Angela Tucker is a Webby and Emmy Award winning director, producer and writer. She was a Producer of BELLY
OF THE BEAST (dir. Erika Cohn) which broadcast on PBS’ Independent Lens and won an Emmy for Best Cultural
Affairs Documentary. Past directing work includes ALL SKINFOLK, AIN’T KINFOLK, a documentary short which
aired on PBS’ Reel South; Black Folk Don’t, a documentary web series featured in Time Magazine’s “10 Ideas That
Are Changing Your Life”, and (A)SEXUAL, a feature length documentary about people who experience no sexual
attraction that streamed on Netflix and Hulu. She was a Co-Executive Producer for Black Public Media’s PBS
award-winning series, AFROPOP. She is a former Sundance Institute Women’s Fellow, a recipient of Firelight
Media’s inaugural William Greaves Fund and a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. She
received her MFA in Film from Columbia University and her BA from Wesleyan University.

April Maxey is a writer/director from San Antonio, Texas, based in Los Angeles. Her short film, WORK, was made in
AFI’s DWW+ program. WORK premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and went on to screen at Tribeca, Palm
Springs Shortfest, Inside Out, and Outfest, where it won the Grand Jury Prize for Outstanding US Narrative Short.
WORK received distribution by OTV in 2024. April’s feature screenplay for WORK was selected as 1 of 6 narrative
projects for the WIF x Sundance Financing Intensive and was selected as a participant in the 2024 NALIP Feature
Media Accelerator. April is an alumna of Berlinale Talents, the Sundance Uprise Fellowship and the Adobe x
Sundance Women to Watch Fellowship. Her short films have played at over 75 festivals across 18 countries and
won 10 awards. As a queer Chicana filmmaker, April is passionate about stories that center under-represented
perspectives and thematically explore the complexities of queer intimacy, grief, and healing. April’s directing
approach is informed by a decade of experience working as a director of photography and editor.

As a documentary filmmaker and nonprofit co-founder, Colette Ghunim’s soul purpose is to use the power of film
and storytelling for those oppressed around the world to be seen, to be heard, and to heal. Her first documentary,
The People’s Girls (2016), received over 2 million views and won Best Short Documentary at the Arab Film Festival
for its bold spotlight on street harassment in Egypt. In co-production with Kartemquin Films and funded by Latino
Public Broadcasting, she is directing Traces of Home, her first feature-length film documenting her inner quest to

find home through unearthing her parent’s forced migrations from Mexico and Palestine. Colette is also the co-
founder of Mezcla Media Collective, a nonprofit organization aimed to cultivate a thriving landscape for over 700

women and non-binary filmmakers of color in Chicago. Her work has been highlighted on international outlets such
as Huffington Post, Al Jazeera, Univision, and TEDx. Colette was selected as a 2023 Obama Foundation USA
Leader, 2024 Sundance x ISF Fellow, and was featured on Arab America’s “30 Under 30” list.

Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan is a Filipino filmmaker whose works explore themes of trauma, spirituality, and
nature told through the cosmic lens of post-colonial spaces and Indigenous identities. His work successfully
premiered in film festivals around the world: Hilum (2021) won the Student Prize at Clermont-Ferrand; The
Headhunter’s Daughter (2022) was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance; and Cold Cut (2024), co-directed
with Siyou Tan, premiered at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes under the ‘Directors’ Factory’ programme. His latest
short film Vox Humana (2024) had its world premiere in Toronto IFF.

In 2023, he was selected for the Cannes Cinefondation Residence program, Berlinale’s Script Station, Locarno’s
Filmmakers Academy and Sundance Institute’s Native Lab. He is currently developing his first feature film, Hum.

Director Jing Wang, born in China, where her name means “quiet,” Jing has made a stark contrast by vocally
advocating through her films. They are powerful stories about the immigrant experience, which highlight her
commitment to both her craft and her community. Jing’s films have been showcased at prestigious venues such as
the Museum of the City of New York, the Rooftop Film Festival, and WNYC’s The Greene Space. Additionally, her
work has garnered attention from major publications like the New York Times, Gothamist, World Journal, and China
Press. Jing received the 2023 Sundance Documentary Fund Grant for her film, Ride with Delivery Workers. Jing
was invited as a guest speaker by institutions such as NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Hofstra University, and the
CUNY Graduate Center. Furthermore, Jing is an active member of New York Women in Film & Television (NYWIFT)
and the Asian American Documentary Network (A-Doc). Jing holds a Master of Fine Arts in Integrated Media Art
from Hunter College and currently serves as an assistant professor at CUNY – College of Staten Island.

John D. Sutter (Producer) is an independent climate journalist and documentary filmmaker whose work has won the
Livingston Award for Young Journalists, the IRE Award, the Edward R. Murrow Award, the Peabody Award and has
received two Emmy nominations — one for new approaches to documentary and the other for environmental
reporting. He has been a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, a Visiting Nieman Fellow at Harvard and a
longtime CNN contributor on climate issues. John led CNN’s coverage of the Paris climate talks and created several
of the network’s marquee climate initiatives, including “Two Degrees.” He was the inaugural Ted Turner Professor of
Environmental Media at the George Washington University and is an assistant professor of environmental media at
the University of Oregon.

Julia Kennelly is a filmmaker and producer based in Los Angeles.

Notable credits include THE NEIGHBORS’ WINDOW (Marshall Curry), which won the Oscar for Best Live Action
Short at the 2020 Academy Awards. Other films she’s produced have been in competition at Sundance, SXSW,
Tribeca Film Festival, Aspen Shortfest, Outfest and Palm Springs Shortfest, among others. Julia is also a line
producer, most notably on the HBO documentary series THE VOW. She is a co-founder of production company
Dream City, with producer Karine Benzaria and director/cinematographer Daisy Zhou. Julia is a 2023 Sundance
Producing Lab Fellow, and was also selected to be an NYU Production Lab fellow and Tribeca Creators Market
participant in 2024.

Naomi Ko is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, comedian, and cultural producer. She was born and raised in
Minnesota to immigrant parents from South Korea, making her at once the most truculent and most passive person
in any room. Her pilot presentation, NICE, which she wrote and starred in, premiered at Tribeca Film Festival. Her
work has been developed by Warner Bros. Stage 13 and has received support from the McKnight Foundation, the
Knight Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, and more. She is also a Moth Storyslam winner, was a featured
performer for Mortified, and writes and acts in theater. Naomi formerly worked for the state government in voting
rights and outreach. She currently works with Minnesota state representatives and agencies to provide arts access
and economic development opportunities for underrepresented communities. She is also a founding member of
Funny Asian Women Kollective, a group that uses comedy to combat the invisibility and dehumanization of Asian
women.

Recently, Naomi developed her series, THE 20-YEAR CURSE, in the 2022 Sundance Episodic Lab and 2023
Sundance Episodic Pitch Parlor. She is currently in the Sundance Women to Watch x Adobe and Sundance | The
Asian American Foundation fellowships.

Pierre M. Coleman is a native of Newark, NJ. He grew up in a tight-knit family that was always supportive of his
dreams. He attended Howard University’s School of Communications and earned his degree in Film Production.
Pierre gained 15 years of extensive production experience working with renowned companies including HBO, 20th
Century Fox, BET, and Dreamworks. Pierre’s industry and personal experiences propelled him to write, direct, and
produce award-winning short films, documentaries, and branded content. Pierre strives to tell compelling stories
and isn’t afraid to challenge his audience to think outside of their comfort zone. He produced the short film Ricky,
which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and has screened at festivals such as Palm Springs
Shortsfest, Woodstock Film Festival, and Montclair Film Festival. Pierre is currently in development for Ricky, the
feature film, as a 2023 Sundance Producing Fellow.

Sofian Khan (director/producer) is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker and founder of Capital K Pictures. He co-
directed, produced and shot THE INTERPRETERS, a feature-length documentary following Afghan and Iraqi

interpreters being targeted for their work helping American forces that made its broadcast premiere on the 2019
season of PBS Independent Lens. His episode of the PBS American Masters series IN THE MAKING (2021)
received a Webby Award and NAACP Image nomination. In 2022, Sofian directed an episode of the new series
TAKEOUT WITH LISA LING on HBOMax and produced AN ACT OF WORSHIP under the Capital K Pictures banner,
which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and broadcasted on PBS’ POV series. He was a Sundance Producing
Fellow in 2019-2020, a 2024 Creative Capital Awardee and current Disney Muslim Filmmakers Fellow.