Projects

Billy Luther (Navajo, Hopi and Laguna Pueblo) director/producer of the award winning documentary, Miss Navajo, which premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and aired nationally on PBS' Independent Lens that same year. He studied film at Hampshire College and worked on various projects for the New York City based Smithsonian National Museum of the… Show more American Indian's Film & Video Center. His second documentary feature Grab premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and aired nationally on Public Television that same year. He co-directed the Native America episode for the MTV documentary series Rebel Music– which was MTV’s highest viewed/shared content in their history of online programming. His latest short documentary film Red Lake had its world premiere at the 2016 Los Angeles Film Festival and was nominated for Best Documentary Short at the 2016 International Documentary Association Awards. Luther's films have also screened with the American Documentary Showcase, a collaborative program with The State Department and US Embassies around the world. He served on the Sundance Institute Alumni Advisory Board and the International Documentary Association Board of Directors. In 2018, Luther will launch his web-series alter-NATIVE for PBS’ IndieLens StoryCast exploring the world of Native Fashion designer, Bethany Yellowtail. Show less

MARIANELA MALDONADO - a Graduate of the Nations Film and Television School in the UK, wrote and directed ‘The Look of Happiness’ and ‘Breaking Out’, two short films which premiered at Cannes Film Festival. As a screenwriter, Marianela has worked on various fiction and animation features and short films among them ‘Peter and the Wolf’ (Oscar winner 2008), Unmade Beds… Show more (Sundance, Berlin, Rotterdam 2009), The Flying Machine (Toronto & 3D Films Festival 2012/2013) and Magic Piano (New York Film Festival, 2011 and pre-selected for the Academy Awards in 2012). Thanks to her successful short films and her work as a screenwriter, she was selected for the prestigious Writing Residence at Cannes Film Festival. As documentary director, she has worked for BBC World, co-directed a documentary tv series Bio-patents and ancestral Knowledge for Latin American TV. Recently, she co-wrote the feature documentary ÒOnce upon time in Venezuela’ -selected in Sundance 2020. Marianela is now working on the postproduction of her documentary feature film The Children of Las Brisas, shot over the last ten years in a dangerous Venezuelan slum. Since she moved to California, she has been teaching Script Writing at CalArts, producing short documentaries for Univision, and establishing her production company Invento Films. Currently, she is developing a fictional TV series and her first feature film ‘The Belly of the Whale’ for the LA based company Godard Studio. Show less

Kelsey Peterson is an artist, advocate, and C6 quadriplegic. She received her BFA in Dance from the University of Montana in 2008, and later her yoga teacher certification from CorePower Yoga. Her path was tragically interrupted when she sustained a spinal cord injury in 2012 and became paralyzed from the chest down. Since then, she unexpectedly… Show more continues to dance, now from a wheelchair. She is currently lead choreographer and dancer on a live music and dance production which features differently-abled artists, called ​A Cripple’s Dance. ​As a first-time filmmaker, she finds that her choreographic background lends to the art of storytelling, which she leans on in her documentary film, ​SUBMERGED​. She looks forward to continuing artistic advocacy that challenges stigmas and stereotypes regarding those with disabilities, and moving the effort for a cure forward. Over the past nine years, Daniel Klein has been making award-winning documentary shorts, tv series, and branded content around the world. In producing these 200+ projects, he has learned how to efficiently and creatively research, produce, edit and distribute a wide variety of high quality content. In the process, he has built a brand from an idea into an internationally recognized series with tens of millions of views. Show less