2025 Festival Guests, Jurors, and Screening Committee

Originally from Mexico City, Carlos Aguilar was chosen as one of six young film critics to partake in the first Roger Ebert Fellowship organized by RogerEbert.com, the Sundance Institute and Indiewire in 2014. Aguilar’s work has since appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Variety, The New York Times, The Wrap, Indiewire, RogerEbert.com, among others. He is a member of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) and the National Society of Film Critics (NSFC).

Dawn Valadez is a second-generation Xicana, disabled, queer filmmaker, and artist. She has been telling powerful stories for over 20 years that uplift underrepresented communities. She is currently co-directing Untitled Lorena with Rodrigo Reyes and Davi Merchan, who won the 2024 DocLands Jury Prize for their recorded pitch. Dawn is the Producer/Co-Director of The Pushouts (with Galloway, 2018), earning accolades such as the 2019 Imagen Best Documentary Award and the Al Bendich Award.

Her consulting producer credits include Vivien’s Wild Ride (Hillgrove, 2025), All We Carry (Voge, 2024), Hummingbirds (Castaños & Contreras, 2023), Qatar Stars (Beverly, 2023), and Manzanar, Diverted (Kaneko, 2021). Her work has been supported by Ford Foundation/Just Films, Sundance/SKOLL, Tribeca All Access, Catapult, and more. Dawn serves on the board of the Berkeley Film Foundation. She is the Co-Director of the BAVC Media Maker Fellowship and Director of Youth and Artist Development at BAVC Media.

Chloë Walters-Wallace is a Jamaican creative whose work spans curation, travel, non-fiction media, dancehall, and installation art. As the Director of Regional Initiatives at Firelight Media, she’s the creator and executive producer of the acclaimed HOMEGROWN anthology series, now in its second season, which currently amplifies documentaries from Hawaii and U.S. territories. She also runs the Groundwork Intensive, a program dedicated to empowering emerging filmmakers of color outside of New York and California.

Chloë co-created the Caribbean Film Academy 2.0 and the Caribbean Think Tank at Third Horizon and has been a key programmer for the Blackstar Film Festival for over six years. A 2021 DOC NYC Documentary New Leaders Fellow and a 2021 Rockwood JustFilms Fellow, Chloe’s career is built on fostering diverse voices in film and media. She lives between New York and Jamaica, serves on the board of Third Horizon, and is a former board member of Color Congress and Femme Frontera.

David Canfield is a Hollywood correspondent at Vanity Fair, where he reports on film and television and co-hosts the Little Gold Men podcast. His areas of coverage include awards season, LGBTQ filmmakers, and international cinema. He joined VF from Entertainment Weekly, where he was the movies editor and oversaw awards coverage, and has also written for Vulture, Slate, and IndieWire. David is a National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award finalist and GLAAD Media Award nominee, and has written cover stories on Cate Blanchett, Benedict Cumberbatch, and more. He lives in Los Angeles with his husband.

Raven Jackson is an award-winning filmmaker, poet, and photographer from Tennessee. Her work often explores intimacy, connection, and the body’s relationship to nature. Recently nominated for a Film Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature and a Gotham Award for Breakthrough Director, Raven’s debut narrative film, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, made in partnership with Maria Altamirano, PASTEL, and A24, world-premiered in the US Dramatic Competition at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, and was named one of the top ten movies of the year by The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and RogerEbert.com.

She has served as a Story Editor for HBO’s adaptation of Sula, based on Toni Morrison’s novel, and co-wrote an episode of the Apple TV+ Series Surface. A 2024 Sundance Momentum Fellow and Rideback Rise Resident, her short films Nettles and A Guide to Breathing Underwater are currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.

LeAndre Thomas is an award winning filmmaker from Oakland Calif. and the writer, director, and executive producer for Star Wars: Visions – The Pit, which was nominated for a 2024 Golden Reel. The film debuted on Disney+ with Gizmodo stating “LeAndre Thomas’ The Pit truly hit the core of why Star Wars offers such timeless and essential storytelling.”

LeAndre has been accepted into numerous festivals around the world and won Best Director in 2019 at the Pasadena International Film Festival for his short film Mirror. Currently, he is in pre-production on a new independent feature film titled, This is Private.

In addition to his independent films, LeAndre is also a part of the franchise studio team at Lucasfilm Ltd. where he has worked for over 13 years. Most recently he has been credited in The Mandalorian, Andor, Skeleton Crew, The Acolyte, Ahsoka, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Light & Magic, and many more.

Cayla Clements is an editor and curator for the award-winning documentary series POV, American television’s longest-running showcase for independent nonfiction films. She is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications and was a 2024 film fellow at the Bronx Documentary Center.

Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Theresa Navarro is a Pinay cultural worker and working mama whose career in media arts spans two decades. Prior to Catapult, she served as vice president of external affairs at American Documentary, the New York-based nonprofit behind Emmy Award-winning series ‘POV’ on PBS. An Independent Spirit Award-nominated producer, her credits include Chinatown sports documentary 9-Man, Peabody Award-winning anthology series ‘America Reframed’ on WORLD Channel, and sci-fi feminist feature Advantageous, which won the Special Prize for Collaborative Vision at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

In addition to her work in film and media, Theresa contributes to public discourse on community, identity and power by and about marginalized folx as a writer, performer, and educator. She engages in field-wide conversations through community-based collectives including A-Doc, Brown Girls Doc Mafia, and Color Congress, and has participated on panels, workshops and juries at the Australian International Documentary Conference, Allied Media Conference, Hawaii International Film Festival, New Orleans Film Festival, and SXSW, among others. In 2011, Theresa was nationally recognized as one of 15 Asian Pacific American Women Leaders for her media arts work.

Evan Neff is a nonprofit arts professional working to expand the breadth of stories in independent film to affirm and embrace underrepresented experiences through community-focused artist support. Evan coordinates the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund and has served on review panels for Tribeca Film Festival, International Documentary Association, Impact Partners, The Gotham, and NewFest. Evan co-produced 32 Sounds (Sundance 2022), and associate produced Storm Lake (Full Frame 2021) and A Thousand Thoughts (Sundance 2018). Evan was named a 2023 Rockwood Institute/MacArthur Journalism and Media Leader and a 2020 Impact Partners Producing Fellow. Evan champions bold, underrepresented voices that have the power to create new ways of seeing.

Angelica Jade Bastién is a Southern-born critic and essayist for New York Magazine’s site, Vulture. She has written for The Atlantic, Harper’s Bazaar, and many other publications. She has written the booklet essays for several Criterion Collection releases.

She was nominated for a National Magazine Award in 2022. She uses pop culture as a lens to explore madness, blackness, desire, and womanhood, amongst other deeply held obsessions. Her work carefully synthesizes analysis of narrative, cinematography, and acting alongside a deep consideration of production decisions and the history of the industry itself. She was once described by a close friend as “deliciously vulgar”. She lives in Chicago with her two cats, Judah and Professor Butch Cassidy.

Jannat Gargi is an Emmy and Peabody-winning producer, known for her work on the Academy Award-winning documentary, Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised). With over 25 years in the entertainment industry, Gargi has a proven track record for developing and producing a wide range of acclaimed, cause driven films and series.

As SVP of Documentaries for Westbrook Studios (founded by Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith), Gargi established the documentary division with a premium slate of films including Copa71, with executive producers Serena and Venus Williams which premiered at Toronto International Film Festival (2023), The Debutantes which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in June 2024 and Full Circle: The First All Black Everest Ascent currently in post-production. Prior to joining Westbrook, Gargi served as VP of Documentaries for VICE Studios overseeing development and production for a slate of documentaries and series including three-time Academy Award nominated documentary FLEE (2022) and The American Gladiators for ESPN’s 30 For 30 series (2023).

Kathleen Lingo is an independent documentary producer known for her creative vision, entrepreneurial spirit, keen eye for new talent, and groundbreaking projects. She recently launched Lingo on Docs, her own Substack publication.

As the former Editorial Director of Film and Television for The New York Times, Kathleen pioneered nonfiction features and series based on Times journalism. Her producing credits include acclaimed features like Spermworld (FX, 2024), directed by Lance Oppenheim; Sorry/Not Sorry (TIFF 2023); the Oscar-nominated Time (Amazon); Some Kind of Heaven (Magnolia Pictures); and Emmy-winning Father Soldier Son (Netflix).

She executive produced celebrated series including The Murdochs: Empire of Influence (CNN) and Emmy-winning The 1619 Project (Hulu), executive produced by Oprah Winfrey and Nikole Hannah-Jones.

Previously, as executive producer of The New York Times Op-Docs, she worked with directors like Errol Morris, Garrett Bradley, Geeta Ghandbhir and Roger Ross Williams, Laura Nix and Lucy Walker on films for the series. During her tenure she oversaw 250 documentaries that garnered three Oscar nominations, ten Emmy nominations, three Emmy wins, two Peabody Awards, and two IDA Awards for Best Short Form Series.

Adamu Chan is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, and community organizer whose artistry is deeply rooted in relationships and lived experience. Based in the Bay Area, Adamu discovered his passion for filmmaking during his incarceration at San Quentin State Prison, where he used his unique perspective to craft powerful visual stories that amplify voices often silenced. His films invite viewers into conversations about social justice, resilience, and the transformative power of community.

In 2021, Adamu received the Docs in Action Film Fund from Working Films and directed What These Walls Won’t Hold, an intimate and critically acclaimed exploration of resistance and solidarity that won the Golden Gate Award at the 2023 San Francisco International Film Festival and aired nationally on PBS/America ReFramed.

A 2022 Mellon Arts Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity and a 2023 Rockwood Institute JustFilms Documentary Leaders Fellow, Adamu continues to nurture his creative journey as a 2024 Wyncote Fellow and SFFILM FilmHouse Resident. In 2023, he joined the Board of Directors at Working Films, further cementing his commitment to social impact in filmmaking. Through his artistry, he fosters relationships that empower communities to reclaim and reshape the narratives that define them.

Julian Brave NoiseCat is a writer, filmmaker and student of Salish art and history. His first documentary, Sugarcane, directed alongside Emily Kassie, follows an investigation into abuse and missing children at the Indian residential school NoiseCat’s family was sent to near Williams Lake, British Columbia. Sugarcane premiered at the Sundance Film Festival where NoiseCat and Kassie won the Directing Award in the U.S. Documentary Competition. The film was recognized with dozens of awards including Best Documentary from the National Board of Review and was nominated for an Academy Award. A proud member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq’escen and descendant of the Lil’Wat Nation of Mount Currie, his first book, We Survived the Night, will be published by Alfred A. Knopf on October 21, 2025.

Merrill Sterritt, Director of IF/Then Shorts, is a Burmese-American field-builder and filmmaker advocate with 17 years of experience supporting artists. Previously as the Head of Alliances and Cultural Engagement at Cinereach, Merrill expanded Cinereach’s impact by developing methods of support for regional and community-focused film organizations and collectives. In 2010 Merrill co-founded Film Presence where they led theatrical outreach campaigns to connect films with crucial audiences outside the arthouse bubble. Merrill was named as one of DOCNYC’s inaugural New Leaders cohort and was a 2022 Rockwood Documentary Leaders Fellow.

Polly Conway serves as a Senior TV Editor at Common Sense Media, where she brings over a decade of experience evaluating and highlighting the best media for kids and families. With a passion for promoting positive representation in entertainment, Polly feels lucky to help parents navigate the complex media landscape, focusing particularly on diversity and social-emotional learning. She lives in Alameda, CA and when she’s not watching TV, she’s swimming in the ocean.

Elyse Klaidman is the CEO and Co-Founder of X in a Box, LLC. After a 22 year career at Pixar Animation Studios, Elyse left in 2019 to co-found X in a Box and build their project based learning platform, Xperiential. Elyse is a leader, entrepreneur and life-long educator. Before starting at Pixar she worked as an artist, teacher and gallery director. During 22 years at Pixar, Elyse developed and over-saw programs and teams devoted to education, exhibitions and archives. As director of Pixar University, she led Art and Film Education, Filmmaking Programs, Leadership Development, Guest Speaker Programming and Technical Training. As Director of Exhibitions and Archives Elyse curated Pixar galleries as well as two internationally acclaimed traveling exhibitions Pixar 20 Years of Animation, that opened at New York MoMA, and the Science Behind Pixar. In 2015 Elyse’s passion to connect student interests to their educational experience was realized when she co-founded and led the team that created Pixar in a Box and Imagineering in a Box.

Keika Lee is the President and Founder of Greyscale Animation. She fell deeply in love with animation after she immigrated to the US from South Korea when she saw her first animated feature as a child. Keika continued her animation journey at art school and landed an internship at Kyoto Animation studio in Kyoto, Japan. She has over 20 years of experience working in the film and games industry, including DreamWorks Animation, Zynga and Electronic Arts. In 2017, Keika established Greyscale Animation studio to fulfill her dream of creating her own animated films like her award-winning shorts, Odd Dog and Oscar-qualified Oren’s Way.

Max McGinn (they/them) is an aspiring artist, with interests in film and fine arts. They are senior at Galileo Academy of Science and Technology, and take part in the Digital Communication Pathway. Here, they assist with creating a biweekly broadcast about upcoming school events and opportunities. They are also currently working on a short film about queer perspectives in changing times. In college, they plan to study both film and psychology. One day they hope to blend these interests together to create films that explore human life through cinematography and storytelling.

Joe Talbot is a fifth-generation San Franciscan and award-winning filmmaker. His feature-length debut, The Last Black Man in San Francisco — adapted from the life of childhood friend and longtime collaborator, Jimmie Fails — won the 2019 Sundance Film Festival Directing Award, as well as a Special Jury Prize for Creative Collaboration. The New York Times’ Manohla Dargis called Talbot’s emerging work “heart-skipping, astonishing and exultant” and made it the NYT Critics Pick. Rolling Stone hailed the debut feature as “the best film of 2019”.

Madeleine Sophia Wilson is a 17-year-old filmmaker from the East Bay. She is a mediamaker and scholar through the highly acclaimed Communications, Arts & Sciences (CAS) small school within Berkeley High School. Madeleine has been actively involved with Reel Stories and BAVC communities since middle school, participating in their Institute summer camps and serving on their student board. Madeleine is also a part of Future Filmmakers, an organization striving to bring individuals’ stories to life. She has experience as a DP, director, editor, animator, and much more. Madeleine’s talent and dedication to filmmaking have garnered recognition through various accomplishments and awards; “Best First Time Filmmaker” award at the Bridge Fest Film Festival, acknowledgment in the youth segment of the San Francisco Frozen Film Festival (SFFFF) and Official Selection for The Hollywood Gold Awards. As an aspiring film director and producer, Madeleine constantly strives to build her resume and gain valuable experience in the film industry.

My name is Penelope Dominguez Walton and I am a junior at Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakland, California. I fell in love with filmmaking in 8th grade, when I began to struggle academically and socially, I used film as an outlet to express myself. Through my love for movies, I was able to connect with those around me and find other kids who shared similar passions. When I was accepted into SFFILM’s Youth FilmHouse Residency, I felt reassured that my dreams were valid, and I was able to make lifelong connections with the other residents. Filming with family and friends gives me a sense of belonging and brings me happiness even in times of struggle. By writing scripts with characters whose struggles were similar to mine, I was able to become not only accepting but proud of who I am. I believe film is one of the most powerful tools and not only builds compassion and understanding, but also brings people together.