Melinda Maerker (she/her) has worked as a visual storyteller across media. Her current project (as director/co-producer) is the documentary, We Live Here: The Midwest–an authentic portrait of LGBTQ+ families in America’s heartland.
An Academy Award®-winning short documentary director and entrepreneur, Ben Proudfoot is the creative force behind Breakwater Studios. The studio’s work has been recognized by the Academy Awards®, The Emmys, The Peabody Awards, Critics Choice Documentary Awards, The James Beard Awards, the Sundance Film Festival, Telluride, and the Tribeca Film Festival among others. Proudfoot was named […]
Troy Herion is an Emmy-winning and Cinema Eye-nominated composer, editor, and producer whose scoring has garnered critical acclaim. Films like 306 Hollywood, The Hottest August, and Bulletproof are just a few of Herion’s extensive list of high-profile projects. His films have screened at Sundance, Tribeca, Toronto, the Berlinale, SXSW, HotDocs,The New York Film Festival, True/False […]
David Clayton Miller recently produced the upcoming Hulu Originals documentary entitled We Live Here: The Midwest through his DCMDocumentary banner. He is also a professional photographer having shot for Dolce & Gabbana, the Hollywood Reporter, Entertainment Weekly, Architectural Digest and other fashion and media outlets. He previously produced two independent feature films, Defying Gravity and […]
Shayla Harris is an independent director. She recently produced and directed Making Black America and The Black Church with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. for PBS. She directed Let Noor Run, a documentary short for ESPN’s W. Studios and was a producer on Who Killed Malcolm X?, an Emmy-nominated doc series for Netflix. Before her documentary […]
Kristen Lovell has been an advocate in the trans community for over 20 years. As an actress, she appeared in Random Acts of Flyness, and she was co-producer of the award-winning feature The Garden Left Behind. The Stroll is her directorial debut. Instagram: @kplgrams / Twitter: @kikilovell
Meredith Broussard is an associate professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University and the research director at the NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology. She is the author of an upcoming book, More Than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech (MIT Press, 2023), as well as […]
Brittany Quirarte is an Educator Development Specialist at The New York Public Library’s new initiative The Center for Educators and Schools. This program seeks to use NYPL’s resources and collections to ignite the curiosity, joy, and passion of learning within educators, students, and school communities. CES hosts many film events for teachers including a summer […]
Chithra Jeyaram is a physical therapist turned filmmaker with an MFA in Film from the University of Texas in Austin. She specializes in one-person crew independent documentaries. She identifies as Tamil. Her work prioritizes subverting stereotypes by framing narratives that highlight perspectives, and intricacies that are left out. She is the recipient of Visions Du […]
Brian Walker is the CEO of Picture Motion, a social advocacy and marketing company that leads award winning social impact campaigns for films, tv and other media. In 2013 Brian joined Participant Media, where he directed social impact and digital strategy for the TEACH and He Named Me Malala campaigns focused on education, inclusion, and […]