Maytha Alhassen
Moderator, Americanish
Dr. Maytha Alhassen primarily sees her labor as that of a freedom doula and an engaged wit/h/ness reviving the traditions of the feral femme. In 2017 she received her Ph.D. in American studies and Ethnicity from USC. Alhassen has co-founded multiple social justice organizations including Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative, the Social Justice Institute at Occidental College, Believers Bail Out (a Muslim abolition group), and in the wake of George Floyd’s brutal murder, the Arabs for Black Lives collective. Currently, Alhassen writes for Hulu series Ramy, is an Associate Professor in Social Justice and Community Organizing at Prescott college, advises on social impact campaigns and does educational consulting.
Vic Barrett
Subject, YOUTH v GOV
Vic Barrett is fighting hard for a future for all of us. Barrett witnessed the reality of climate change firsthand, as he was among the many impacted by the climate change fueled superstorm Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which left his family and school without power. Barrett became a Fellow with the Alliance for Climate Education and spoke at the COP21 UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris in 2015, at the age of 15. Barrett was among 400,000 participants in the People’s Climate March in NYC and delivered a speech at the United Nations General Assembly in support of sustainable development goals. Most recently Vic spoke at the NYC Climate Strike and told a crowd of at least 100,000 why climate justice needs to be highlighted, centering black, brown, and indigenous voices.
Patrice D. Bowman
Director, Under the Sun After the Wind
Patrice D. Bowman is an award-winning filmmaker, editor, and colorist with over six years of experience. She is the owner of the production and post-production company Bowman Pictures.
Christi Cooper
Director/Producer, YOUTH v GOV
Christi Cooper is a PhD scientist, documentary filmmaker, and Emmy award-winning cinematographer. Christi focuses her storytelling and visual narratives on issues of justice and impact by creating human connections to the most pressing issues of our time. In 2011, Christi co-created Stories of TRUST: Calling for Climate Recovery, a 10-part documentary series featuring youth plaintiffs suing their state governments over climate change, with WITNESS, a social justice/human rights organization focused on using film for social change.
Mark Decena
Director, Heal Thy Neighbor: Denver
Mark Decena is a writer, director and producer of award-winning feature films, television programming, web films, and commercials. A three time Sundance alumni, Mark’s first feature, Dopamine, won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize. Decena’s work criss-crosses various themes from the nature of love to sustainable design, environmental justice to professional stare down.
Commissioner Anne Del Castillo
Guest Speaker, Opening Night
Anne del Castillo is the commissioner of the New York City Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME). She joined the agency in 2014 as director of legal affairs and was appointed to chief operating officer and general counsel in 2015. A series of workforce initiatives provides New York City residents with free mentorship and training opportunities in order to increase diverse representation in writers’ rooms, post production, and stagecraft. Anne has over 25 years of experience in film production, public media, and arts and nonprofit administration.
Dalia Fahmy
Guest Speaker, Americanish
Dr. Dalia Fahmy is from the Islamic Scholarship Fund (ISF), a non profit organization that’s mission is to amplify the voice of American Muslim to inform public policy and public opinion. She is also a founder of the first American Muslim Film Grant. Dr. Fahmy is a professor at Long Island University, where she teaches courses on US Foreign Policy, World Politics, International Relations, Military and Defense Policy, Causes of War, and Politics of the Middle East.
Aizzah Fatima
Writer, Actor, Americanish
Aizzah is an actress and writer from New York City by way of Mississippi. Aizzah is a graduate of the conservatory at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and studied acting with the acclaimed Wynn Handman. Aizzah has appeared on High Maintenance (HBO), The Good Wife (CBS), Patrice O’Neal’s Guide to White People (Comedy Central), opposite Annette O’Toole in the short film Stuff, and is currently filming the lead role in the feature film My Cousin Sister’s Wedding for which she wrote the screenplay with Emmy award winning director Iman Zawahry.
Nelson George
Subject, A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks
Nelson George is an established author and filmmaker with a passion for telling stories of the black experience in America. George is the author of several ground breaking histories of African American music, including Where Did Our Love Go: the Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound, The Death of Rhythm & Blues and Hip Hop America. He has directed a number of documentaries including Finding the Funk, The Announcement (ESPN), and Brooklyn Boheme (Showtime).
Melissa Gira Grant
Co-Director, They Won’t Call It Murder
Melissa Gira Grant is is a staff writer at The New Republic; the author of Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work; and the co-director of They Won’t Call It Murder. She has reported on violence against massage workers in Flushing; attacks on trans rights across Texas; resistance to police killings in Columbus, and the global movement for sex workers’ rights. Her forthcoming book, A Woman Is Against the Law: Sex, Race, and the Limits of Justice of America, uses narrative journalism and original archival research to offer a feminist indictment of the criminal legal system, drawing on 150 years of women’s attempts to appeal to the law in search of safety, accountability, power, and freedom.
Godfrey
Actor, Americanish
Godfrey is an American comedian and actor who has appeared on BET, VH1, Comedy Central, and feature films, such as Soul Plane, Original Gangstas, Zoolander, and Johnson Family Vacation. Currently, he is a regular performer at the comedy club Comedy Cellar in New York City. He is also known for doing the voices of Mr. Stubborn and Mr. Tall (Season 2) in The Mr. Men Show and hosting the FOX game show Bullseye. He now owns and hosts a podcast called ‘In Godfrey We Trust’ on the Gas Digital Network.
Matt Gonzalez
Subject, Ricochet
Matt Gonzalez is Chief Attorney at the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, a position he has held for more than a decade. He represented José Ines Garcia Zaraté as co-counsel in state court.
Sophia Gurulé
Guest Speaker, Ricochet
Sophia Elena Gurulé (she/her) is a public defense attorney representing incarcerated immigrants facing deportation at The Bronx Defenders in the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project. She is also immigration policy counsel at The Bronx Defenders and focuses on ending ICE detention, ICE’s collaboration with local law enforcement, and the exclusion of people with criminal arrest histories from legislative efforts to broaden pathways to U.S. citizenship. She is a graduate of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where she was the recipient of the Telford Taylor Award for outstanding achievement in the fields of Constitutional Law and Human Rights, and graduated cum laude from Fordham University with a B.A. in Latin American Studies/Latino Studies as well as International Studies. Sophia is an abolitionist, feminist, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, and proud union member of ALAA UAW Local 2325.
Emily Harrold
Director, Meltdown in Dixie
Emily Harrold is a documentary filmmaker from Orangeburg, South Carolina. Her films have screened at festivals including the Tribeca Film Festival, the Melbourne International Film Festival, DOC NYC and the Telluride Film Festival. She is a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Asif Khan
Youth Program: How to Make an Impact with Your Film
Asif is the Director of Strategy & Impact at PicMo. He has spent his career focused on the intersection of media, technology, and social impact, with a special focus on education, LGBTQ+ rights, & gender equality. He has worked for several top nonprofits and tech-focused organizations and also served as an adjunct professor at the St. Johns University Graduate School of Communication. Asif started his career in social impact at the United Nations Foundation managing global programs and creating long-term partnerships. In addition, he has held high-level positions managing programs and guiding strategy at DoSomething.org, Games for Change, Room to Read, & Action Against Hunger. Prior to joining the nonprofit sector, Asif worked in corporate finance and investment management at The Jordan Company and AllianceBernstein in New York.
Glenn Kiser
Guest Speaker, Opening Night
Glenn Kiser is the Director of the Dolby Institute, Dolby’s initiative to bring education and inspiration to filmmakers and content creators about the creative use of sound and picture in storytelling. Previously, Kiser was the VP & General Manager of Lucasfilm’s Skywalker Sound, where he oversaw sound work on film projects such as Avatar, The Incredibles, the Star Wars prequels, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Pirates of the Caribbean and Harry Potter films.
Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler
Co-Directors, Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America
Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler are the founders of Off Center Media, a documentary production company dedicated to racial justice and social change. Their film, William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe (Sundance ’09, POV/PBS), was shortlisted for the Best Documentary Academy Award. Other Off Center Media films have contributed to campaigns to stay executions, convince decisionmakers to reopen cases, and exonerate the wrongfully convicted.
Jo Livingstone
Moderator, Shorts Block
Jo Livingstone is the culture staff writer for the New Republic and the most recent recipient of the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing from the National Book Critics’ Circle. They have written for the New York Times, the Times Literary Supplement, Bookforum, and other publications. They have a PhD in medieval literature from NYU.
Brittany Luse
Moderator, A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks
Brittany Luse is an award-winning journalist, on-air host, writer, and producer. She currently co-hosts For Colored Nerds, a weekly Black culture podcast founded in 2014. Previously Brittany co-hosted and executive produced The Nod with Brittany and Eric, a daily streaming show. Her culture writing has appeared at Vulture, Refinery29, and Harper’s Bazaar. Brittany and her work have been profiled by The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vulture, The Guardian, NPR, Essence Magazine, and Teen Vogue, among others.
John Maggio
Director, A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks
John Maggio is a principal producer, director and writer with Ark Media. His most recent film, “Panic: The Untold Story of the 2008 Financial Crisis” – co-produced by Ark Media and Vice for HBO – won a 2019 Emmy for “Outstanding Business & Economic Documentary.” Maggio’s films have been honored with the National Emmy Award and Writers Guild Award, multiple nominations for News and Documentary Emmy Awards, and have premiered in competition at the Sundance Film Festival.
Charlie Manzano
Moderator, YOUTH v GOV
Charlie Manzano is a junior at The Masters School. He is passionate about both social justice and science. He also loves to act. Charlie participated in the Vision 2020 program, a civic education and engagement program for high school students. He has done volunteer work for the Reelabilities, Cinematters, and Other Israel Film festivals.
Kelly Matheson
Guest Speaker, YOUTH v GOV
Kelly Matheson is a human rights attorney and award-winning filmmaker who leads WITNESS’ Video as Evidence program. She has worked with grassroots organizations around the world on a myriad of human rights issues ranging from Ebola prevention to climate change to the trafficking of children and war crimes. Currently, she supports lawyers and human rights activists to ensure the video that activists risk their personal safety to collect can be used to secure justice. She received her JD for the University of Oregon School of Law and her MFA in Filmmaking from Montana State University.
Ingrid Raphaël
Co-Director, They Won’t Call It Murder
Ingrid Raphaël (they/she) is a filmmaker, educator, and multi-disciplinary artist. Born from Cameroonian, Togolese-German and Morrocan-French parents, their understanding of art-making is heavily influenced by the ways they relate to migration and colonialism. She co-created NO EVIL EYE, a nomadic radical microcinema that curates an eclectic mix of films and programs political workshops around cinema. Through a non-hierarchical framework, Ingrid has (co)taught youth & adult art programs at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Black Quantum Futurism’s Black Women Time Camp, Powrplnt, Eyebeam’s Digital Day Camp, Mono No Aware, Education Video Center, Harlem School of the Arts, and more. They currently co-teach at The Young Artist Program in Philadelphia, PA and virtually co-facilitate the Teen Council cohort at Bronx Museum of the Arts.
Jeffery Robinson
Producer/Writer, Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America
Jeffery Robinson is a deputy legal director and the director of the ACLU Trone Center for Justice and Equality, which houses the ACLU’s work on criminal justice, racial justice, and reform issues. Since graduating from Harvard Law School in 1981, Jeff has four decades of experience working on these issues and has tried over 200 criminal cases to verdict. As a public defender in Seattle, he represented indigent clients in state and federal court and has represented a broad range of clients in private practice. In recent years, he has traveled the country speaking hard truths in a groundbreaking talk on racism in America.
Paul Seetachitt
Producer, Americanish
Paul V. Seetachitt is a director and writer, known for Americanish (2021), Rock Jocks (2012) and Precious Cargo (2016).
Jamel Shabazz
Subject, A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks
Jamel Shabazz is best known for his iconic photographs of New York City during the 1980’s. His photographs have been exhibited worldwide and his work is housed within the permanent collections of The Whitney Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, The Fashion Institute of Technology, The Gordon Parks Foundation and the Getty Museum.
Harold Solis
Moderator, Ricochet
Harold A. Solis is a Deputy Legal Director at Make the Road New York and helps lead its legal department. He works closely with MRNY’s organizers and legal staff to develop policies that center the organization’s members and are responsive to the needs of the broader immigrant community. Prior to joining MRNY, he was a Supervising Attorney at Immigrant Justice Corps, where he led its in-house removal defense practice and created IJC’s Long Island Project, a joint initiative between IJC and CARECEN to increase access to representation for Long Island families in removal proceedings.
Francisco Ugarte
Subject, Ricochet
Francisco Ugarte manages the Immigration Defense Unit at the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, which formed in 2017 and is now California’s largest detained deportation defense provider. He represented José Ines Garcia Zaraté in state court as co-counsel.
Chihiro Wimbush
Director, Ricochet
Chihiro Wimbush is an Emmy-nominated, documentary filmmaker. Wimbush was co-director and cinematographer on the documentary feature, Dogtown Redemption, about homeless shopping cart recyclers in West Oakland, California.
Roy Wol
Producer, Americanish
Roy Wol was born in Israel. Raised in Turkey and Canada, Wol is the son of an Argentine mother and a Turkish father. He moved to the US in 2009 and has been working on film since then. Roy is the founder of Studio Autonomous, and has produced several films including Art Machine, Tom in America and Bikini Moon directed by Academy Award nominee Milcho Manchevski.
Iman Zawahry
Director, Americanish
Iman Zawahry is one of the first hijabi American-Muslim filmmakers in the nation. She is the recipient of the coveted Princess Grace Award and Lincoln Center New York Film Festival Artist Academy Fellow. Iman also collaborated with the non-profit Islamic Scholarship Fund to create the first ever American Muslim film grant where she currently serves as director. She wrote and directed her debut feature film Americanish with a majority female crew which has won 12 awards including best film and best director. She currently is a professor of film production at the University of Florida.
