Contessa Gayles is an award-winning film director, writer, DP, editor and an Emmy-nominated producer. She tells stories about identity, socio-political movement, healing, Black liberation and the radical imagination. Contessa’s award-winning feature documentary-visual album, Songs from the Hole, world premiered at SXSW 2024, where it won the Audience Award, Visions category. She premiered The Debutantes at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival in documentary competition. Her documentary short, Founder Girls, premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival and broadcast on BET. Contessa’s work has been supported by Impact Partners, Field of Vision, Artemis Rising Foundation, the International Documentary Association, Sundance Institute, California Arts Council, DeNovo Initiative, Queen Latifah’s Queen Collective, and others. She was an SFFILM filmmaker in residence and has been awarded fellowships with the Film Independent/Netflix Amplifier fellowship, the Bay Area Video Coalition MediaMaker fellowship, the Firelight Documentary Lab, the Chicken & Egg (Egg)celerator Lab and the Open Society Foundations Soros Justice fellowship. She was named to DOC NYC’s 40 under 40 list. Previously, she was on staff at CNN, where she directed, produced, shot and edited award-winning original series and documentaries, including the feature documentary, The Feminist on Cellblock Y, shorts; Women Who March, Women Who March: The Movement, and series including; This Is Birth with Lisa Ling and the 2016 News & Documentary Emmy-nominated Feeding America's Most Vulnerable Children.

Michael is an awarding-winning journalist, filmmaker, and artist. His work spans film, radio, theater, installation and photography. His most recent feature film, Homegrown, premiered at the 2024 Venice Film Festival in the Venice Critics Week section. It has won numerous awards including a 2026 duPont-Columbia Award, one of the most prestigious awards in broadcast journalism.

He directed the award-winning short film and photo exhibition Water Warriors (POV), a story about a community’s successful resistance to the oil and gas industry. It has since been rebroadcasted hundreds of times by PBS stations across the country, including annually in November. He also co-directed the participatory documentary Sandy Storyline (Jury Award winner at the Tribeca Film Festival), the site-specific performance Sanctuary (The Working Theater), and the PBS series Veterans Coming Home. Michael has directed, produced, and co-written original film, radio, and theater with numerous companies including The Foundry Theater, The Civilians, and the Peabody Award-winning StoryCorps on NPR. Michael’s photography has appeared in publications like The Village Voice, The New York Times, and Het Parool. He has been an artist-in-residence with Camargo Foundation, The Laundromat Project and the National Resource Defense Council. He is the recipient of an NBC News Studios Original Voices Fellowship, a Creative Capital Award, A Blade of Grass Artist Files Fellowship, and a New York State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Award.

As DOC NYC’s Director of Industry and Education, Malikkah develops and facilitates year-round programs and events, including the festival’s eight-day DOC NYC PRO conference, that support documentary filmmakers and strengthen community across the field. As a licensed clinical social worker, skilled group facilitator, and educator, she designs spaces where filmmakers can pause, connect, and access mentorship, support, and practical resources to move their work forward. She is the co-founder of DocuMentality, a mental health initiative advocating for filmmaker well-being and more open conversations around mental health in the documentary world. Malikkah is a member of Brown Girl Doc Mafia, serves on the board of Women in Film and Video–DC, and spent six years working as an independent documentary producer. Outside of DOC NYC, she’s usually planning her next travel adventure.

Sarah Rachael Wainio is one of the industry’s most sought after storytellers. Her credits include The Food Network, Magnolia Network, Netflix, TLC, and HBO. She produced the first three seasons of MTV’s seminal show “Teen Mom: Young + Pregnant,” bringing the real-life consequences of unplanned teen pregnancy to a national audience. She earned an MFA in Social Documentary Film from the School of Visual Arts and has a degree in Psychology and Philosophy from Fordham University. Sarah is Secretary of the Documentary Producers Alliance and co-chairs the ethics task force. She lives in NYC with her cats Theodora and Tovah.

Monika Navarro is an Emmy-nominated independent filmmaker, and has over a decade of leadership across public media and non-profit film organizations. Previously, Monika served as an EP for In the Making, a documentary series from Firelight Media and American Masters, was the Director of Firelight Media's William Greaves Production Fund, led the FRONTLINE/Firelight Investigative Journalism Fellowship, and the Documentary Lab. Monika was Senior Director of Programs at Tribeca Film Institute, and managed content and funding initiatives at the Independent Television Service (ITVS). Her debut film Lost Souls (Animas Perdidas) bowed on Independent Lens, and she has produced for World Channel, American Documentary, the Peabody-award winning PBS series Latino Americans, and most recently Love in the Time of Fentanyl (Independent Lens). Monika has served as a mentor for 4th World, Big Sky, Blackstar, CAAM, and the Points North Institute; as a juror for Blackstar and Hot Docs; and serves as co-chair of the Points North Institute Board.