2023 Doc Congress

Lisa Cortés is an Academy Award®-nominated and Emmy-winning producer and director. She is celebrated for creating challenging, visionary stories while empowering inclusive voices. Cortés’s work includes Precious (2009), The Apollo (Doc Stories 2019), All In: The Fight For Democracy (2020), and Little Richard: I Am Everything (2023). Cortés is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and serves on the Boards of the Film Society at Lincoln Center and ITVS.

Justine Nagan is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning documentary producer and creative media executive. She is currently Actual Films’ Head of Production and is Executive Producing their growing slate. Recently, she EPed Actual’s short film Make A Splash, which premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival, as well as the company’s first foray into episodic production, Voices Rising: The Music of Wakanda Forever for Marvel on Disney+.

Jenni Wolfson is a leader in the art of driving social change through narrative storytelling. Since becoming the organization’s first CEO in 2013, Jenni has grown Chicken & Egg’s annual grantmaking from $500K to $2 million and cultivated multiple partnerships including the MacArthur Foundation, Netflix, and LunaBar. She has also increased the community of supported women and gender minority filmmakers from 185 to 500, including filmmakers who have won the industry’s highest honors such as Peabody, Emmy, and Academy Awards. Under Jenni’s leadership, the organization has also garnered significant awards for its impact. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and BAFTA.

Yael Bridge is an Emmy-nominated documentary producer and director. Her directorial feature debut, The Big Scary “S” Word premiered at Hot Docs 2020 and on Hulu in 2022. Previously, she produced the Netflix Original film, Saving Capitalism, starring former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, which was nominated for an Emmy Award in Business and Economics. She served as Head of Production at Inequality Media, where her viral videos tackling complex political issues have gained over 500 million views. Yael was included in DocNYC’s 40 Under 40 list of 2021 and was a 2022 resident at the Jewish Film Institute. She is the Co-President of the Documentary Producers Alliance and proudly serves as chair of their Labor Committee. She holds an MFA in documentary film and video from Stanford University and an MA in media studies from the New School.

Sam Osborn is a filmmaker of Mexican-American descent. His debut feature-length documentary, Universe, was awarded Best Music Documentary by the International Documentary Association in 2021. His second film Going Varsity in Mariachi premiered at Sundance 2023 and won the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award for the U.S. Documentary Competition.

Alejandra Vasquez is a Mexican-American director and producer. Her directorial feature debut Going Varsity in Mariachi premiered at Sundance 2023. Her short works include Folk Frontera, (PBS/Independent Lens, SXSW Jury Prize Texas Short), When It’s Good, It’s Good, (Latino Public Broadcasting/POV Shorts), and an upcoming film about the acclaimed Chicana muralist Judy Baca for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).