Sarah Miriam Schulman is an American novelist, playwright, nonfiction writer, screenwriter, gay activist, and AIDS historian. She holds an endowed chair in nonfiction at Northwestern University and is a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities. She is a recipient of the Bill Whitehead Award and the Lambda Literary Award.
Benjamin Fong-Torres is an American rock journalist best known for his association with Rolling Stone magazine and the San Francisco Chronicle.
Thomas King Butt is an American politician and architect and the former mayor of Richmond, California. He was vice-mayor in 2002 and 2012 and a member of the Richmond City Council for over 20 years before being elected mayor. He is the longest continuously serving council member in Richmond's history.
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) is a multi-disciplinary contemporary arts center in San Francisco, California, United States. Located in Yerba Buena Gardens, YBCA features visual art, performance, and film/video that celebrates local, national, and international artists and the Bay Area's diverse communities. YBCA programs year-round in two landmark buildings—the Galleries and Forum by Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki and the adjacent Theater by American architect James Stewart Polshek and Todd Schliemann. Betti-Sue Hertz served as Curator from 2008 through 2015.
Richard Arlook is an American talent manager and film producer. Arlook was a senior partner and head of the Motion Picture Literary department at The Gersh Agency. In 2008, he formed The Arlook Group production company.
Hrag Varoujan Yedalian is an Armenian-American political consultant and documentary film director and producer. He is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and holds a Masters of Public Administration degree from the University of Southern California. He has attended UCLA School of Law and studied film editing at the AFI Conservatory. Hrag runs the Los Angeles-based consulting firm Blue State Campaigns. His work has been featured in Rolling Stone, The Hollywood Reporter, and San Francisco Chronicle. He previously worked at Steven Spielberg’s organization, the USC Shoah Foundation.
Suzi Yoonessi is an American filmmaker. She wrote and directed the award-winning feature film Dear Lemon Lima, and directed the Duplass Brothers film Unlovable and Daphne and Velma for Warner Brothers. Yoonessi's short films No Shoulder and Dear Lemon Lima are distributed by Shorts International and Vanguard Cinema and her documentary film Vern is distributed by National Film Network and is in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Sasha Anawalt, born Marcia Evelyn Cunningham, is an educator, dance critic and former journalist who founded several arts journalism programs at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism in Los Angeles, including a master's degree program in arts journalism (2008). She is author of The Joffrey Ballet: Robert Joffrey and the Making of an American Dance Company.
Natalia Leite is a Brazilian writer and director. She is best known for directing the indie hit film M.F.A., a feminist rape-revenge thriller that spurred debates at the start of the #MeToo movement. Subsequently, she went on to direct episodes of The Handmaid's Tale. Her work has been described as having “a bracing, assertive style” (Variety), "emotional intelligence", and as “cementing the reign over highly stylized, sexually progressive dramas” (Slant). Leite is known to incorporate her documentary subjects into her scripted films.
Speaking in Tongues is a 2009 documentary film that focuses on the language barrier within society. Spanning 60 minutes this documentary is programmed by California Visions. It included languages of English, Mandarin, Cantonese and Spanish. Directed by Marcia Jarmel and Ken Schneider it was released April 2009 in the United States but has languages such as English, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Spanish.
Dawn Valadez is a Mexican-American documentary filmmaker and fundraiser based in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. She directed and produced the documentary film, Going On 13 (2008) and co-directed The Pushouts.
Marcia Ochoa is a United States-based professor of Feminist Studies and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. They are the co-founder of El/La Para TransLatinas and is credited with popularizing the term "translatina."
Cindy Shih is a Taiwanese-born American visual artist. Her work is strongly rooted in traditional techniques and principles, including Chinese literati painting, Venetian plasterwork, landscape painting, and realism, although producing thoroughly modern pieces. One of her prominent themes is exploring her personal narrative in a broad context. She lives in San Francisco, California.
Gravitas Ventures is an independent film distribution company owned by Anthem Sports and Entertainment. The company was founded by Nolan Gallagher in Los Angeles, California in 2006 and moved its headquarters to Cleveland, Ohio in 2019. It focuses on the distribution of Independent feature films and documentaries.
Sarah Minter was a Mexican filmmaker and artist.
No Lye: An American Beauty Story is a 2019 documentary film by Bayer Mack that chronicles the rise and decline of the black-owned ethnic beauty industry in America.
Octavia Broske was an American actress and musical performer.
Summer of Soul is a 2021 American independent documentary film about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, directed by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson in his directorial debut. It had its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival on January 28, 2021, where it won the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award in the documentary categories. It had a limited theatrical release in the U.S. by Searchlight Pictures on June 25, 2021, before expanding and being released for streaming on Hulu the next weekend.
Levelfilm, stylized as levelFILM, is a Canadian film distribution company based in Toronto, Ontario. The company was founded by David Hudakoc and Michael Baker in 2013, and later acquired two other Canadian distribution houses: Search Engine Films in 2018 and KinoSmith in 2021. It has released more than 200 titles, with a focus on independent Canadian films.
Ken Schneider, ACE is a director, producer, and editor for PatchWorks Films, a production company in San Francisco. He has traveled and made films in Cuba for many years alongside wife and film collaborator, Marcia Jarmel. They co-directed Los Hermanos/The Brothers, which tells the story of virtuoso Afro-Cuban brothers living on opposite sides of a geopolitical chasm, one in New York, the other in Havana. The film follows their parallel lives and poignant reunion through their momentous first performances together after so long apart.
