Tukufu Zuberi is an American sociologist, filmmaker, social critic, educator, and writer. Zuberi has appeared in several documentaries on Africa and the African diaspora, including Liberia: America's Stepchild (2002), and 500 Years Later (2005). He is one of the hosts of the long-running PBS program History Detectives. As founder of his own production company, he produced the film African Independence, which premiered at the San Diego Black Film Festival in January 2013. He is the Lasry Family Professor of Race Relations, professor and chair of the sociology department, and professor of Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
Mary Sweeney is an American director, writer, film editor and film producer. She was briefly married to American film director David Lynch, whom she collaborated with for 20 years. Sweeney worked with Lynch on several films and television series, most notably the original Twin Peaks series (1990), Lost Highway (1997), The Straight Story (1999), and Mulholland Drive (2001). Sweeney is the Dino and Martha De Laurentiis Endowed Professor in the Writing Division of the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. She was formerly the chair of the Film Independent board of directors.
Powwow Highway is a Native American 1989 independent comedy-drama film from George Harrison's HandMade Films Company, directed by Jonathan Wacks. Based on the novel Powwow Highway by David Seals, it features A Martinez, Gary Farmer, Joanelle Romero and Amanda Wyss. Wes Studi and Graham Greene, who were relatively unknown actors at the time, have small supporting roles.
Adam Mahomed Habib is a South African academic administrator serving as Director of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London since 1 January 2021. He served as Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg, South Africa, between 1 June 2013, when the term of his predecessor Loyiso Nongxa ended, and 1 January 2021. He is also a former deputy vice-chancellor of the University of Johannesburg.
Cristina Kotz Cornejo is an Argentine-American director and screenwriter who divides her time between Boston, Mexico City, and Buenos Aires. She is a descendant of the Huarpe people of the Cuyo region of Argentina and was educated in the US and Argentina.
Renee Tajima-Peña is an American filmmaker whose work focuses on immigrant communities, race, gender and social justice. Her directing and producing credits include the documentaries Who Killed Vincent Chin?, No Más Bebés, My America...or Honk if You Love Buddha, Calavera Highway, Skate Manzanar, Labor Women and the 5-part docuseries Asian Americans.
Thomas Richmond was an American cinematographer who worked in the film industry since the mid-1980s. His first major feature film as cinematographer was Stand and Deliver (1988), and by the time he shot for A Midnight Clear (1992), he had settled into working with different directors with ease. Richmond described his experience, "All my films look different because they're not my visions; they're my reflections of the directors' visions." In 1998, he said he was most proud of his work on Little Odessa (1994), for which he was nominated an Independent Spirit Award for Best Cinematography. For Right at Your Door (2006), he won the Excellence in Cinematography Award (Dramatic) at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.
Jonathan A. Levine is an American film director and screenwriter.
Wilmot Godfrey James is a South African academic who served as the country's opposition spokesperson of health and Member of Parliament for the opposition Democratic Alliance. His constituencies were Mitchells Plain and Rondebosch. He was elected the party's Federal Chairperson between 2010 and 2015. Dr. James contested for the post of party leader in 2016, but lost the election to Mmusi Maimane. James served as director of Sanlam, Media24 and the Africa Genome Education Institute, and was chairperson of the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra and the Immigration Advisory Board of South Africa. He is also a former Trustee of the Ford Foundation of New York. He currently is Professor of Health Policy, Services and Practice and serves as a Senior Advisor to the Pandemic Center, School of Public Health at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. He previously served as a Senior Research Scholar at the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy in the College of Arts and Sciences at Columbia University in New York City.
Thomas Allen Harris is a critically acclaimed, interdisciplinary artist who explores family, identity, and spirituality in a participatory practice. Since 1990, Harris has remixed archives from multiple origins throughout his work, challenging hierarchy within historical narratives through the use of pioneering documentary and research methodologies that center vernacular image and collaboration. He is currently working on a new television show, Family Pictures USA, which takes a radical look at neighborhoods and cities of the United States through the lens of family photographs, collaborative performances, and personal testimony sourced from their communities..
Ira Deutchman is a producer, distributor and marketer of independent films. In 2000, he moved into film exhibition as co-founder and managing partner of Emerging Pictures, a New York-based digital exhibition company, which was sold in January 2015 to Vancouver-based 20 Year Media. He also served as Chair of the Film Program at Columbia University School of the Arts from 2011 to 2015, where he has been a Professor since 1987. Deutchman is a member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He was one of the original creative advisors to the Sundance Institute and formerly served on the board of advisors for the Sundance Film Festival. He has also served as a board member and former board chair for the Independent Feature Project, the board of advisors for the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival, the Williamstown Film Festival, IFP/West, and the Collective for Living Cinema, and was a member of the board for Kartemquin Films.
Howard A. Rodman is a screenwriter, author and professor. He is the former President of the Writers Guild of America, West, professor and former chair of the writing division at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, alumnus of Telluride Association Summer Program and an artistic director of the Sundance Institute Screenwriting Labs.
Eliza Hittman is an American screenwriter, film director, and producer from New York City. She has won multiple awards for her film Never Rarely Sometimes Always, which include the New York Film Critics Circle Award and the National Society of Film Critics Award—both for best screenplay.
Connie Field is an American film director known for her work in documentaries.
Peter Vale is a senior research fellow at the Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, and the Nelson Mandela Professor of Politics Emeritus at Rhodes University, South Africa. He is also an honorary professor at the Africa Earth Observatory Network (AEON) of which he was a founding member. Notably, Vale was the founding director of the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS) and acting vice-rector for academic affairs and deputy vice-chancellor of the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. He has also received an honoury doctorate in the Humanities from the University of the Free State, South Africa.
Oliver Hermanus is a South African film director and writer. He is known for his films Shirley Adams (2009), Beauty (2011), The Endless River (2015), Moffie (2019), and Living (2022). Beauty won the Queer Palm Award at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.
The Barry R. Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, more commonly referred to as the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, is a film school and one of the graduate schools of Brooklyn College, a senior college within the City University of New York. It is located on the Steiner Studios film lot in Brooklyn, New York. Feirstein is the first public graduate film school in New York City and is the only public graduate film school in the United States located on a working film lot. The school is named after Barry Feirstein, a donor and Brooklyn College alumnus.
Michael Tyburski is an American film director and screenwriter, best known for directing The Sound of Silence, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
Jonathan Berman is an American film producer, director, screenwriter, and academic. He is best known for his documentary work as producer and film director of The Shvitz (1993), My Friend Paul (1999), Commune (2005), and Calling All Earthlings (2018). His non-fiction feature films explore subculture and identity, depicting how alternative people, groups and ideas are represented in media. Berman currently serves as a professor at California State University San Marcos.
Nana Mensah is an American actress, writer, and director known for her roles in 13 Reasons Why, An African City, New Amsterdam, Bonding, and The Chair. Mensah's directorial debut, Queen of Glory, had its festival premiere in 2021, and was released in 2022.
