master in documentary filming at Paris 7 University (France).

Jacob Bricca is an award-winning Tucson-based documentary editor, director, and teacher. He has edited over a dozen feature films including the international theatrical hit LOST IN LA MANCHA, the New Yorker Films theatrical release CON ARTIST, the Independent Lens Audience Award Winner JIMMY SCOTT: IF YOU ONLY KNEW and the 2016 Sundance Special Jury Award Winner THE BAD KIDS. His directorial credits include INDIES UNDER FIRE: THE BATTLE FOR THE AMERICAN BOOKSTORE, which won awards at the Newburyport Documentary Festival and the Santa Cruz Film Festival, PURE, which premiered at the 2009 Berlin International Film Festival, and FINDING TATANKA which premiered at the 2014 Big Sky Documentary Film Festival and is distributed by Passion River Films. He is an Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona’s School of Theatre, Film and Television, where he teaches classes on editing and documentary filmmaking. He is the author of Documentary Editing: Principles and Practice (Focal Press/Routledge, 2017).

Jean Carlomusto is a filmmaker, activist, and interactive media artist whose work explores the complex nature of unique individuals and marginalized populations. Her films are often unorthodox investigations of LGBT history and HIV/AIDS. Her work has been exhibited internationally in festivals, museums and on television. She produced and directed HBO’s Emmy nominated documentary, LARRY KRAMER IN LOVE & ANGER (2015), which was featured at the Sundance Film Festival.

Jean was an early pioneer in the AIDS Activist video movement. In 1987, she started the Media Unit at Gay Men’s Health Crisis. She was a founding member of DIVA TV (a video affinity group of ACT UP) and a member of the Testing The Limits Video Collective. The numerous works that she collaborated on, included: Doctors, Liars and Women: AIDS Activists Say No To Cosmo, Target City Hall, Seize Control of the FDA, Testing the Limits:NYC, and Women and AIDS. Her powerful documentary SEX IN AN EPIDEMIC tells the story of how the safer sex movement was born and how HIV prevention movements continue today. The film premiered on Showtime on World AIDS Day, 2011.

Her 1991 film L is for the Way You Look was featured in the very first season of Lesbian Looks, in Fall 1993.

Matthew Cassel is an independent multimedia journalist and filmmaker based in Istanbul. He spent five years covering the Arab world with the Al Jazeera network. His 2013 award-winning film for AJE, IDENTITY AND EXILE: AN AMERICAN’S STRUGGLE WITH ZIONISM, focuses on his personal journey from his hometown Chicago to the Middle East, where he has lived for the past decade. Cassel is co-editor of Diaries of an Unfinished Revolution: Voices from Tunis to Damascus (Penguin, 2013), a collection of essays on the 2011 uprisings by writers from across the Arab world. Cassel speaks fluent Arabic and has spent much of the past two years focusing on the plight of refugees seeking asylum in the EU.

»Interview with Matthew Cassel

»Interview with filmmaker Matthew Cassel re making of The Journey

Heather Courtney is a Guggenheim fellow and an Emmy-winning filmmaker. Her film WHERE SOLDIERS COME FROM, won an Emmy, an Independent Spirit Award, and a SXSW Jury Award. The film received positive reviews from the New York Times and the Washington Post, and was broadcast nationally on the PBS program POV. It made several Top 10 films of 2011 lists, including Salon’s Best Non-fiction, and was supported by many grants and fellowships including from ITVS, the Sundance Documentary Fund, the United States Artists Fellowship, and POV/American Documentary. Heather was also a fellow at the Sundance Edit and Story Lab. She has directed and produced several other documentary films including award-winners LETTERS FROM THE OTHER SIDE and LOS TRABAJADORES/THE WORKERS, which both focused on immigration issues, and were broadcast nationally on PBS. She has been funded by ITVS, the Sundance Documentary Fund, the Ford Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, Latino Public Broadcasting, and the Austin Film Society, as well as a Fulbright Fellowship and an International Documentary Association award. Courtney’s film THE UNAFRAID (2018) co-directed with Anayansi Prado, received the Kathleen Bryan Edwards award for Human Rights at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, and was the closing night film of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York.

Brazilian-American filmmaker Luisa Dantas has worked on a wide array of documentary and fiction projects at the intersection of storytelling and social justice. Her most recent work, LAND OF OPPORTUNITY, chronicles the reconstruction of New Orleans through the eyes of those on the frontlines and asks the question: what kinds of cities do we want to (re)build in the 21st century? The transmedia project includes an award-winning feature film and groundbreaking interactive web platform produced in conjunction with a spectrum of national and local partners in six cities. Luisa also co-produced the acclaimed documentary, WAL-MART: THE HIGH COST OF LOW PRICE, and directed and produced the web-series VOICES FROM THE GULF for Color of Change. She teaches screenwriting and documentary filmmaking at Tulane University. Luisa received her B.A. in English and Latin American studies from Brown University and an M.F.A. in Film from Columbia University.

Luisa is a Venezuelan filmmaker based in NYC with over 35 years of experience. She worked on films such as Taita Boves, El Enemigo, Al borde de la línea and Plan B. She was also an AD in international films such as: Arachnophobia (Amblin/Walt Disney Productions, 1989); Tom Shadyac’s Dragonfly (ShadyAcres & Universal Films, 2001); Bayley Silleck’s Lost Worlds (IMAX Films, Primesco); and in many Venezuelan films, such as: Azul y no tan rosa, by Miguel Ferrari (Goya Award, 2012); Tres bellezas (2015); Ellipsis (2006); Una vida y dos mandados, by Alberto Arvelo (1995); and by Alberto Arvelo (1995); and Oriana, by Fina Torres (Cannes Award, 1984).

Paco de Onís is the Executive Director at Skylight, a human rights media organization dedicated to strengthening social justice movements through cinematic storytelling and catalyzing collaborative networks of artists and activists.

In 2011 he produced GRANITO: HOW TO NAIL A DICTATOR (world premiere at Sundance 2011), a documentary detective story focused on the role of filmic and archival documentation in the prosecution of a genocide case against Guatemalan generals, and launched GRANITO: EVERY MEMORY MATTERS, a companion mixed media project developed to restore the collective memory of the Guatemalan genocide. One year after the release of GRANITO: HOW TO NAIL A DICTATOR, the dictator of the title was charged with genocide and put on trial in Guatemala.

Skylight’s 2017 film 500 YEARS chronicles Guatemala’s recent history through the perspective of the indigenous Mayan population. Paco also served as the producer on THE RECKONING: THE BATTLE FOR THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT (world premiere Sundance 2009), a documentary accompanied by IJ Central, an interactive audience engagement initiative promoting global rule of law, developed at the BAVC Producerʼs Institute in 2008. Prior to that, he produced STATE OF FEAR, a Skylight Pictures film about Peruʼs 20-year “war on terror” based on the findings of the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Prior to his work at Skylight he produced documentaries for PBS (ON OUR OWN TERMS with Bill Moyers), National Geographic (SECRETS FROM THE GRAVE), and a range of other programs.

Skylight’s 2024 release BORDERLAND brings the saga of their Guatemala trilogy–WHEN THE MOUNTAINS TREMBLE (1983), GRANITO (2011), and 500 YEARS (2017)–full circle back to the U.S., from the impact of U.S. foreign policy that backed brutal regimes leading to the root causes of migration, to the present situation of mass migration from Central America.

Luchina Fisher is an award-winning director, writer and producer who works at the intersection of race, gender and identity. She is the founder and CEO of Little Light Productions. Her feature directorial debut MAMA GLORIA, about Chicago trans icon activist Gloria Allen, was nominated for a 2022 GLAAD Media Award. The film premiered at the Chicago International Film Festival and BFI Flare London; won numerous jury awards; and made its broadcast debut on World channel and PBS. Her short documentary Team Dream, executive produced by Queen Latifah, won the Audience Choice Award at the 2022 Chicago International Film Festival and Best Documentary Film at the 2022 TIDE Film Festival, qualified for Oscar consideration, and will air on BET. She recently co-directed her second feature about the barriers to Black homeownership, and her new documentary short THE DADS, about six dads of trans and LGBTQ kids on a weekend fishing trip, premiered at SXSW 2023.

Previously, Luchina co-executive produced and co-wrote the critically acclaimed feature documentary BIRTHRIGHT: A WAR STORY, about the war on women’s reproductive health. It appeared in more than 70 theaters nationwide, qualified for Oscar consideration and streamed on Hulu. She has written and produced several nationally broadcast documentaries, including The American Presidency, with Bill Clinton. Her work has appeared on History, A&E, ESPN, ABC and Discovery and has been supported by Black Public Media, the Field Foundation, Firelight Media, National Endowment for the Humanities, Athena Film Festival, Brown Girl Doc Mafia, Sisters in Cinema, and the Queen Collective. Luchina is based in the New York City area and teaches documentary filmmaking at Yale.

Estelle Freedman (Co-Director / Producer), the Edgar E. Robinson Professor in U.S. History (Emerit) at Stanford University, has published ten books, including No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women; the multiple award-winning Redefining Rape: Sexual Violence in the Era of Suffrage and Segregation; and, with John D’Emilio, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America. She has taught courses on U.S. women’s history and “Social Movements through Song.” Freedman has held grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, where she is currently a Faculty Fellow. She has been a historical consultant on films such as ISADORA DUNCAN, COMMON THREADS: STORIES FROM THE QUILT, and THE CELLULOID CLOSET. Freedman knew Faith Petric for over twenty-five years through the S.F. Folk Music Club and conducted both an extensive oral history (1993) and a StoryCorps interview (2008) with her.

Jen Gilomen is an award-winning documentary producer, director, and cinematographer who has created nationally and internationally distributed films, including Life on the Line (PBS, 2014), In My Shoes (Frameline, 2005), and Deep Down (Independent Lens, 2010), which was funded by ITVS and MacArthur Foundation, participated in the U.S. State Department’s American Documentary Showcase, and received an Emmy nomination in 2011. In 2015-16, Jen was a Supervising Producer and programmer at ITVS, where she oversaw a portfolio of over fifteen feature documentaries. She is a Member-Owner of New Day Films, a former board member of Working Films, and an Associate of the U.C. Berkeley Investigative Reporting Program.

Rick Goldsmith is a two-time Academy Award nominee. His 2009 film THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA: DANIEL ELLSBERG AND THE PENTAGON PAPERS (co-produced/co-directed with Judith Ehrlich), nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, tells the story of a leading Pentagon strategist whose daring act of conscience leads directly to Watergate and the end of the war in Vietnam. TELL THE TRUTH AND RUN: GEORGE SELDES AND THE AMERICAN PRESS, also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, chronicles the life of a pioneering muckraking journalist and press critic. It was broadcast nationwide on public television and has become a staple in college and high school journalism programs everywhere.

Christie Herring (Co-Director / Producer / Editor / Camera) is an award-winning filmmaker, producer, and editor who has worked in documentary film for over 25 years. Her work broaches complex political and cultural subjects, reaching national and international audiences through film festivals, public television, and major streaming services. She directed THE CAMPAIGN which followed California’s battle over queer marriage equality and aired on PBS. Recent credits include 23 MILE (producer), THE BIG SCARY “S” WORD (editor/co-producer), ONE PERSON, ONE VOTE (co-producer, consulting editor), DEATH IS OUR BUSINESS (finishing editor), BIAS (editor/producer), POINT OF NO RETURN (editor), and CODE: DEBUGGING THE GENDER GAP (editor/producer). Christie is a Member and former Steering Committee Chair of the 50-year-old film distribution coop New Day Films. She is an instructor with the American Film Showcase and was a selected participant in the NBPC New Media Institute, the ITVS Queer X-Change, the CPB/PBS Producer’s Academy at WGBH, and SFFILM’s Film House Residency Program.

James Klein has been an independent filmmaker since 1970. With his partner, Julia Reichert, he created such innovative documentaries as GROWING UP FEMALE, the first documentary about women from a feminist perspective which was selected for the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress; UNION MAIDS, one of the first oral history films and an Academy Award nominee; METHADONE: AN AMERICAN WAY OF DEALING, which challenged government policies on heroin addiction; and SEEING RED, a film about American communists that was nominated for an Academy Award. Klein has also had a distinguished career as a film editor in the independent film community, including such films as SCOUT’S HONOR, about gay discrimination within the Boy Scouts; LION IN THE HOUSE, about kids and their families fighting cancer and a prime time Emmy winner; and the Academy Award nominated THE LAST TRUCK, about the closing of a GM truck factory. He is a founder of the social issue documentary film distribution co-op New Day Films, and retired Professor in the School of Theatre, Dance and Film at Wright State University.

Upon graduating from the NFTS in the UK, Marianela wrote and directed several short fiction films, including The Look of Happiness and Breaking Out, both premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. As a screenwriter, Marianela co-wrote Peter and the Wolf (Oscar Winner, 2008), Unmade Beds (Sundance, Berlin, Rotterdam 2009), The Flying Machine (Toronto & 3D Film Festival 2013) and The Magic Piano (New York Film Festival, 2011, and shortlisted for the 2012 Oscars). She also participated in the prestigious Cannes Writing Residency, where she wrote The Other Girl, currently in development. As a documentary filmmaker, she worked for BBC Mundo and co-wrote Once upon a Time in Venezuela, premiered at Sundance in 2020.

Lisa Molomot is a documentary filmmaker living in Tucson, Arizona. She has been working in film for over 20 years, directing, filming and editing documentaries. Her award-winning feature THE HILL tells the story of an immigrant neighborhood in New Haven, CT and aired on America Reframed in 2015. Her award-winning shorts SCHOOL’S OUT and TEACHING IN ARIZONA have had hundreds of screenings and been featured on Slate.com, in The Atlantic, and on NPR. Her most recent feature documentary, MISSING IN BROOKS COUNTY (2020), profiles law enforcement agents, human rights workers and activists who come face to face with the life and death consequences of our broken immigration system. The film is currently playing in select theaters in the U.S. and the U.K. After screening at over 50 film festivals in the past year, MIBC will be released on streaming platforms in the U.S. starting in November and will air on the PBS series Independent Lens.

Lisa teaches in the School of Theatre, Film & Television, the James E. Rogers School of Law, and the Human Rights Practice Program at the University of Arizona, and has also taught filmmaking at Yale University and Wesleyan University.

Paula Mozen, is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, educator, and PBS consultant who is a three-time breast cancer survivor/thriver. Ms. Mozen has served on the film faculties at Towson University in Baltimore, Montana State University, and San Francisco State University. Her films are distributed nationally and internationally to over 6,000 high schools, universities, public libraries, hospitals, medical schools, community health clinics, and public health departments; have been screened at dozens of highly acclaimed film festivals; and broadcast in English by PBS, Discovery Channel, Knowledge Network and Portuguese and Flemish by Globo Communications/Brazil and SBS Belgium NV.
Ms. Mozen has received funding for her film work from PBS, MacArthur Foundation, GAP, Komen, Levi Strauss, Greater Montana Foundation, SEGA, Berkeley Film Foundation, Montana Film Commission, Mental Insight Foundation, and others.

Richard Ray Perez is personally connected to the issues presented in CESAR’S LAST FAST. For 22 years, Perez’s father was a farm worker who lived in and worked under the conditions Cesar Chavez fought to end. At five years old Richard joined the historic grape boycotting organized by the United Farm Workers. Prior to directing and executive producing CESAR’S LAST FAST, Richard Ray Perez directed and/or executive produced 4 documentary film series for Brave New films. Mr. Perez is the Producer of Creative Partnerships in the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program.

An award-winning documentary filmmaker and instructor, Anayansi Prado was born in Panama and moved to the United States as a teenager. She attended Boston University where she received a B.A. in Film. She directed and produced the award-winning documentaries MAID IN AMERICA (2004), CHILDREN IN NO MAN’S LAND (2008) and PARAISO FOR SALE (2011) which were broadcast nationally on PBS. Anayansi is a Rockefeller Media Fellow and a Creative Capital Artist, and has received support for her work from The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Ford Foundation, and the Tribeca Film Institute. Prado is a Film Expert for the American Film Showcase (2009-present) and works on a regular basis with the State Department’s Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs to bring documentary filmmaking training to aspiring filmmakers in developing countries. Prado’s film THE UNAFRAID (2018) co-directed with Heather Courtney, received the Kathleen Bryan Edwards award for Human Rights at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, and was the closing night film of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York.

PJ Raval is a filmmaker and cinematographer whose work explores the overlooked subcultures and identities within the already marginalized LGBTQ+ community. Named one of Out Magazine’s “Out 100” and Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film,” PJ’s film credits include TRINIDAD (Showtime, LOGO) and BEFORE YOU KNOW IT, which follows the lives of three gay senior men, described by indieWIRE as “a crucial new addition to the LGBT doc canon.” BEFORE YOU KNOW IT screened theatrically and broadcast premiered as the season finale of AMERICA REFRAMED on PBS, and was recently awarded the National Gay and Lesbian Journalist Association Excellence in Documentary Award 2016. Also an accomplished cinematographer, PJ shot the Academy Award‐nominated Best Documentary TROUBLE THE WATER. PJ is a 2015 Guggenheim Fellow, 2016 Firelight Media Fellow, and a 2017 Robert Giard Fellow.

Theo Rigby is a San Francisco-based director, cinematographer and interactive storyteller whose work has focused on the immigrant experience in the U.S. for over a decade. Previous projects include WAKING DREAM, a six-part series following a diverse cast of young undocumented people with DACA permits; IMMIGRANT NATION, a series of short films about immigration in the U.S. including THE CARETAKER, THE MAYOR and MARATHON as well as an online storytelling platform and series of live storytelling events; and SIN PAÍS/WITHOUT COUNTRY, which won a Student Academy Award, and was nationally broadcast on POV in 2012.

Bernardo Ruiz is a two-time Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker and a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. He was born in Guanajuato, Mexico and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. EL EQUIPO (THE TEAM), his fifth feature documentary as director, was awarded the Jury Prize for best documentary feature at the 2023 Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival and was named a “Top 20 Audience Favorite” at the Hot Docs Canadian International Film Festival. The film will air on PBS’s documentary series Independent Lens in the fall of 2023. Previous credits as director include THE INFINITE RACE (ESPN’s 30 for 30, 2020), the James Beard Broadcast Award nominee HARVEST SEASON (Independent Lens, 2018), KINGDOM OF SHADOWS (PARTICIPANT MEDIA, POV, 2016), and REPORTERO, (POV, 2013).

Ruiz has also directed and produced a variety of commissioned work & nonfiction programming (including docu-series) for outlets as varied as Disney+, ESPN, HBO, VICE and PBS. He wrote, directed and produced ROBERTO CLEMENTE (American Experience, 2008) which was awarded the NCLR (now UnidosUS), “Alma” Award for “Outstanding Made for Television Documentary.” He also created, directed and executive produced the two part bilingual PBS series, THE GRADUATES/LOS GRADUADOS (Independent Lens, 2013). Edutopia called it “a winner that should be seen by as many students, teachers and parents as possible.” He wrote, directed and produced the 2020 election special, LATINO VOTE: DISPATCHES FROM THE BATTLEGROUND.

Ruiz frequently serves as a mentor to emerging makers and has recently worked with Firelight Media, DCTV and the the Future of Science Fellowship to support new documentary makers. In the fall of 2015, Ruiz was a filmmaker-in-residence at the Investigative Reporting Program (IRP) at the U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Previously he served on the board of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP).

Producer Lisa Stevens has produced several landmark documentary series for National Geographic Channel: OUTLAW BIKERS, UNDERWORLD CITIES AND DRUGS, INCORPORATED. She recently produced CRACKHOUSE USA for Channel 4 and MSNBC, with Academy Award winning (MAN ON WIRE) producer, Jonathan Hewes of Wall to Wall Media and BAFTA award winning director, Anthony Wonke. Lisa founded her own production Company, Green Acres Films Ltd. in 2009. DREAMCATCHER came about after years of nurturing a relationship with the main subjects of the film.

Anike Tourse is a multimedia maker with accomplishments both in front of the camera and behind the scenes, including writing for the daytime serial ONE LIFE TO LIVE and the sitcom GIRLFRIENDS, an animated short film FRANCES THE FISH, and a children’s story and short film about children biking on Yom Kippur in Tel-Aviv. Before making AMERICA’S FAMILY, she wrote and directed the award-winning short film AMERICA: I TOO starring Academy Award nominee Barkhad Abdi and now in distribution with New Day Films. Commissioned by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights/LA (CHIRLA), the film features a predominantly immigrant cast and crew including over 250 Extras, most of whom are undocumented immigrants living in greater Los Angeles, the San Fernando Valley, and Lancaster, California.

U of A Media Arts (now Film & Television) alumna Lindsay Utz (BA, 2003) is an award-winning documentary film editor based in Chicago. In addition to QUEST, her other credits include the Oscar-shortlisted BULLY (Tribeca FF 2011), FIRST POSITION (TIFF 2011), BUOY (Ashland FF 2013), IN COUNTRY (Full Frame 2014), two Emmy-nominated FRONTLINE episodes (PBS 2015/2016) and multiple shorts for the New York Times. In 2012, Utz was awarded the Karen Schmeer Film Editing Fellowship, named in honor of Errol Morris’s late editor. Her latest project, AMERICAN FACTORY (2019), with Academy Award-nominated filmmakers Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar, swept top festival honors, including the Directing award at Sundance, and now streams on Netflix as the first project acquired by the Obamas’ Higher Ground Productions. She teaches Advanced Documentary Editing at Northwestern University’s MFA in Documentary Media program as an adjunct faculty member.

Chihiro Wimbush is an Emmy-nominated, documentary filmmaker. Chihiro was co-director (with Amir Soltani) and cinematographer on the documentary feature, DOGTOWN REDEMPTION, about homeless shopping cart recyclers in West Oakland, California. The film premiered at the Mill Valley Film Festival where it won an Audience Award, and was broadcast on Independent Lens, before being nominated for an Emmy Award. He also edited the award-winning and nationally broadcast CHANGING SEASON about a year on the Masumoto family peach farm in the Central Valley. He has directed, produced and edited numerous short films, most recently LIMINAL, about prisoners released during the pandemic reconnecting with nature, that had its broadcast premiere on Valley PBS. RICOCHET is his third collaboration with Jeff Adachi after serving as editor on Jeff’s previous two films The RIDE and DEFENDER.

Pamela Yates is a co-founder and currently the Creative Director of Skylight, a human rights media organization dedicated to strengthening social justice movements through cinematic storytelling and catalyzing collaborative networks of artists and activists.

She was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship for her 2011 film GRANITO: HOW TO NAIL A DICTATOR, which was used as key forensic evidence in the Ríos Montt genocide conviction in Guatemala. Yates is the Director of the Sundance Special Jury award winning WHEN THE MOUNTAINS TREMBLE; the Executive Producer of the Academy Award winning WITNESS TO WAR, about an American doctor behind guerrilla lines in El Salvador; and the Director of STATE OF FEAR: THE TRUTH ABOUT TERRORISM, which has been translated into 47 languages and broadcast in 154 countries. Her epic film THE RECKONING, about the tumultuous first 6 years of the International Criminal Court was filmed on 4 continents and in 7 languages and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. She also directed the development of GRANITO: EVERY MEMORY MATTERS, an interactive media project that gathered memories and put them into a public online archive to help restore and repair the collective memory of the Guatemalan genocide. In 2017, Yates completed 500 YEARS, the third in the Guatemalan trilogy that explores the battle for the national narrative in present day Guatemala. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, The Writers Guild of America, the Independent Documentary Association, and a Contributing Editor to NACLA: Report on the Americas.

Her latest film BORDERLAND (2024) brings the saga of Skylight’s Guatemala trilogy–WHEN THE MOUNTAINS TREMBLE (1983), GRANITO (2011), and 500 YEARS (2017)–full circle back to the U.S., from the impact of U.S. foreign policy that backed brutal regimes leading to the root causes of migration, to the present situation of mass migration from Central America.

Sande Zeig is a writer, director, producer and film distributor. Her short film, Central Park, premiered at Sundance in 1994. She went on to direct a feature, THE GIRL, based on a short story by renowned French writer Monique Wittig that premiered at the Toronto and Berlin Film Festivals in 2001. Her documentary SOUL MASTERS: DR. GUO & DR. SHA, was released in April 2008, by Beyond Words Distribution. Zeig is president of Artistic License Films, a film distribution company that has distributed more than one hundred films including films by Ismail Merchant, Michel Negroponte, Jim Stark, Kore-eda Hirakazu, DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus. She is head of the Media Department for Institute of Soul Healing and Enlightenment.