Doc Congress + Doc Pitch Forum

Srđan Keča is a Yugoslav-born filmmaker and artist, Associate Professor in the Department of Art & Art History at Stanford and Director of the MFA in Documentary Film. His films have premiered at the Berlinale, IDFA and Hot Docs, among them the observational Museum of the Revolution (2021), winner of the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Documentary, and the archival feature Flotel Europa (2015), winner of the Tagesspiegel Jury Award at the Berlinale. His installations have been shown at the Venice Biennale of Architecture and the Whitechapel Gallery. His current work engages AI from inside documentary practice: for his ongoing project Generation Loss he built a custom archive of war crimes evidence from the Yugoslav wars that brings neglected records to light; he is also exploring generative images that reveal their own uncertainty rather than disguising themselves as another medium. At Stanford he teaches the course Kino-Eye to AI: Technological Shaping of Documentary Truth, and together with Morehshin Allahyari and Shane Denson leads a university grant enabling students in arts courses to engage AI critically.

Rachel Antell has worked in documentary film production for 25 years, and over a decade of those as an archival producer. In 2014 she co-founded Sub-Basement Archival where she’s had the honor of working on dozens of documentaries that have screened worldwide, and garnered FOCAL Awards and an Emmy nomination for research and use of archival footage. In 2023, Rachel co-founded the Archival Producers Alliance (APA) to organize archival producers, educate the film community about the craft, and advocate for the field. There she helped lead the APA to publish the first industry guidelines and tool kit for the responsible use of generative AI in documentary; as well as co-founding the Trust in Archives Initiative which builds tools to safeguard audiovisual library and archive collections in the synthetic age.

Niema Jordan is a journalist, TEDx Speaker, and an award-winning filmmaker from Oakland, CA. She has a passion for character-driven stories and harnessing the power of media for positive community impact.

Jordan majored in journalism and African American Studies at Northwestern University and launched her career at ESSENCE magazine. She later returned home to pursue graduate degrees in journalism and public health. Her work has been published in Ebony, and Glamour. Her production credits include Oasis, The Chosen Life, Bobby Kennedy for President, The Me You Can’t See, Eyes On The Prize: Hallowed Ground, and Bree Wayy: Promise, Witness, Remembrance. She recently produced HBO’s, Eyes On the Prize III: We Who Believe in Freedom and Coming Home which is available on PBS’s Independent Lens.

Niema Jordan is the Executive Director of Cinemama and serves on the board of Oakland Kids First. She is also a member of Delta Sigma Sorority, Inc.

Samantha Berlanga is a Puerto Rican–Ecuadorian American writer, director, and cinematographer from Queens, New York. She is currently based in San Francisco, where she is a BAVC Media Maker fellow, second-year SFFILM artist in residence, youth mentor and SFAC Artist Impact Endowment Grant Recipient. She is developing her debut feature documentary, ‘Pleasure Seekers’, an intergenerational portrait of women reclaiming pleasure, agency, and connection in defiance of cultural repression.

Adamu Chan is an award-winning Bay Area filmmaker, writer, and cultural organizer whose work explores contemporary art, media, and culture as living expressions of identity, memory, and belonging. Rooted in lived experience and human connection, his practice traces the ways structural forces shape our understanding of ourselves, our communities, and the worlds we inhabit.

Daniel Díaz (Director) is a Colombian-British filmmaker based in San Francisco since 2019. He is a 2026 SFFILM FilmHouse Resident currently in production on his debut feature film Roll Fog. His short film Junior tu papá (2024), a personal documentary about family, fútbol, and Caribbean Colombia, premiered at True/False Film Fest and Cartagena International Film Festival (Colombia). His previous short, ÉLEFAN (2022), about the displacement of London’s Latin American community, has screened at multiple festivals worldwide, as well as London’s Tate Modern. Daniel is the founder/co-director of CiNEOLA, a platform for Latin American documentary film, Deputy Director at BAVC Media, and creator of Public Access FC, a public access television show about truth + fútbol broadcasting from San Francisco. His writing and photography have been published by international fútbol media, including MUNDIAL, Copa90, Terrace Edition, and Football Case Study.

Brenda Ávila-Hanna (Producer) is a filmmaker and educator from Mexico City currently based in Central California. She is a recent fellow for Sundance’s Documentary Producing Lab, Points North, BAVC’s National MediaMaker, and DocsMX. She produced Emergent City (Dir. Kelly Anderson and Jay Sterrenberg, PBS/POV) which premiered at Tribeca 2024, and How to Clean a House in 10 Easy Steps (Dir. Carolina Gonzalez), winner of T/F True Life Award and SFFILM’s Kirby Walker Golden Gate Award. She is also a co-producer of American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez (Dir. David Alvarado), winner of the U.S. Documentary Audience Award at Sundance.