In Football We Trust

Tony Vainuku’s first career aspirations began on the field, as a budding professional football player from Salt Lake City, UT. Years later, after his prospects of playing professional ball dead-ended, Tony was introduced to music video production, which he immediately fell in love with. He enrolled at Westminster College, UT to explore film production and found his niche in writing and storytelling. After graduating with a B.S. in Business Marketing, Tony founded a multi-media company, Soul Profile Productions, featuring in local sport promotions, wedding videos, web ads, and promos. In 2002, Tony produced and shot his first film, Makaveli, a music video themed short. Tony has since written a variety of TV concepts, short scripts, and documentaries. In addition, Tony launched the Soulpro clothing line.

Erika Cohn is an Emmy award winning director/producer who Variety recognized as one of 2017’s top ten documentary filmmakers. Most recently, Erika completed The Judge, a film about the first woman judge to be appointed to the Middle East’s Shari’a courts, which premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival and will be broadcast on PBS’ 2018 Independent Lens series. Erika co-directed/produced, In Football We Trust, an Emmy award-winning, feature documentary about the unique faith and culture that ultimately drives young Pacific Islander men into the NFL, which premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and was broadcast on PBS’ 2016 Independent Lens series. Her work has been supported by IFP, the Sundance Institute, Tribeca Institute, Hot Docs, Sheffield, ITVS, Women in Film, BAVC and the CPB Producer’s Academy among others. In 2013, Erika founded Idle Wild Films, Inc., which has released three feature documentaries and produced numerous branded content and commercial spots, including Gatorade’s Win from Within series, for which she received a 2016 Webby award nomination. Erika is also an avid photographer and served as a U.S. Ambassadorial Film Scholar to Israel/Palestine.