Short Docs

A collection of award-winning short documentaries inspired by the film from 1984 and the neighborhood today.

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Collaborative Studio

Since 2010, UnionDocs has guided select groups of documentary fellows from a wide variety of backgrounds in our Collaborative Studio Program. From 2010 to 2015, the theme of the program, Living Los Sures, tasked fellows with creating works inspired by Diego Echeverria’s expansive documentary, Los Sures. To date, 48 artists have participated in Living Los Sures and the result is a rich collection of 30 compelling short documentaries that portray the important issues, characters, and stories present in the Southside of Williamsburg.

These shorts have found their way to a wide variety of audiences through outdoor screenings with the residents and film subjects of Los Sures, to festivals and venues such as MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight, BAM’s Cinemafest, Doc NYC, Harvard Film Archives, Brooklyn Film Festival, Morelia International Film Festival and more. The shorts continue to travel around the world, taking these stories from the Southside Williamsburg to the rest of the world.

Collaborative Studio Directors

Christopher Allen

Christopher Allen

UnionDocs Founder / Executive Artistic Director

After graduating from Columbia University and studying at Trinity College Dublin, Christopher Allen worked as a social entrepreneur, documentary director, and new media artist. His individual works and collaborative projects have been exhibited at the MoMA, Harvard’s Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, the Volksbühne Theatre, DirektorenHaus in Berlin, Independent Film Week, Sonár, DIVA, and Conflux Festivals, among many other venues. He directed the interactive documentary Capitol of Punk, which was part of “Design and the Elastic Mind” at the Museum of Modern Art. Christopher was founding-partner of Counts Media, and played a leading role in the invention and execution of many art & entertainment concepts there, such as The Ride NY, a live theatrical and cinematic experience on the streets of the city, and Yellow Arrow, a place-based storytelling project exhibited online and in galleries and museums internationally.

Lucila Moctezuma

Lucila Moctezuma

Executive Producing Director, 2014-current

Originally from Mexico City, Lucila has collaborated with New York’s independent film community since 1996. Previous to joining UnionDocs she was manager of the Production Assistance Program at Women Make Movies, a program that provides support to women filmmakers in the development of their media projects. Formerly, she was director of the Media Arts Fellowships for the Rockefeller Foundation, a highly prestigious program that supported media artists in the U.S. and Latin America, and she founded and was coordinator of the TFI Latin America Media Arts Fund for the Tribeca Film Institute. Lucila sits on the founding executive board of Cine Qua Non Lab, a residency for international filmmakers based in Michoacán, Mexico, and is vice-president of the board of trustees of The Flaherty. She has frequently collaborated with international film festivals including the Morelia Film Festival in Mexico and the Huesca Film Festival in Spain, and with media organizations such as Cinema Tropical. She has served on selection panels for the Jerome Foundation, the Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund, the International Emmy Awards, the Gucci Ambulante Fellowship (Mexico), and Cinergia Foundation (Costa Rica) among others. Her work as associate producer includes the documentary series “The New Americans” for Kartemquin Films, and “Shocking and Awful” for Deep Dish TV, which was part of the 2006 Whitney Biennial. She studied Philosophy at Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City.

Toby Lee

Toby Lee

Collaborative Studio Director, 2012-2014

Toby Lee is Assistant Professor in the Department of Cinema Studies at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. She holds a PhD in Anthropology and Film & Visual Studies from Harvard University, an MPhil in Modern Greek Literature from Oxford University, and a BA in Anthropology and Modern Greek Studies from Columbia University.

As an artist, she works across a variety of media including video, installation, performance and drawing. Her work has been been exhibited at the Locarno Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives, Museum of the Moving Image (NYC), and the 2014 Whitney Biennial. At Harvard, she was a member of the Sensory Ethnography Lab.

She is the recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Dan David Foundation, the Film Study Center at Harvard University, and the Flaherty Film Seminar. From 2012 to 2014, she was the Director of the Collaborative Studio program at UnionDocs.

Andre Almeida

Andre Almeida

Collaborative Studio Director, 2011-2012

Andre Valentim Almeida is a Portuguese award winning filmmaker, documentary editor, professor and PHD candidate currently finishing his dissertation on Interactive Documentary. Andre has been teaching media production at the University of Porto and was the scientific coordinator of a major video training program at the newsroom of the Portuguese news agency. He was part of the first yearlong collaborative documentary program at the UnionDocs (Brooklyn, NY) where he was then the Collaborative Studio Director. As a media maker his work has been screened at MoMA, Doclisboa, IndieLisboa, VIsions du Réel, Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, TEDx Brooklyn among others.

Jesse Shapins

Jesse Shapins

Collaborative Studio Director, 2010-2011

Jesse Shapins is a media artist, cultural theorist and entrepreneur. He is a Founding Member of UnionDocs and was Co-Director of the first years of the UnionDocs Collaborative Studio. Currently, he is Co-Founder/CEO of GoPop, the first public network for visual conversation where people speak about what’s happening in the world through photos, videos, GIFs and drawings. His artistic practice focuses on mapping the imagination and perception of place between physical, virtual and social space, and has been exhibited at MoMA, SFMoMA and internationally. He was Co-Founder of metaLAB (at) Harvard, a research unit at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and served on the faculty of architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He holds a PhD in Architecture and Critical Media Practice from Harvard University where he wrote “Mapping the Urban Database Documentary: Authorial Agency in Utopias of Kaleidoscopic Perception and Sensory Estrangement.”

Kara Oehler

Kara Oehler

Collaborative Studio Director, 2010-2011

Kara Oehler is a radio documentary maker, media artist and Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of GoPop, a new way to speak in GIFs, photos and videos. Inspired by montage and the origins of filmmaking, GoPop makes it easy to put any two pieces of media together. Her Peabody award-winning radio work has aired on shows like RadioLab, Marketplace and Morning Edition and her interactive storytelling projects have been exhibited at MoMA and SFMoMA. She co-founded the interactive platform Zeega, the UnionDocs Collaborative Studio, metaLAB at Harvard, Yellow Arrow: Capitol of Punk and Mapping Main Street. Previously, Kara was a Film Study Center Fellow at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and a Rockefeller Fellow with United States Artists.

Collaborative Studio Fellows

2014-2015

Irene Bartolomé

Irene Bartolomé

Fellow, 2014-2015

She holds a Master degree in Creative Documentary from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, and a BA in Film Editing from ECAM Film School, Madrid. She works professionally as a video editor and she has over seven years of experience in fiction, documentary, music videos and advertisement production. In 2012 Irene directed two documentary short films which have been shown in several international film festival. The last feature film she co-directed, Demonstration, premiered at IDFA Amsterdam and screened at MoMA Fortnight, HotDocs, True/False film festival, among others. In 2014 she was awarded a SGAE grant to attend the 2014-2015 Collaborative Studio Program at UnionDocs, NY, as one of 12 fellows from the US and abroad.

Chelsi Bullard

Chelsi Bullard

Fellow, 2014-2015

Chelsi Bullard is an independent media artist based in Harlem, NY. Her producing credits include Nine-Story Mountain, a feature film generously supported by the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG, the Institute of British Geographers) and the Scientific Exploration Society. Her editing credits include Prayers of the Ancient Ones, a feature film broadcast on PBS in Northern California via the National Educational Telecommunications Association. In 2012, she directed and produced a short film, Feeling of Renewal, and it has placed as a ‘Finalist’ at Tricycle’s Buddhafest Shorts Showcase in Washington, DC, and was an official selection at both the Culture Unplugged online film festival and the Jaipur Pink City Contest hosted by the Jaipur International Film Festival in India. She is currently in pre-production for her first feature film, Revealing Faces. In all of her work, Chelsi is interested in telling the stories of marginalized peoples and communities, and particularly stories concerning people of color.

Mariangela Ciccarello

Mariangela Ciccarello

Fellow, 2014-2015

Following philosophy studies in Bologna, Mariangela Ciccarello received a Master’s degree in Art at the University of Provence in 2009. Since then, she has worked in galleries and museums in Europe and South Africa. She has published writings on art and beyond, as well as collaborating on several art and video projects. Over the past few years, she has made a series of short films in which she experimented with different technique and narrative styles.

Tessa Rex

Tessa Rex

Fellow, 2014-2015

Tessa Rex is from Sydney, Australia and is a documentary artist working across photography, radio and video. She has studied at the University of New South Wales, Australian Centre for Photography and Metro Screen and is influenced by social justice, architecture and industry. Tessa is a collaborative fellow at Union Docs Centre for Documentary Art in Brookyn, NY, most recently made a short documentary about the arab spring in Bahrain, Sumood, and has exhibited work in Sydney, Istanbul, Berlin and New York.

Adam Golub

Adam Golub

Fellow, 2014-2015

Is an Israeli-American filmmaker who began making films when they were still being shot on tape (imagine that!). His shorts screened at the San Francisco Frameline LGBT Film Festival in 2006 and 2007. He’s told stories of young dancers, shot countless flash mobs, and reported on the water-logged art galleries in post-Sandy New York City. Adam has a particular interest in arts and culture as a measure of a successful and robust society. Likewise, his participation in activist movements against Israeli occupation has reaffirmed his desire to report on injustice in an attempt to foster a more equitable world. He completed his B.A. at UC, Berkeley in Social Theory and recently completed his Masters of Science at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism in the Documentary Film Program.

Sophie Hamacher

Sophie Hamacher

Fellow, 2014-2015

Sophie Hamacher, an artist and filmmaker from Berlin and Baltimore, works primarily with collage, reconfiguring documents and reclaiming them from their mere informative quality. She has directed and written projects ranging in genres from full-length documentary to art videos and experimental films. She holds a BA in Visual and Critical Studies from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, a Meisterschüler Degree from the University of the Arts in Berlin and a Masters Degree in Education. She completed the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program in Critical Studies (2005).

Sarah Kerr

Sarah Kerr

Fellow, 2014-2015

Originally hailing from the great state of Minnesota, Sarah is an NYC-based journalist and media-maker. She is a current student at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Sarah formerly worked at WITNESS, a human rights organization focused on using video as a tool for change. Sarah holds a BA in Political Science and International Development Studies from McGill University in Montreal.

Zack Khalil

Zack Khalil

Fellow, 2014-2015

Zack is a media artist/filmmaker/musician from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and is currently based in Brooklyn, NY. He makes experimental documentaries and multimedia installations. His most recent project is a feature-length experimental documentary about the history of his tribe: the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, which has also been presented as a multimedia installation. Because his work often explores an indigenous worldview, he is necessarily in dialogue with ethnographic practice and conceptualizes his work as anti-ethnographic. He is particularly interested in exploring the construction of history, the creation of alternative histories, and the interstice between fact and fiction in documentary practice. He is a Gates Millennium Scholar and recently completed a B.A. at Bard College in the Film and Electronic Arts Department.

Marina Lameiro

Marina Lameiro

Fellow, 2014-2015

Marina Lameiro, a filmmaker from the Basque Country, works primarily in the realm of personal documentary. She studied Editing and received her Masters degree in Creative Documentary in Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, where she co-directed the film Demonstration with Victor Kossakovsky and 31 other students. Marina holds a BA in Audiovisual Communication from the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid. Currently she is finishing her first feature documentary, an intimate portrait of 5 young people who are trying to find their place in the world.

Katherin Machalek

Katherin Machalek

Fellow, 2014-2015

Katherin is a self-taught filmmaker, videographer and photographer based in Brooklyn, whose work seeks to blur the borders of narrative and experimental documentary. She enjoys collaborating with music composers and considers sound a great inspiration for her creations. In May 2014, Katherin released her first feature documentary CLIM8 at the Altitudes Festival in Switzerland, which is being distributed by Les Disques du 7ème Ciel on DVD and vinyl in summer 2015. In 2015, Katherin co-directed two shorts, The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog and I Was Here First, for the Living Los Sures interactive documentary project. She is coordinator of the New York Docs Film Fatales collective and directed her first fiction feature in summer 2015 with two Fatales members.

Mitra Azar

Mitra Azar

Fellow, 2014-2015

Mitra Azar is an eclectic-schizo-creative-nomadic-sponge haunted by images and by the relational-performative-philosophical aspect of doing them. Filmmaker, visual artist and philosopher, Mitra Azar has been exhibiting his works in Italy and abroad ( MIT Boston, Raven Row London, Sala de Arte Publico Siqueiros, Bildmuseet Umea,…). Mitra has as well given talks and lectures in festivals and universities.

Collaborative Studio Fellows

2013-2014

Alexandra Lazarowich

Alexandra Lazarowich

Fellow, 2013-2014

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Division Avenue
» Álvaro

Alexandra Lazarowich is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker originally from Canada. She makes films concerning the conditions of the lives of Aboriginal people in today’s world. With a background in history studies and being a descendant of the Cree people, she is currently researching a film about the effects of colonization on the Aboriginal people and their culture. She was a 2013-14 UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow.

Anne-Katrine Hansen

Anne-Katrine Hansen

Fellow, 2013-2014

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Division Avenue
» Dwellings

Anne-Katrine Hansen is a Danish filmmaker and visual anthropologist. She is interested in how people acquire and express knowledge and make meaning of their experiences. Her films often explore the sensory realms, with special attention to sound. She holds a MA in visual anthropology from The University of Manchester, and she was a 2013-14 UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow.

Arisleyda Dilone

Arisleyda Dilone

Fellow, 2013-2014

Arisleyda Dilone was a 2013-14 UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow working on the interactive documentary Living Los Sures. In 2010, after years of working in international affairs and in New York City politics, Aris began to imagine life outside of that field. She developed a documentary concept that was accepted into the Latino Producers Academy administered by the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP). In 2012, she began to develop her first feature documentary titled In Between about her experience as an intersex female in a Dominican-American setting. She was awarded a 2012 Travel & Study Grant from the Jerome Foundation.

Chloe Zimmerman

Chloe Zimmerman

Fellow, 2013-2014

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Division Avenue
» Álvaro

Chloe is an artist, filmmaker and educator whose interest lies in the experimental documentary realm. Based in New York, she teaches film history and practice at various venues in the city, including Mono No Aware and the Museum of the Moving Image. Creatively, she is interested in the ways in which we make meaning and tell stories — from the intimate to the national to the cosmological. Chloe was a 2013-14 UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow, and is a graduate of the Combined Degree Program between Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts.

Damon Logan

Damon Logan

Fellow, 2013-2014

Damon Logan grew up in the Wimmera, regional Australia. He studied Physics and Economics, and later, while working as a Financial Trader, Documentary Film at AFTRS, Sydney.

Damon’s first short, The Little Thai Fighters, premiered at LIDF in 2012. After teaching filmmaking in Indigenous communities in Central Australia, he moved to New York, where he made his first feature, This Place, during the UnionDocs Collaborative Studio.

Daniel Wilson

Daniel Wilson

Fellow, 2013-2014

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Álvaro
» Gentrification Guilt Meter

Daniel Wilson is a multiple media artist, expanding filmmaking practices into performance, written word, digital publications, and installations.

Wilson’s work has been exhibited at galleries and festivals internationally, including Bunkier Sztuki in Kraków, Broadway Media Center in Nottingham, The European Independent Film Festival in Paris, culturaDigital in Rio de Janeiro, and the Copenhagen Art Festival, MoMA PS1 and the DUMBO Arts Festival. He was a co-founder of the one-year pop-up non-profit artspace MMX in Berlin during 2010. Wilson has been supported by the Ontario Arts Council, the National Film Board of Canada, GRAND NCE and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Danya Abt

Danya Abt

Fellow, 2013-2014

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Eric
» Rooted/Uprooted

Danya Abt is a documentary director and editor based out of New York City. Her films have shown at the Detroit Institute of the Arts, Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum and have been distributed nationally. She has produced and edited work for the Financial Times, Reuters, the U.S. State Department, PBS and major network television. Directing commissions include Quel Souvenir, a 60-minute feature about the Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline and Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan, 3-days of live television for FreeSpeech TV. As Senior Video Producer for GritTV with Laura Flanders, she directed segments syndicated to a national audience via PBS. Recently Abt edited a feature film about the music/art group Fischerspooner and the web series Understudies, featured in IFP Film Week’s first ever Spotlight on Webseries during September 2014.

Elizabeth Warren

Elizabeth Warren

Fellow, 2013-2014

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Álvaro
» Gentrification Guilt Meter
» Rooted/Uprooted

Elizabeth Delaune Warren is a Brooklyn based filmmaker, teacher, and activist. She is currently producing a feature length documentary and teaching filmmaking and media literacy throughout New York City. Elizabeth is a founding member of the nonprofit FILMMAKERS without BORDERS and holds an MA in International Affairs with an emphasis in Media and Culture from The New School.

Janna Kyllästinen

Janna Kyllästinen

Fellow, 2013-2014

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Division Avenue
» Eric

Janna Kyllästinen is a Brooklyn-based documentary filmmaker and editor originally from Helsinki, Finland. Through her films, she combines her desire to tell true stories with a distinct sensitivity for the psychological and emotional. She holds a Master’s degree in political history from the University of Helsinki, and was a 2013-14 UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow.

John Larson

John Larson

Fellow, 2013-2014

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Gentrification Guilt Meter
» Eric
» Division Avenue

Born and raised in South Dakota, John Larson is a photographer and filmmaker who graduated from the University of South Dakota with a BA in Journalism and Media in 2011. Currently, he is based Brooklyn, New York and working as the Studio Manager at Kitty Guerilla Films. Previously, he worked as an associate producer and cinematographer on the ITVS and Sundance Channel funded feature-length documentary Warrior Women.

Joyce Wong

Joyce Wong

Fellow, 2013-2014

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Gentrification Guilt Meter
» Eric

Joyce Wong is an award-winning director working in film and interactive media. Her work has been supported by the Canada Arts Council and the Ontario Arts Council. Her films have screened at Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival, Vancouver International Film Festival, CFC’s Worldwide Shorts Film Festival, Montreal World Film Festival, Hawaii International Film Festival, San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, and Hong Kong International Film and Video Awards. She graduated from York University with a BFA in Film Production in 2007. In 2008, she was one of the six emerging directors from Canada selected to take part in the Berlinale Talent Lab. Most recently, she worked as an Interactive Producer at the CFC Media Lab on projects such as the ideaBOOST accelerator and BODY/MIND/CHANGE.

Samantha Richardson

Samantha Richardson

Fellow, 2013-2014

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Rooted/Uprooted
» Dwellings

Sam Richardson is a photographer based in Brooklyn, New York. Her work focuses on the relationship between subject and photographer investigating questions of representation and agency. She is invested to using documentary as a format to explore these issues outside of traditional parameters or settings.

She is currently working as an Associate Producer on a documentary feature with Turly Pictures and works as a freelance photo editor and designer at Cavin Morris Gallery. She has actively volunteered and worked with Huairou Commission, a neighborhood women’s organization in Williamsburg. Richardson has exhibited her work in New York City, and was a UnionDocs Fellow from 2013-14. She has a BA in Photography and Human Rights (focus in Gender studies) from Bard College.

Stanzi Vaubel

Stanzi Vaubel

Fellow, 2013-2014

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Dwellings
» Division Avenue

Stanzi Vaubel studied radio and documentary film at Northwestern University. She worked at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where she designed an interactive doc for teens, WNYC’s culture desk and WBEZ’s Re:sound. Her work has been spotlighted by The Third Coast Audio and her film on Occupy Wall Street won Directors choice at the Black Maria Film Festival. During 2013-2014 she produced a radio series called The Gift for Chicago Public Radio. Currently, she is in post-production on her first feature film, This Place. In fall 2014, she will start a graduate teaching fellowship at University at Buffalo’s Media Studies Department.

Collaborative Studio Fellows

2012-2013

Andrew Hinton

Andrew Hinton

Fellow, 2012-2013

Collaborative Studio Projects
» For Sale in Los Sures
» Southside Stories

Andrew Hinton is a documentary filmmaker drawn to individuals and stories with positive change at their heart. His most recent film Tashi & The Monk won two awards at its premiere at Mountainfilm in Telluride, MT. His previous film Amar was the 2012 Vimeo Documentary Award winner. He is from the UK but now lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Anthony Simon

Anthony Simon

Fellow, 2012-2013

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Third Shift
» Goodbye Southside

Anthony Simon works with fiction and non-fiction filmmaking, music production, and street art. He works professionally as a freelance video editor with clients including Maysles Films, The Guardian, and The Yes Men. Simon received his BA at The Evergreen State College and was a 2012-13 UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow. He is currently developing a feature-length documentary about his family’s involvement in the major industries of Kauai, Hawaii. The story begins with his Great Grandfather’s immigration from the Philippines to work in sugar production.

Beyza Boyacioglu

Beyza Boyacioglu

Fellow, 2012-2013

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Toñita’s
» Goodbye Southside

Beyza Boyacioglu is a documentary filmmaker, video artist and curator from Turkey. She was a 2012-13 UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow, where she co-directed Toñita’s. She curates Fiction-Non, a documentary series exploring narrative/non-fiction hybrid films at Maysles Cinema in New York. Her work as a video artist has been exhibited at MoMA (New York), The Invisible Dog Art Center (Brooklyn), NoteOn (Berlin), and Sakip Sabanci Museum (Istanbul). Boyacioglu is currently based in Boston where she is pursuing a graduate degree in Comparative Media Studies at MIT and works as a researcher at the Open Doc Lab.

Constanza Mirré

Constanza Mirré

Fellow, 2012-2013

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Rosemary’s Street
» The Other
» Como Preparar Patitas de Cerdo

Constanza Mirré is a photographer and independent documentary producer. She is the author of Bares de Buenos Aires, a photo book published by Ediciones Lariviére in Buenos Aires Argentina and by Le Passage in Paris. She produced Argentina in the UK, a book published in 2008 by the Argentine Embassy in the UK. Published in print magazines internationally, Mirré has worked as a travel, film still and fashion photographer in New York City.

Emilia Bilińska

Emilia Bilińska

Fellow, 2012-2013

Collaborative Studio Projects
» The Other
» Rosemary’s Street

Emilia Bilińska was born in Bydgoszcz, Poland. She graduated with a degree in Philosophy at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, and in Film and Television Production at the National Film School in Łódź. She was a production manager at Wajda School in Warsaw, production assistant at the TR Warszawa theatre, assistant director for TV series, copywriter, translator, assistant curator, and contributor for Art Experts Magazine, EKRANy, and FilmPro. She has conducted interviews with Tadeusz Rolke, Tilda Swinton, Michael Obert, Reggie Watts, Pulp, Florian Habicht and covered film festivals including SXSW, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and Tribeca Film Festival. She was among 12 filmmakers from around the world who were invited to participate in the UnionDocs Collaborative Program from 2012-13, where she directed her second documentary, The Other. Since September 2012, she has been based in New York where she works as a correspondent for several online outlets.

Federica Sasso

Federica Sasso

Fellow, 2012-2013

Collaborative Projects
» The Last Bread
» For Sale in Los Sures
» Southside Stories

Federica Sasso is an Italian journalist and radio producer based in New York City. She writes for Italian outlets and is a contributor to the Swiss national broadcasting company for which she produces audio documentaries. Sasso was a 2012-13 UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow and studied documentary film at the Scuola di Cinema, Televisione e Nuovi Media of Milan.

Jen Epstein

Jen Epstein

Fellow, 2012-2013

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Southside Stories
» Como Preparar Patica de Chancho
» The Other

Jen Epstein is a researcher, writer self-shooting media maker who has devoted many years to working as a manager in film and television for a variety of New York Post-Houses and Media Companies. She’s currently an Operations Project Manager for Discovery Communications.

Her passion for documentary arts began while working as a production assistant/researcher on several documentary features including BrotherMen, a performance based documentary film that aired nationally on PBS. She holds a BA in Communication Arts from Ramapo College of New Jersey, and earned an MA in Media Studies with a concentration in Documentary Studies from the New School.

Maria Rosa Badia

Maria Rosa Badia

Fellow, 2012-2013

Collaborative Studio Projects
» The Last Bread
» For Sale in Los Sures
» Como Preparar Patica de Chancho

Maria Rosa Badia is a storyteller and filmmaker from Barcelona, where she graduated in Journalism with a minor in international politics and cultural communication. She has been based in New York City since 2008, where she freelances as an editor and multimedia producer. She was a 2012-13 UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow. She is a member of the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective, a community of professional filmmakers in Brooklyn who are dedicated to innovative approaches to filmmaking.

Michael Vass

Michael Vass

Fellow, 2012-2013

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Goodbye Southside
» Third Shift

Michael Vass is a filmmaker and writer based in New York. His award-winning films have screened at festivals and galleries, including the Toronto International Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives, and the Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art. He was the 2012 winner of the Canadian Art Foundation Writing Prize, and his writings have appeared in Cinema Scope, Cineaction, Canadian Art, C Magazine, MACHETE, and The Rusty Toque. Michael received his BFA from Simon Fraser University and his MFA from York University. He’s an alumnus of the Canadian Film Centre’s Directors’ Residency.

Parul Wadhwa

Parul Wadhwa

Fellow, 2012-2013

Parul Wadhwa is an independent filmmaker who works in documentary, hybrid forms and asian art-house cinema. She comes from a varied background of curating film festivals, archiving film memorabilia, managing film and video art residencies, restoration and color grading. Previously, she has worked in Bollywood, South Korea, the UK and the USA. She holds a Masters degree in English Language and Literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University and has a certificate in Asian Film from the Korean Film Council, where she specializes in Asian film policies and industries of various Asian countries. She is a recipient of several grants and fellowships, including the prestigious American Film Institute’s Emerging Film Fellowship.

Sebastian Diaz Aguirre

Sebastian Diaz Aguirre

Fellow, 2012-2013

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Toñita’s
» Como Preparar Patica de Chancho

Sebastian Diaz is a Mexican filmmaker and artist based in New York. He directed Toñita’s while a fellow at UnionDocs, which premiered at the MoMA Documentary Fortnight in 2014. He was co-director of Brilliant Soil (2011), which was awarded Material Culture & Archeology Film Prize at 13th RAI Ethnographic Film Festival. Diaz photographed and edited Tijuaneados Anonymous, which premiered at the Ambulante Festival in 2010, and was awarded best local film at the San Diego Latino Film Festival. Diaz co-founded the Bulbo Art Collective, which produced a documentary show broadcast internationally about life in the Mexico-US border. His work has been exhibited at ARCO (Madrid), MAK (Vienna), InSite_05 (Tijuana-San Diego). He is currently working on the a feature-length documentary, The Caribbean.

Shannon Carroll

Shannon Carroll

Fellow, 2012-2013

Collaborative Projects
» Southside Stories

Shannon Carroll is an artist, filmmaker and creative entrepreneur based in Brooklyn, NY. She is Founder and Creative Director of Vivid Story, a studio harnessing the power of visual storytelling for causes.

She produces compelling visual narratives for social enterprises to increase their impact and authentically connect with core audiences. As an experienced collaborator, she brings her skills spanning video production, photography, virtual reality and interactive design to engender empathy and catalyze engagement. She has presented projects at SXSW, Sundance Film Festival, Brown University, Creative Time Summit, BRIC, Made in NY Media Center by IFP and Storycode. Shannon is a graduate of Tufts University and was a UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow.

Tamer Hassan

Tamer Hassan

Fellow, 2012-2013

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Como Preparar Patica de Chancho
» Rosemary’s Street
» Third Shift
» The Other

With an appreciation for the intimacy necessary to produce compelling documentary work, Tamer Hassan has spent the last five years integrating himself into the countercultures of rural autonomous communities throughout the United States. His work from this practice has screened internationally at venues ranging from the Princeton Environmental Film Festival to the Tinai EcoFilm Festival in Goa, India. He has received grants and awards from The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, The Davis Foundation, and the Goldfarb Center for Civic Engagement. Hassan was a 2012-13 UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow, where he worked as an editor and cinematographer on several documentaries, screening at MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight and winning best short documentary at the 2014 Brooklyn Film Festival.

Collaborative Studio Fellows

2011-2012

Adam Khalil

Adam Khalil

Fellow, 2011-2012

Collaborative Studio Projects
» another day without a future, but what the hell another day…
» Desperately Seeking Stagg Girls

Adam (Shingwak_Nehro_Rashad_Krebs) Khalil is a filmmaker, artist, and media archivist. His practice attempts to subvert traditional forms of ethnography through humor, relation, and transgression. Khalil’s work has been exhibited at Goldilocks Gallery (Philadelphia), Microscope Gallery (Brooklyn), Museo ExTeresa Arte Actual (Mexico City), Carnival of eCreativity (Bombay), and Fine Art Film Festival Szolnok (Hungary). Khalil was a UnionDocs Fellow from 2011-12 and a Gates Millennium Scholar. In 2011 he graduated from the Film and Electronic Arts program at Bard College. Khalil is currently in post-production on a feature film about the history of the Ojibway people with his collaborator and brother Zack Khalil.

Alexandre Maia

Alexandre Maia

Fellow, 2011-2012

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Little Tricksters

Alexandre Maia is a biologist studying molecular biology and cancer at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. He is interested in documentary film, and other forms of exploring both fiction and non-fiction. He has produced a few short films that have been presented in Madrid (Spain), Braga (Portugal), New York and San Francisco.

Claire Richard

Claire Richard

Fellow, 2011-2012

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Whose Schools

Claire Richard is a French writer and journalist. She writes about literature, digital cultures and activism for various national French media. She published a book about politics of literature in French contemporary literature, and is currently researching a book about The Young Lords Party for a French publisher. She has produced interviews for French national radio as well as short audio documentaries for arte radio. Richard is a graduate of French École Normale Supérieure and New York University.

Elizabeth Lawrence

Elizabeth Lawrence

Fellow, 2011-2012

Collaborative Studio Projects
» La Marqueta
» Desperately Seeking Stagg Girls

Elizabeth Lawrence is a documentary producer/director/schemer residing in New York. She has worked in the film industry for over ten years. In 2010, she made her directorial debut with Roll Out, Cowboy. The feature film toured over 50 film festivals worldwide, received six Best Documentary awards and acquired distribution. She was a 2011-12 UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow. In 2012, she co-directed a documentary short with Amanda Stymeist, So Far Above Humans They Are. The film was exhibited at the Cameron Art Museum in North Carolina. Lawrence is currently directing her second feature documentary, Aldine.

Kaitlin Prest

Kaitlin Prest

Fellow, 2011-2012

Collaborative Studio Projects
» That Sh*t Is No Joke

Kaitlin Prest is an audio artist working with radio, performance and installation. She is the creative director of Audio Smut, and a producer/sound director at Life of the Law. Both shows are independently produced and distributed podcasts with a flair for audio craftsmanship. Her work has been featured on NPR, the CBC, Radiotopia’s The Truth, at In the Dark Radio, in the Radio Cinema in Copenhagen, the Henry Miller Museum and more. She was selected to judge the first year of audio submissions to the Sheffield Doc/Fest alongside Jad Abumrad and Kari Hesthamer. She is dedicated to innovation in audio storytelling, in radio and beyond.

Lucas Carlisle

Lucas Carlisle

Fellow, 2011-2012

Lucas Carlisle is a Canadian designer and artist specializing in interactive media, web, mobile and emerging platforms. He is currently a user-experience designer at The Huffington Post.

Meg Kelly

Meg Kelly

Fellow, 2011-2012

» The Broadway Triangle/a>
» Reunion

Meg Kelly is a multi-media media artist and designer who has documented physical, political and cultural landscapes in Mumbai, New York City and elsewhere. She is the co-founder and creative director of Decent Workshop, where she uses design and storytelling to support social entrepreneurs. She is the former creative director of the Millennial Trains Project, was a UnionDocs Fellow and a sometimes contributor to Urban Omnibus.

She holds a Bachelor’s Degree with high honors in Architecture from Barnard College, Columbia University, where she developed her passion for understanding and explaining the complexities and contrasts of cities.

Oresti Tsonopoulos

Oresti Tsonopoulos

Fellow, 2011-2012

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Brooklyn Cupcake
» Little Tricksters

Oresti Tsonopoulos is a multimedia storyteller who lives in Brooklyn, New York. Though his work predominantly lives online, his videos for The New York Times have been featured on JetBlue flights and his musician-centric pieces for NBC New York have been featured in taxi cabs across NYC. He studied recorded music at New York University, was a UnionDocs Fellow and is currently working on his Master’s Degree in journalism at The City University of New York (CUNY).

Fellow, 2011-2012

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Reunion

Olivia Koski is Head of Community at Atavist, makers of the Creatavist interactive storytelling software. Born in the desert, bred in the mountains, she built laser weapons earlier in her career. She has a Master’s in Journalism from New York University, and degrees in Engineering Physics and Germanic Studies from University of Colorado at Boulder. Koski is also a member of Guerilla Science, where she produces immersive theater in collaboration with practicing scientists.

Sonia Gonzalez

Sonia Gonzalez

Fellow, 2011-2012

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Desperately Seeking Stagg Girls
» La Marqueta

Sonia Gonzalez is a French filmmaker who splits her time between Paris and New York. She regularly works as a journalist on several documentary films for the European cultural TV channel Arte and other public broadcasters. Desperately Seeking Stagg Girls is her first personal work which she made while a UnionDocs Fellow in 2012. Recently, she finished producing Matthew Lancit’s new feature on Flâneurs and has co-written a feature for Arte about girl culture. She has completed shooting her first feature documentary about Riot Grrrl, which combines her passion for music, teenage and underground themes. It will be broadcasted on Arte TV in 2015.

Collaborative Studio Fellows

2010-2011

Andrew Parsons

Andrew Parsons

Fellow, 2010-2011

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Of Memory & Los Sures

Andrew Parsons was a first grade teacher working in New York City’s charter schools when he decided to buy some recording equipment, teach himself radio and make a 45-minute radio documentary about special education in charter schools. He has been documenting every since. He’s a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and has worked for WNYC, Marketplace, NPR and is currently a producer at the show BackStory.

Annie Berman

Annie Berman

Fellow, 2010-2011

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Of Birds and Boundaries

Annie Berman is an interdisciplinary media artist whose background in photography and psychology inspires work about visual culture, religion, and the changing media landscape. Her work has screened at festivals, galleries, and universities. Past President of Women in Film and Video New England, and founder of Fish in the Hand Productions, she is currently a MFA candidate in Integrated Media Arts at Hunter College, and a member of the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective. Annie also teaches film and media (old/new/trans/future).

Ashley Panzera

Ashley Panzera

Fellow, 2010-2011

Collaborative Studio Projects
» The Sauce

Ashley Panzera is a documentary filmmaker who has worked on award-winning films, including (A)sexual, Pushing The Elephant, and Black and Cuba. Her latest personal project, Noise Runs, follows a team of citizen journalist in Port-au-Prince, Haiti who spark social change.

She was a 2010-11 UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow, and is a member of the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective. Ashley received her BA in Media Studies and minor in Women Studies from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Daniel Terna

Daniel Terna

Fellow, 2010-2011

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Before After

Daniel Terna, based in Brooklyn, NY, questions when we choose to make pictures and examines the relationship we have with picture-making. Exhibitions include BRIC Arts Media Brooklyn Biennial, Camera Club of NY, Photoville, New Wight Biennial, Morris Museum (Augusta, GA), Wild Project, 321 Gallery, Museum of the City of NY, Side Effects Gallery, Eyebeam, Armory Center for the Arts (Pasadena), Austrian Cultural Forum, Outpost Artist Resources, NurtureArt Gallery, Contemporary Arts Center (New Orleans), Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts (Cambridge, MA), Gallery Tayuta (Tokyo), and UnionDocs. Terna graduated from Bard College and is an MFA candidate at the International Center of Photography.

Emma Brenner-Malin

Emma Brenner-Malin

Fellow, 2010-2011

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Couchsurferz

Emma Brenner-Malin is a writer, sex-ed programmer, and filmmaker living in Brooklyn, NY. She has conducted research for the Boston Healing Landscape Project, curated and interned at Light Industry, a new venue for experimental film and video, and solicited funds for Marie Regan’s documentary feature Cowboy Song. Brenner-Malin graduated from Bard College in 2008 with a BA in Anthropology. She is currently program coordinator at Love Heals, the Alison Gertz Foundation for AIDS Education.

Joshua Gen Solondz

Joshua Gen Solondz

Fellow, 2009-2011

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Couchsurferz

Joshua Gen Solondz is a media artist/filmmaker/musician. His work has shown in programs at DCTV, Light Industry, Artists’ Television Access, HBC Berlin, Harvard Film Archive, UnionDocs, and Parsons Hall Project Space. Solondz’s work has been featured in the 2011 Images Festival in Toronto and the 2010 Documentary Fortnight at MoMA. Josh recently completed an artists’ residency with his friend and collaborator Jim Supanick at the Experimental Television Center in Owego, NY for their ongoing project Synthhumpers. Josh graduated from Bard College in 2008, lives in Brooklyn, and loves cats.

Kristin Rogghe

Kristin Rogghe

Fellow, 2010-2011

Kristin Rogghe is a filmmaker, video artist and writer from Belgium who likes to work across borders. After obtaining a MA in Philosophy from the University of Leuven and a postgraduate degree in Transmedia from the School of Arts Sint-Lucas in Brussels, Kristin has worked as a dramaturge for theatre productions and as an assistant to several international artists and curators while developing her own practice. Her works have been exhibited and screened at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, San Francisco Art Institute, Body Navigation Festival, ActionFields Gallery (Brussels), Dance Umbrella Festival (Johannesburg), Media City Festival (Windsor), Onion City Festival (Chicago), Worth Ryder Art Gallery (Berkeley). Rogghe writes essays and reviews for cultural magazines and has hosted the weekly cultural radio show A Propos at the independent Radio Scorpio (B).

Laura Mayer

Laura Mayer

Fellow, 2010-2011

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Of Birds and Boundaries

Laura Mayer is a public radio producer based in Brooklyn.

Laurie Sumiye

Laurie Sumiye

Fellow, 2010-2011

Laurie Sumiye is a Hawai’i-born documentary artist and creative technologist who investigates environmental tensions between humans and nature. Her background in interactive media, animation, journalism and design uniquely informs her films, drawings and installations. She has shown her award-winning films at DOC NYC, BAMcinemaFest and DOCUTAH, and presented her art in New York, Los Angeles, Hawai’i and internationally, in the UK, South Africa and Brazil. She has a MFA in Integrated Media Arts from Hunter College, BA & BS in Art and Communications from Bradley University, and studied art at Lorenzo De’ Medici in Florence and Pratt Institute.

Matthew Yoka

Matthew Yoka

Fellow, 2010-2011

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Of Birds and Boundaries

Matt Yoka is a filmmaker and journalist who grew up in Los Angeles. He received his BA from the University of San Francisco and MA from the University of Southern California. His work has been featured around the world on CNN, Time, Vice, Pitchfork, Spin, The Awl, Harvard’s MetaLab, The Anthology Film Archive, and The Exploratorium Museum. He is was a 2010-11 UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow and recipient of a Pulitzer Scholarship. Oh, and he also enjoys making music videos.

Michael Kugler

Michael Kugler

Fellow, 2010-2011

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Before After

Michael Kugler is a Brooklyn, NY native who graduated with a BA in Comparative Arts from Washington University in 2007. He has worked as a media educator with organizations including the Tribeca Film Institute, the Museum of the Moving Image, the Jacob Burns Media Arts Lab, and Urban Arts Partnership. His films and audiovisual installations have been exhibited in the US and in Japan. Michael is currently pursuing an MA in Media Art in Design at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany.

Rosa White

Rosa White

Fellow, 2010-2011

Collaborative Studio Projects
» The Sauce

Rosa White is a New York-based producer, editor, and creative consultant with a background in documentary arts and television production. This former UnionDocs Fellow began honing her production and storytelling talents working as a writer and producer of on-air branding and promotions at Nickelodeon and AMC Networks. She has now joined the world of innovative creatives telling diverse stories in engaging new ways. As a producer and story architect, she’s interested in work that utilizes a blend of traditional and new media tools to explore culture, identity, and social justice themes.

Stephanie Chang

Stephanie Chang

Fellow, 2010-2011

Collaborative Studio Projects
» Couchsurferz

Stephanie Chang is originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. Having worked as a domestic violence crisis counselor, street medic, and social worker in California, Panama City, and Berlin, she has a strong background in community outreach. She is interested in issues of agency and representation in non-fiction media. Chang is a graduate with Highest Honors from the University of California, Berkeley, is a Humanity in Action American Senior Fellow. She currently produces multi-media work for the International Organization for Migration in Iraq and the social justice non-profit Partners In Health.

Will Martin

Will Martin

Fellow, 2009-2011

Collaborative Studio Projects
» New York is a Big Apple

Will Martin is an urbanist and media artist trained in architecture and economics. His design and research inhabits the spaces between narratives and the built environment. He has lived and worked in Buenos Aires, New York, and Paris. His current research and production take place in Detroit, MI.

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