MEET THE 2026 JURORS

Sam Bisbee is an Oscar- and BAFTA-nominated and Emmy, Peabody, and Independent Spirit Award-winning producer and founding partner of Park Pictures Features. His documentaries include The Perfect Neighbor (2026 Academy Award nominee), Daughters (Peabody Award winner), The Sentence (Primetime Emmy winner), The Truffle Hunters (DGA Award winner), and Grand Theft Hamlet (BAFTA-shortlisted). His work spans both narrative and nonfiction filmmaking. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, BAFTA, and the Television Academy.

Michael Premo is an award-winning journalist, filmmaker, and artist creating time-based media. His work spans film, radio, theater, installation, and photography. His film and exhibition Water Warriors (POV), about an Indigenous community’s successful fight to protect their water, has been rebroadcasted hundreds of times by PBS stations. His latest feature, Homegrown, premiered at the 2024 Venice Film Festival. It has won numerous awards, including a 2026 duPont-Columbia Award. He’s on the board of trustees of A Blade of Grass.

Elizabeth Woodward is the founder and CEO of WILLA, a production and distribution company focused on socially and culturally important stories. She was selected for Variety’s Hollywood New Leaders, Forbes’ 30 Under 30, and DOC NYC’s 40 Under 40, and the Sundance Catalyst Fellowship. Recent WILLA films include The Voice of Hind Rajab, A Lien, La Cocina, Another Body, You Resemble Me, and The Shepherd and the Bear. Her credits also include Netflix’s The Great Hack and HBO’s The Vow.

Mohammadreza Eyni is an Oscar-nominated director and producer. He is a Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner for Cutting Through Rocks, which has also won numerous awards at other international festivals. A Directors Guild of America (DGA) nominee, Mohammadreza’s cinematic approach has been praised as “uniquely propulsive” and “practically magical” (Variety). His film received a Critic’s Pick from The New York Times and was released in theaters worldwide. Mohammadreza continues to work across both fiction and nonfiction filmmaking.

Sara Khaki is an Oscar-nominated director, producer, and editor. She is a Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner for her feature documentary Cutting Through Rocks, which also received a nomination from the Directors Guild of America (DGA) and earned the Outstanding Achievement in Directing Award from New York Women in Film & Television (NYWIFT). Described by IndieWire as “a deftly shaped work of cinematic nonfiction” and POV Magazine as “a profound vérité documentary,” Khaki’s latest work has received numerous accolades and recognition worldwide.

Paola oversees the Sundance Documentary Fund’s curatorial, grant-making, and partnership initiatives, awarding up to $2 million annually to independent artists worldwide. Before joining Sundance, she managed non-fiction programs at The Gotham and supported grant-making and production at Cinereach. She began her career in London in documentary production and festival programming. Paola was named a 2023 DOC NYC Documentary New Leader, is a member of BAFTA, and serves on the Advisory Board of DocLands (California Film Institute).

Nicole Tsien is an Emmy-nominated independent producer from the Chinese diaspora and a lifelong New Yorker based in Queens. She produced the Emmy-nominated and 2024 DOC NYC Audience Award winner, Slumlord Millionaire. She previously worked in television for over a decade at CNN Films and POV on PBS. Nicole has been supported by Sundance, EURODOC, Film Independent, Rockwood JustFilms, and DOC NYC.

Molly O’Brien is an Academy Award-winning and Primetime Emmy Award-winning filmmaker whose documentaries reveal cultural transformation through unforgettable characters. With deep experience across directing, producing, and executive leadership, Molly brings a rare 360-degree understanding of the creative process.

Laura Nix is a Peabody Award-winning, Oscar- and Emmy-nominated filmmaker who directed the feature-length documentaries Democracy Under Siege, Inventing Tomorrow, The Yes Men Are Revolting, The Light In Her Eyes, among others, as well as the short Walk Run Cha-Cha. A member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Documentary Branch, her work has premiered at Sundance, Toronto, and Berlinale, appeared at hundreds of film festivals worldwide, and been released theatrically and on television in multiple international territories.

Marcia Rock’s documentaries cover international dilemmas, women’s issues, as well as personal perspectives. Family Treasures Lost and Found (GOOD DOCS) breaks the silence about people lost to the Holocaust. UnReined, featuring an Israeli equestrian champion who builds the first Palestinian equestrian team, aired on 22 PBS stations. Her other films include SERVICE: When Women Come Marching Home (NY Emmy, distributed by Women Make Movies); Daughters of the Troubles: Belfast Stories (AWRT’s Grand Award for Documentary); McSorley’s New York (NY Emmy); Dancing with My Father; and Surrender Tango. Rock started and is the director of the News and Documentary program at NYU Journalism, with thirteen Student Academy Awards. She co-authored Waiting for Primetime: The Women of Television News and is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Jacqueline Handy is a seasoned cultural curator with a knack for seamlessly blending the professional with the familiar, the formal with the approachable. She is dedicated to developing and executing scientific, educational, and culturally vibrant programming in NYC. As both the Director of Public Programs and the Margaret Mead Film Festival Director at the American Museum of Natural History, she and her team create inclusive and accessible platforms for science communication, sparking curiosity, joy, and understanding. In her programming work at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, she was instrumental in fostering community and engagement while garnering support for artistic endeavors throughout the city. In all aspects of her career, Jacqueline serves as a bridge-builder, scouting for high-quality features and partnerships and working to expand opportunities for audiences who haven’t traditionally been welcomed at New York’s great cultural institutions—opening the doors wide enough for everyone to dance through.

​​Christopher Radcliff is a mixed Chinese American filmmaker based in New York City. His documentary short film We Were the Scenery premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, where it received the Short Film Jury Award for Nonfiction, and it went on to be shortlisted for the 98th Academy Awards. He recently produced the feature film Zi, directed by Kogonada, which premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival and is being released theatrically by Grasshopper Films.

Hannah Rosenzweig is an award-winning documentary film director, producer, and founder of Intention Media. She directed SURGE, which premiered on Showtime and is now streaming on Amazon and Apple TV. Her award-winning short 51st State is streaming on PBS and won a special jury mention at DOC NYC. Hannah just completed a new film entitled Lifelines. She produced Puppet, a feature film that premiered at the very first DOC NYC Festival in 2010.

Carl Deal is an award-winning independent filmmaker who directed and produced Steal This Story, Please!, DOC NYC’s 2025 Centerpiece feature. He and his longtime collaborator Tia Lessin’s directorial debut, Trouble the Water, received the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for Documentary and an Academy Award nomination. They also directed and produced Citizen Koch, documenting the origins of the MAGA movement and the extremist takeover of the GOP. Carl has produced several Michael Moore films and is the recipient of FOCAL International’s inaugural award for use of archival footage in a feature film.

Rachael J. Morrison is a documentary filmmaker and archival producer. Her feature-length directorial debut Joybubbles premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival and has screened at more than thirty festivals, including SXSW, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, DC/DOX, and San Francisco. Morrison is the recipient of a Gotham Week Honor, the Adrienne Shelly Foundation Excellence in Filmmaking Award, and a Special Mention for the First Appearance Award at Millennium Docs Against Gravity. As an archival producer, she has worked on documentary features and series for Netflix, HBO, Hulu, PBS, and other major networks and streamers. Morrison is also the recipient of residencies at Harvestworks, Ox-Bow School of Art, and the Woodard Residency.

Sasha Waters is a moving image artist working in 16mm whose films pursue ecstatic, metaphorical realism from the relations and materials of ordinary life. Her latest feature, Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World, premiered at True/False and was released in theaters across North America by Kino Lorber before airing on the PBS series American Masters. She has had solo retrospectives at Microscope Gallery, The Brattle, and Centro de Cultura Digital in Mexico City.

Violet Du Feng is an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker whose intimate, nuanced films open onto larger social issues. She has directed, produced, or executive produced over fifteen films. She directed The Dating Game, which premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, and Hidden Letters, an Oscar-shortlisted and Emmy- and Peabody-nominated Tribeca 2022 premiere that won twelve festival awards and aired in 15 countries. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Documentary Branch and an adjunct professor at Columbia Journalism School.

Jaie joined the DOC NYC team in June 2022. Prior to that, Jaie served for 12 years as the Miami Film Festival’s Executive Director and Co-Director of Programming, where his achievements included greatly expanding that festival’s documentary selections, as well as launching successful initiatives such as a digital screening platform, the GEMS festival, and the Google Talks on Gender & Racial Gaps in Film & Technology. He simultaneously oversaw year-round programming at the historic Tower Theater in Miami’s Little Havana. He previously served as Associate Director of the New York City Wine & Food Festival and as a programmer at festivals focused on shorts and LGBTQ+ films. He has served on numerous film festival juries, including the U.S. Competition jury at DOC NYC 2021.

Joshua Seftel is an Academy Award-winning filmmaker driven by the conviction that storytelling can promote empathy, connection, and change. His work includes the 2026 Oscar-winning documentary, All the Empty Rooms (Netflix), the Oscar-nominated Stranger at the Gate (The New Yorker), the Emmy-winning series Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and his regular appearances on CBS News Sunday Morning, where he interviews his 89-year-old mother.