Mary Almonte
Director, Andscape Studios
Final Cut: Making Your Story in the Edit (Nov 15)
How does a film become the film it was meant to be? This day explores what happens after the shoot, when filmmakers begin figuring out what they actually have to work with. Through case studies, a director-editor masterclass, and a short film feedback session, directors and editors will discuss the revisions, surprises, and choices that shaped their films.
TICKETING INFORMATION
Each PRO Day Pass grants access to a single conference day comprised of several panel discussions and all day access to the Festival Lounge where you can enjoy complimentary breakfast and happy hour. Today’s happy hour is co-presented by Andscape.
To experience the DOC NYC PRO lineup, purchase an individual PRO Day Pass (via the Buy Ticket button above) or benefit from discounted pricing when you purchase Multi-Day Pass Packs to an assortment of thematic days.
Today’s DOC NYC PRO Day is co-presented by Andscape
SCHEDULE
10:00 AM – 11:15 AM
The Cut, the Notes, and the Negotiation of Road to Sankofa
Navigating creative vision, collaboration, and studio feedback is rarely simple. How do directors, producers, editors, and commissioning partners reconcile competing perspectives while shaping a film’s final form? Join director Muta’Ali Muhammad, producer Samir Hernandez, and editor Mark Fason for a behind-the-scenes look at how Road to Sankofa is coming together in post-production. Moderated by Mary Almonte, head of Andscape Studios, the conversation examines how difficult notes, competing perspectives, and creative disagreements are negotiated in pursuit of the strongest film.
Co-presented by Andscape
Mary Almonte
Director, Andscape Studios
Mary Almonte is a media executive specializing in culturally driven content. She currently serves as Director of ESPN’s Andscape Studios, where she leads the development of content that explores the intersection of sports and culture. Previously, she oversaw video and social content initiatives and has held leadership roles in digital marketing and social media strategy for several culture-driven organizations such as Rock The Bells, Emmis Communications (Hot 97), and Global Citizen. Known for her expertise in digital media and audience engagement, Mary has contributed to projects across television/streaming platforms, branded content, and documentary storytelling.
Mark Fason
Editor
Mark Fason
Editor
Mark Fason has been working in film and television since 1998. He’s a Peabody award winning, Emmy-nominated editor that’s collaborated on everything from narrative documentaries and docuseries to children’s programming and reality television. Over his career, Mark has edited for Apple+, ABC, PBS, Hulu, CNN Films, HBO Sports, Sesame Street, Animal Planet. National Geographic, The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, Disney+ and A&E. Mark has a BFA with an emphasis in painting from the University of South Florida and now lives in New York’s East Village with his wife and two children.
Samir Hernandez
Producer
Samir Hernandez
Producer
Samir Hernandez is an award-winning executive and the CEO & Founder of GTG, a vertically integrated media company powered by community-driven positive storytelling. GTG operates as a multi-pillar ecosystem spanning original Film & TV IP development, a full-service creative ad agency and white-label studio infrastructure.
Hernandez’s producing credits include the Academy Award®–winning Two Distant Strangers (Netflix), the Sports Emmy®–winning 38 at the Garden (HBO), the Emmy®-nominated NYC Point Gods (Showtime), the Tribeca X Award–winning Meal Ticket (Amazon Prime), The Trade with Kelley L. Carter (Hulu/ESPN), and A Kid from Coney Island (Netflix).
A former Vice President at SLAM Media and Sports Marketing Executive with Jordan Brand, Hernandez brings deep expertise in brand architecture, media execution, and commercial IP development. He resides in Los Angeles with his wife and two sons.
Muta'Ali Muhammad
Director
Muta'Ali Muhammad
Director
Muta’Ali Muhammad is an Emmy-nominated and award-winning film director known for feature documentaries including MoviePass, MovieCrash (HBO), which premiered at SXSW and earned a News & Documentary Emmy nomination for Outstanding Business and Economic Documentary, and Cassius X: Becoming Ali (Smithsonian Channel).
He earned an NAACP Image Award nomination for Best Director of a Documentary for Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn (HBO), which was selected for the inaugural Lightbox/American Black Film Festival Feature Documentary Initiative. His Gracie Award-winning short Hear Her Voice (ABC) examines disparities in Black maternal health. His feature debut, Life’s Essentials with Ruby Dee, featured Harry Belafonte, Phylicia Rashad, Spike Lee, and Alan Alda.
In television, Muta’Ali directed an episode of Eyes on the Prize III (HBO), a nominee for two Critics Choice Documentary Awards, an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Documentary, and an IDA Award for Best Episodic Series. He served as a producer on the Emmy-nominated Juneteenth: Together We Triumph (ABC) and After Floyd: The Year That Shook the World.
Before filmmaking, Muta’Ali trained as an engineer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Georgia Tech and worked at IBM Research, where he earned a patent for a graphical user interface.
Guided by the themes of “Love, Art & Activism,” Muta’Ali speaks publicly and has appeared on ABC News, MSNBC, CBS, Fox News, BBC, PBS, SiriusXM, and NPR. His work has been covered in Variety, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Vulture, and Essence.
Through his films and keynotes, Muta’Ali challenges audiences to use creativity as a tool for impact, speak truth to power, and find fulfillment in purpose-driven work.
11:30 AM – 12:45 PM
Feedback Loop: How to Deal with Rough Cut Notes
When the notes on your rough cut start coming in, how do you know what to do? Documentary editor and writer David Teague (Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields) takes an inside look at the art of navigating feedback. Through a case study from his own editing work, he’ll show you how he excavated valuable insights from rough cut screenings, notes from funders, and team member feedback. Then, joined by editor Damian Rodriguez (Pee-wee as Himself), they’ll discuss the role of consulting editor and share lessons on effective ways to give and receive notes that open up new ways of thinking and ignite a creative spark.
David Teague
Editor, Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields
David Teague
Editor, Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields
David Teague is an Emmy-winning documentary film editor, writer and producer. His work as an editor includes the Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning Life Animated, the Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning Cutie and the Boxer, the Independent Spirit-nominated The Departure, and the Oscar-winning Freeheld. He wrote and produced Stamped from the Beginning, based on the book by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi. Stamped was shortlisted for an Academy Award and David was nominated for an Emmy and a Writers Guild Award for his work on the film. He was the supervising editor for the Sundance-winning Frida and the Emmy-nominated Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields. He wrote the fiction film Cassandro with director Roger Ross Williams, starring Gael García Bernal, which premiered at Sundance 2023 and was nominated for a GLAAD award. David has served as an editing mentor with IFP/Gotham, Firelight, Tribeca, Brown Girls Doc Mafia, Catapult True/False Rough Cut Retreat, and the Sundance Institute.
Damian Rodriguez
Editor, Pee-wee As Himself
Damian Rodriguez
Editor, Pee-wee As Himself
Damian Rodriguez is an award winning film and television editor from Austin, TX. He started out in the music industry working at Willie Nelson’s recording studio, later relocating to NYC in 2000 and crossing over to filmmaking. Damian has worked with Martin Scorsese, Bob Dylan, and the director/editor David Tedeschi since 2003 on No Direction Home, Rolling Thunder Revue, and the docuseries Pretend It’s A City featuring Fran Lebowitz among other projects. Recently he edited Pee-Wee As Himself directed by Matt Wolf, which won a Primetime Emmy award for picture editing in 2025 and an ACE Eddie award in 2026.
2:00 PM – 3:15 PM
Workshopping the Edit: Collaborative Feedback for Shorts
Stuck on a cut of your short film? Unsure what’s working? Selected filmmakers will share work-in-progress edits of their short documentaries and receive live feedback from UFO filmmaker support organization co-directors Sean Weiner and Arno Mokros, New York Times Op-Docs producers Alexandra Garcia and Yvonne Ashley Kouadjo, and the audience. Part workshop, part public edit session, this program models collaborative post-production critique, inviting everyone in the room to help the projects reach picture lock. Gain insight into the editorial decisions, creative risks, and problem-solving that shape a documentary before it’s finished.
Arno Mokros
Co-Founder, UFO
Arno Mokros
Co-Founder, UFO
Arno Mokros is co-founder and co-director of UFO, a Brooklyn-based organization that supports independent filmmakers working across nonfiction, narrative, and hybrid genres at critical and under-resourced career stages. He also manages NewFest’s New Voices Filmmaker Grant created in partnership with Netflix to support emerging filmmakers whose work centers the LGBTQ+ community. In his artist support work, Arno has served as a consulting producer and advisor on dozens of short film projects, including official selections of Sundance, SXSW, True/False, and DOC NYC, among many other festivals. He also works as an independent producer, and most recently produced Human Theories, which premiered at Tribeca 2026.
Sean Weiner
Co-director, UFO
Sean Weiner
Co-director, UFO
Sean Weiner is an Emmy-nominated producer, editor, and nonprofit arts leader based in the Hudson Valley of New York. He has produced and edited award-winning films selected by Sundance, Berlinale, SXSW, and acquired by Criterion, HBO, NEW York Times Op-Docs, and Oscilloscope Laboratories. He is a co-founder and co-director of the filmmaker support nonprofit, UFO. Sean is currently a 2026 Sundance Producers Lab fellow. Recent credits include Adam Meeks’ Union County starring Will Poulter and Noah Centineo which premiered in U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival; Arielle Knight’s The Boys And The Bees which won the Short Jury Award for nonfiction at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival; and César Martínez Barba’s Más Y Más Y Más Flores which was nominated for an Emmy in 2025.
Alexandra Garcia
Executive Producer, The New York Times Op-Docs
Alexandra Garcia
Executive Producer, The New York Times Op-Docs
Alexandra Garcia is the executive producer of Op-Docs, The New York Times’s Oscar-winning series of short documentaries. Previously, she was a documentary director/producer for newspaper’s video newsroom and or its documentary series The Weekly and The New York Times Presents on FX and Hulu. Her work at The Times has earned three Emmy awards, over a dozen Emmy nominations and has screened at film festivals worldwide. Formerly, she was a fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard and a senior video journalist at The Washington Post.
Yvonne Ashley Kouadjo
The New York Times Op-Docs
Yvonne Ashley Kouadjo
The New York Times Op-Docs
Yvonne Ashley Kouadjo is an Emmy-winning producer and curator for Op-Docs, The New York Times’s Oscar-winning series of short documentaries by independent filmmakers. Since 2011, Op-Docs films have sparked global conversations, influenced policies and garnered an array of industry distinctions. Yvonne Ashley collaborates with filmmakers globally, working with and championing films that include Instruments of a Beating Heart and Island in Between. She frequently participates in film festivals and markets, serving on various juries, panels, forums, and leading seminars.
3:30 PM – 4:45 PM
The AI Edit: What Are We Gaining, What Are We Losing?
AI is entering the edit room from every direction. Some tools can save hours of tedious work, while others promise to identify story beats, build assemblies, and help shape an edit. For documentary filmmakers, those possibilities raise both excitement and concern. Where does AI genuinely improve the process, and where does it fall short? Join editor moderator/editor Ann Collins (Ain’t No Back to a Merry-Go-Round), Phillip Shane (Being Elmo), who will demonstrate some of the latest AI-powered editing tools, ethics expert and producer Tiffany Fisher-Love (United Skates), and editor Marley McDonald (Eno) for a candid conversation about the practical uses of AI, the ethical questions it raises, and what documentary storytelling stands to gain or lose as these tools become part of everyday editorial practice.
Philip Shane
Editor, Being Elmo
Philip Shane
Editor, Being Elmo
Philip Shane is a renowned documentary filmmaker with a thirty-year career steeped in technological innovation and exploration. He was co-director & editor of Being Elmo (Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival), and producer & editor of the two hour feature documentary, Einstein (2008, History editor of Dancing in Jaffa, which had it’s World Premiere at the 2013 TriBeCa Film Festival, he and Bob Eisenhardt won the Best Editing Award at Israel’s prestigious DocAviv Film Festival. At ABC News for nearly a decade, Shane edited many distinguished long form programs including Ted Kopple’s Iraq War documentary, Tip of the Spear, which won the 2004 DuPont Columbia Award for Broadcast Journalism, and Martin Luther King: Searching For The Promised Land (1999) which won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Historical Program. A short film he made with Peter Jennings and Senior Producer Richard Gerdau, Witness to History, preserved Jennings’ personal memories of 9/11 and has been placed in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Museum of American History.
Tiffany Fisher-Love
Digital Content Manager
Tiffany Fisher-Love
Digital Content Manager
Tiffany Fisher-Love (she/her) straddles the line between narrative and documentary projects. She is currently producing the feature documentaries Storming, Anatomy of a Life, and The Experiencer Project, as well as the feature narrative Hawaiian Vacation. Previous work includes Co-Producer on Boycott and the Emmy-nominated United Skates. Tiffany also produced the award-winning shorts Barista, Daniel, Booked, and Out to Dry. With a background in digital media, she has worked with Upworthy, Brut, Peoria, and Fellow Americans to distribute educational and impactful content to millions of viewers for more than a decade. Tiffany is a Film Independent Documentary Fellow, a Sundance Producer Intensive Fellow, and an SF Film Creative Mentor. She serves on the board of the Documentary Producers Alliance and on the steering committees of New Day Films and the Archival Producers Alliance.
Ann Collins ACE
Producer and Editor
Ann Collins ACE
Producer and Editor
Ann Collins has worked as a documentary film editor in New York for more than 30 years. Recent credits include Ilana Trachtman’s Ain’t No Back to a Merry-Go-Round; the Peabody Award winning film, Can You Bring It? Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters, directed by Rosalynde LeBlanc and Tom Hurwitz; and Vanishing: A Love Story, directed by Sandra Lukow. She was nominated for an Eddie Award for her work on Griffin Dunne’s Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold. She also co-produced and edited Swim Team, directed by Lara Stolman.
Early in her career, she edited The Heart of the Matter, Belly Talkers, The Charcoal People, and Sound and Fury, all of which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Sound and Fury was nominated for an Academy Award.
She holds a BFA in Film and Television from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.
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Marley McDonald
Editor
Marley McDonald
Editor
Marley McDonald is a filmmaker and painter living in Ridgewood, New York. She directed and edited her debut feature-length documentary, Time Bomb Y2K (co-directed with Brian Becker), which premiered on HBO in December 2023. Her recent editing work includes the generative documentary Eno (Sundance 2024) and Earth to Michael (Telluride 2025). Her associate editor credits include Spaceship Earth (Sundance 2020) and the Golden Lion–winning, Oscar-nominated documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed. She is currently directing and editing a film based on the archives of the American Museum of Natural History.
Today’s Happy Hour is co-presented by:
DOC NYC PRO is co-presented by:
