Filmmakers

Raoul Peck’s complex body of work includes films The Man by the Shore (Competition Cannes, 1993); Lumumba, (Director’s Fortnight, Cannes, 2000; aired on HBO); He directed and produced Sometimes in April for HBO (Berlinale, 2005); Moloch Tropical (Toronto, 2009; Berlin, 2010); and Murder in Pacot (Toronto, 2014; Berlin, 2015). His documentaries… Show more include Lumumba, Death of a Prophet (1990); Desounen (1994, BBC); Fatal Assistance (Berlinale, Hot Docs, 2013), supported by the Sundance Institute and BritdocFoundation (UK), and broadcast on major TV channels (Canal+, ARTE, etc.) He served as jury member at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, is presently chairman of the National French film school La Femis, and has been the subject of numerous retrospectives worldwide. In 2001, the Human Rights Watch Organization awarded him with the Irene Diamond Lifetime Achievement Award. His feature film The Young Karl Marx, a European co-production, was shot in Germany and Belgium (produced by Velvet Film, in coproduction with Agat Films). Show less

Peter Nicks is an Emmy Award-winning shooter/director known for his courageous cinema vérité style. He directed/produced The Waiting Room, which was released theatrically in 2012 to critical acclaim, shortlisted for an Oscar and won numerous awards including the Truer Than Fiction Independent Spirit award. Nicks is a 2015 United States Artist Fellow… Show more in the midst of his trilogy of timely, immersive films exploring the interconnected narratives of health care, criminal justice and education in Oakland, CA. Show less

Ramona Diaz is an Asian American filmmaker best known for her compelling character-driven documentaries that have demonstrated her ability to gain intimate access to the people she films, resulting in keenly observed moments and nuanced narratives. Ramona’s credits include Spirits Rising (Student Academy Award, Ida Lupino DGA Award, Golden Gate Award from the SFIFF, IDA Certificate of Merit);… Show more Imelda (Excellence in Cinematography Award, 2004 Sundance, IDA ABCNews Videosource Award, Independent Lens in 2005); The Learning (IDA Humanitas Award nomination, POV in 2011); Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey (2012 Tribeca Film Fest, closing night of the San Francisco International FF, opening night of 2012 Silverdocs (now AFIDocs); aired on Independent Lens in 2014).

Diaz has received funding from ITVS, CAAM, MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation, Sundance, Tribeca, Catapult Film Fund, and Chicken & Egg. She was awarded a Fellowship by the Bogliasco Foundation in the autumn of 2015 where she was in residence at the Bogliasco Study Center in Italy, and she received a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for film and video. She is a graduate of Emerson College and holds an M.A. in communication from Stanford University. Show less

Stephanie Wang-Breal has been producing and directing commercials, television shows, and documentaries for the past 10 years. She directed the award-winning feature-length documentary, Wo Ai Ni Mommy (I Love You, Mommy). The film was nominated for an Emmy, and was the recipient of a 2011 CINE Special Jury Award, as well as three Grand Jury Best… Show more Documentary Awards: at the AFI/ Discovery Silverdocs Film Festival, the Asian American International Film Festival, and the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. The film had its national television broadcast in 2010 on the award-winning PBS series P.O.V. Wang-Breal has also recently directed commercial doc pieces for Tiffany’s, Apple, Goldman Sachs, as well as a television episode for Nickelodeon's NickMom. She resides in Brooklyn, New York with her husband, son and daughter. Show less

Kim A. Snyder’s film Welcome To Shelbyville was a recipient of a Gucci-Tribeca Documentary Fund grant, an official selection of the US State Department's American Documentary Showcase, and was nationally broadcast on PBS's Independent Lens in 2011. In 2007, Snyder co-founded the BeCause Foundation to direct and produce a series of socially conscious… Show more documentaries, which have won numerous awards with campaigns furthering the work of the social innovators they highlight. She directed and produced the award-winning documentary feature I Remember Me, which was theatrically distributed by Zeitgeist Films. In 1994, Kim associate produced the Academy Award-winning short film Trevor which became the cornerstone of The Trevor Project, a national organization dedicated to suicide prevention among gay youth. She has served on the admissions review committee for NYU’s Graduate Film Program and graduated with a Masters in International Affairs from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Show less

S. Leo Chiang is an Emmy Award-nominated documentarian. His film, A Village Called Versailles, about the rebuilding and transformation of the Vietnamese American community in post-Katrina New Orleans, picked up eight film festival awards and aired on PBS’s Independent Lens. His documentary Mr. Cao Goes to Washington won the Inspiration Award at the… Show more 2012 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. His other films include To You Sweetheart, Aloha (PBS broadcast 2006), One + One (CINE Golden Eagle Award 2002), and Safe Journey. Chiang also collaborates with fellow filmmakers as an editor (True-Hearted Vixens, POV 2001; Recalling Orange County) and as a cameraman (Ask Not, Independent Lens 2009). Born in Taiwan and based in San Francisco, Leo received his MFA in film production from University of Southern California. He is an active member of New Day Films, the social issue documentary distribution co-operative. Show less