Arielle Knight is a New York-based documentary filmmaker and creative producer whose primary artistic impulse is simply to make less of what is too much and more of what is not enough. Mining the absurd, the mythological and the mundane, the work of her life and practice seeks to center and recover the multiplicity of Black experiences and the narrative possibilities therein.

Arielle is a graduate of Wesleyan University and the New School for Public Engagement, where she received an MA in Media Studies & Documentary Filmmaking. She has since produced work for audiences at Sundance, MoMA Doc Fortnight, Camden, BlackStar, Big Sky, Milwaukee, and Sheffield Documentary film festivals.

Her work has been sustained through the support of the Jacob Burns Creative Culture Fellowship, the NYC Women’s Fund for Media in association with the New York Foundation for the Arts and most recently, Tribeca Studios & The Queen Collective.

Amy Bench is a Texas-based filmmaker and visual artist who is drawn to the immediacy of film and photography to tell stories of community and resilience. Trained as a cinematographer, her observational style highlights small details of the human experience that transcend formal explanation. Her camera work has screened at festivals including Berlin, SXSW, Sundance, The New York Film Festival, and at MOMA/PS1 and in 2016 she was named a “DP on the Rise” by Paste Magazine.

Amy was the cinematographer on Trans in America: Texas Strong, which won an Emmy for Best Original Short Documentary in 2019, and 2 Webby Awards. Amy’s animated documentary A Line Birds Cannot See won Special Jury Recognition at SXSW, Best Animation at Bend Film Festival, and the 2020 Ellie Award in video for excellence in digital magazine journalism.

Born in Tamil Nadu, India, and raised in Hyde Park, Chicago, Amrita Singh is a Writer/Director. Amrita received her M.F.A. in Filmmaking from NYU Tisch School of the Arts where she was a Willard T.C. Johnson Fellow, a NYWIFT Ha Phuong Scholar, and later served as Adjunct Faculty. Prior to attending NYU, Amrita worked as an Office PA and Writer’s Assistant for “Empire” and “The Chi.” In addition to developing her feature film, “Water Tank Road,” Amrita currently works for Syrn Media, a company that utilizes a multifaceted approach to support women and BIPOC artists.

Mariah Barrera is a Mexican-American filmmaker born and raised in Michigan. Mariah is currently based in New York City where she is a sophomore at Columbia University. With over 30 awards for her art, Mariah was recently named a 2021 National YoungArts Foundation Finalist Winner in Film. Her films aim to contextualize themes of social justice and equity through the lens of her family’s experiences in the urban midwest. Using these stories, Mariah is passionate about bridging the gap between narrative and documentary through the use of poetry.

Latoya graduated from the School of Visual Arts and received an MFA in Social Documentary Film. She worked on the critically acclaimed documentaries The Interrupters, A Good Man, and Running from Crazy during her internships at Kartemquin and Cabin Creek Films. Her short documentary Derby Girls was featured in the group exhibition “The Sports Show,” curated by the School of Visual Arts Alumni Society. Latoya is currently an Exhibition Media Producer at the Field Museum in Chicago, where she creates documentaries and immersive media experiences for permanent and traveling exhibitions.

For more than 30 years, Dean Radcliffe-Lynes has produced Emmy Award winning television programs and television specials for national distribution as well as videos for grass roots and non-profit organizations that tell compelling stories about their work. Her mission is to educate, encourage, enlighten and empower, and to provide a voice for the unheard and a forum for the unseen.

Dean was a Fellow in the inaugural Johns Hopkins/MICA Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund “Bold Voices” program and has a documentary in production about four Baltimore women who were formerly incarcerated.

Alexandra Roca is a hands-on, award-winning documentary director, producer and correspondent. Driven by human stories, she has covered stories in over 14 countries. You can see her work on National Geographic, Amazon Prime, the United Nations, Discovery Channel, etc.

Alexandra has received numerous awards for her independent documentary films. Fluent in English, Spanish, and proficient in French, she holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Development and a Master’s degree in Television Journalism.

French Canadian award-winning editor and now filmmaker, Annie Leclair is an expert story teller known for her powerful films that resonate with audiences around the world. Annie’s directorial debut, the short film Grounded (Enracinée), is a 2021 SIMA AWARDS Finalist and received the Jury’s Special Mention at the 39th International Festival of Films on Art of Montréal.

A passionate and dedicated filmmaker, Annie, a self-taught documentary film editor for the last 15 years, is a former board member of the Montreal Women in Film and Television Association (FCTMN). As an artist, Annie believes that choosing a story is choosing to have a closer look at yourself in the mirror and the possibility of a self-transformation.

Khai Thu Nguyen is a filmmaker based in the SF Bay Area. Born in Vietnam, she immigrated to the US with her family when she was 6 years old. Khai graduated from Stanford University in Humanities and received a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from UC Berkeley.

Khai's short film "Table Stakes," about the resilience of two African American comic book creators to make it in the industry, and "Alexa and May," about a Vietnamese American grandmother and her friendship with the Amazon Alexa, have shown at festivals all over the U.S. Khai’s current film projects, "Memoirs of May" and "The Dao of Thao," are stories of resilience and the struggle to create a narrative of who we are.

Full-time writer and actor Fedna Jacquet was born in Boston to Haitian parents. She is a 2020-2022 National Black Theatre Playwright in Residence, 2019-2021 Huntington Theatre Playwriting Fellow, and a 2019 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Playwriting/Screenwriting. Written work for the screen includes Isaiah (ABFF/TVOne Screenplay Competition Finalist, Homebase (Juilliard/NYU Showcase), Inheritance (2020 Tribeca Chanel Through Her Lens Finalist), Circus (2020 HollyShorts Quarterfinalist) and Going Home.

Written plays include Black Mother Lost Daughter (Commissioned by National Black Theatre), Pefeksyon (Playwright’s Realm Finalist, DVRF Finalist, Studio Tisch), Inheritance (Classical Theatre of Harlem Playwright's Playground, Studio Tisch), Civic Duty (Commissioned by Suny Purchase), Gurlfriend (The Fire This Time Festival, Eugene O’Neill Semifinalist) and Heroes (Developed as a Huntington Fellow). Fedna is currently recurring as an actor on City On A Hill (Showtime) and FBI: Most Wanted (CBS).

Fedna received her BA from Brown University and her MFA from NYU/Tisch Grad Acting.

Flavia Romani is a Venezuelan editor, graphic designer, and filmmaker based in Brooklyn, NY. She co-founded the Latinx publication ViceVersa Magazine, where she’s the Creative Director. Such a role has allowed her to explore different disciplines, ranging from animation and graphic design, to filmmaking, editing and event production. She’s part of the creative team behind “Neoyorquinos,” a Spotify original podcast covering Latinx arts and culture.

In collaboration with The Cooper Union, Flavia spearheaded the Creative Direction and Production of the international conference “Bitter Laughter” (2016-2018), which centered around the work of some of the most controversial and boldest cartoonists from Latin America and Spain. She’s passionate about projects that change the world, one pixel at a time.