Film

Subject — director | producer | editor

Subject explores the life-altering experience of sharing one’s life on screen through key participants of acclaimed documentaries The Staircase, Hoop Dreams, The Wolfpack, Capturing the Friedmans, and The Square. These erstwhile documentary “stars” reveal the highs and lows of their experiences as well as the everyday realities of having their lives put under a microscope. Also featuring commentary from such influential names in the doc world as Kirsten Johnson, Sam Pollard, Thom Powers and Sonya Childress, the film unpacks vital issues around the ethics and responsibility inherent in documentary filmmaking. As tens of millions of people consume documentaries in an unprecedented “golden era,” Subject urges audiences to consider the often profound impact on their participants.

https://www.subject.film

*2022 TriBeCa Film Festival Official Selection
*2022 AFI Official Selection
*2023 CPH Official Selection

P.S. Burn This Letter Please — director | producer | editor

P.S. BURN THIS LETTER PLEASE is a story of survival against all odds. The journey begins with the impossible discovery of a box of letters that take us back to a group of 1950s New York City drag queens and continues as we encounter 8 living queens, now in their 80s and 90s, who reveal first-hand what it was like to be gender outlaws at a time when being different could get you killed.

https://www.psburnthisletterplease.com

*2020 TriBeCa Film Festival Official Selection
*Winner, Audience Award for Documentary Feature, 2020 OutFest Film Festival

17 BLOCKS — executive producer | writer | editor

Using two decades of intimate home video, the story of the Sanford family, whose struggles with addiction and gun violence eventually lead to a journey of love, loss, and acceptance.

https://www.17blocksfilm.com

*Winner, Best Editing in a Documentary Feature, 2019 TriBeCa Film Festival
*Winner, James Lyons Editing Award for Documentary Feature, Woodstock Film Festival
*Winner, Audience Award and Jury Award for Best Feature Documentary, 2019 Telluride Mountainfilm Festival
*Winner, Best North American Documentary Feature, 2019 Mammoth Lakes Film Festival
*Winner, Excellence in American Profiles Award, 2019 San Francisco Documentary Festival
*Winner, Supreme Award for Best Feature Documentary, 2019 Melbourne Documentary Film Festival
director Davy Rothbart

Mija — editor

Following two daughters of undocumented immigrants as they navigate careers in the music industry. Seeking to provide for their families while achieving their dreams, the pair feel guilt of being the first American-born members of their families.

https://variety.com/2022/film/reviews/mija-review-1235162476/

*2022 Sundance Film Festival Official Selection
director Isabel Castro

All These Sons — editor

Chicago’s South and West sides are infamous for their high murder rates. Two men, one atoning for a senseless murder in his youth, offer mentorship and healing to help young men avoid getting involved in gun violence.

https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/all-these-sons/umc.cmc.7ftdfphq8fjfon89ltt360xog

*2021 TriBeCa Film Festival Official Selection
*2021 IDFA Official Selection
directors Bing Liu and Joshua Altman

A Suitable Girl — producer | writer | editor

A Suitable Girl follows three young women in India struggling to maintain their identities and follow their dreams amid intense pressure to get married. Documenting the arranged marriage and matchmaking process in vérité over four years, the film examines the women’s complex relationships with marriage, family, and culture; the many nuanced ways society molds them into traditional roles; and a rarely-seen portrait of India’s urban middle class.

http://www.asuitablegirldoc.com

*Winner, Albert Maysles Award, 2017 TriBeCa Film Festival
*2017 Sheffield Doc/Fest Official Selection
*2017 AFI/SilverDocs Film Festival Official Selection
directors Smriti Mundhra & Sarita Khurana

WAITING FOR HASSANA — co-producer | editor

In 2014, 276 teenage girls came together for exams in Chibok, Nigeria — by dawn, nearly all had disappeared and their school was burnt. Jessica, an escapee, shares her haunting account of a friendship violently interrupted by Boko Haram.

http://www.waitingforhassana.com

*2017 Sundance Film Festival Official Selection
*2017 Toronto International Film Festival Official Selection
*2017 SXSW Film Festival Official Selection
*2017 Sheffield Doc/Fest Official Selection
*2017 AFI/SilverDocs Film Festival Official Selection
*Winner, Best Documentary Short Film, RiverRun International Film Festival
*WInner, Best Documentary Short Film, Seattle International Film Festival
director Ifunanya Maduka

DRAGONSLAYER — editor

An intimate vérité portrait of the life and times of Josh “Skreech” Sandoval, a 23-year-old skate legend from the stagnant suburbs of Fullerton, California, Dragonslayer takes the viewer through a golden SoCal haze of lost youth, broken homes and abandoned swimming pools, set to a soundtrack of bands from indie-rock labels Mexican Summer and Kemado Records-including Best Coast, Bipolar Bear, Children, Dungen, Jacuzzi Boys, Little Girls and The Soft Pack—as well as Death and Thee Oh Sees.

http://dragonslayermovie.com

*Winner, Best Documentary Feature, 2011 SXSW Film Festival
*Winner, Best International Documentary, 2011 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival
*2011 London Film Festival Official Selection
director Tristan Patterson

SALAM NEIGHBOR — editor

Two Americans deliberately head to the edge of war, just seven miles from the Syrian border, to live among 80,000 uprooted refugees in Jordan’s Za’atari refugee camp. As the first filmmakers allowed by the United Nations to register and set-up a tent inside a refugee camp, Salam Neighbor uncovers inspiring stories of individuals rallying, against all odds, to rebuild their lives and those of their neighbors and plunges into the heart of the world’s most pressing humanitarian crisis.

http://livingonone.org/salamneighbor/

*2015 AFI Documentary Film Festival Official Selection
*2014 CPH:DOX Official Selection
directors Zach Ingrasci & Chris Temple

Sirens — consulting editor | co-producer

SIRENS intimately chronicles the lives and music of Slave to Sirens, a band made up of five young metal heads whose burgeoning fame is set against the backdrop of the Lebanese revolution. Its members wrestle with friendship, sexuality, and destruction as their music serves as a refuge to Beirut’s youth culture.

At the band’s core are its two founding members, Lilas Mayassi and Shery Bechara, whose complicated relationship and subsequent tense fallout threatens the very fabric of the band. An even greater looming threat, however, is Lebanon’s criminalization of homosexuality, as well as the wholly devastating effects of their country’s political regime. Despite their challenges, the band persists in trying to create a revolution of their own: living their truth.

https://www.sirensdocumentary.com/

*2022 Sundance Film Festival Official Selection
director Rita Baghdadi

St. Louis Superman — additional editor

Rep. Bruce Franks Jr. (D-Mo.) must overcome personal trauma and political obstacles to pass a critical bill for his community.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Superman

*2020 Academy Awards Documentary Short Nominee
*Winner, 2020 Critics Choice Award Best Documentary Short
*Winner, 2019 HotDocs Audience Award Documentary Short
*2019 Tribeca Film Festival Official Selection
directors Smriti Mundhra & Sami Khan

AFGHAN CYCLES — consulting editor

What lengths would you go to in order to ride a bicycle? Following a new generation of young Afghan women cyclists, Afghan Cycles uses the bicycle to tell a story of women’s rights – human rights – and the struggles faced by Afghan women on a daily basis, from discrimination to abuse, to the oppressive silencing of their voices in all aspects of contemporary society. These women ride despite cultural barriers, despite infrastructure, and despite death threats, embracing the power and freedom that comes with the sport.

https://www.afghancycles.com

*2018 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival
*Winner, Best Documentary Feature, 2018 Brooklyn Film Festival
*Winner, Best Documentary Feature, Seattle International Film Festival
director Sarah Menzies

THE LIFE AND MIND OF MARK DEFRIEST — consulting editor

Once known as Houdini for his multiple and improbable jailbreaks, Mark DeFriest was condemned to Florida’s toughest prison after a lone psychiatrist declared he was faking mental illness. When that doctor reaches out 30 years later, DeFriest finds an unlikely ally willing to examine his infamous past and offer new insights to the Parole Commission.

http://defriest.com

*2014 Los Angeles Film Festival Official Selection
*2014 DOC NYC Official Selection
*Winner, Top Ten Audience Favourite, 2014 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival
*Winner, Best Documentary Feature, 2014 Lone Star Film Festival 
director Gabriel London

AND IF TWO BY SEA — additional editor

And Two If By Sea – A cinematic adventure of fate, destiny, and family. The story of iconic professional surfers and identical twins CJ & Damien Hobgood. Their sibling rivalry and struggle to each to establish their own identity fueled their careers, but in turn ripped their personal lives apart.

http://andtwoifbysea.com

director Justin Purser

FORSAKEN — consulting editor | associate producer

An Old West town is in turmoil as the railroad will be coming through the area and a criminal gang is terrorising ranchers who refuse to sell their land. An ex-gunslinger who has returned home to his father must decide whether to return to violence.

Starring Kiefer Sutherland, Donald Sutherland, and Demi Moore

http://forsakenthefilm.com

*2015 TIFF Official Selection
director Jon Cassar

ROAD TO PALOMA — editor

Jason Momoa of “Game of Thrones” and “The Red Road” makes his directorial debut and stars in this intense road movie as Wolf, a Native American on the run after avenging his mother’s murder. As he flees across the desolate American West on his motorcycle, he’ll discover that justice has a cost – Wolf’s search for redemption will reveal secrets and take him on a journey where the roads have some very unexpected turns.

Starring Jason Momoa and Lisa Bonet

http://www.roadtopaloma.com

*2014 Sarasota Film Festival Official Selection

I TRUST YOU TO KILL ME — editor

I Trust You to Kill Me documents the European tour of rock band, Rocco DeLuca and the Burden as they find an audience on the road. Kiefer Sutherland, as their devoted band manager, stops at nothing in his effort to try and make this happen.

http://variety.com/2006/film/reviews/i-trust-you-to-kill-me-1200516528/

*2006 Nashville Film Festival Official Selection
*2006 BFI London Film Festival Official Selection
director Manu Boyer

HALF THE SKY “Woinshet” — editor

In Ethiopia, where marriage by rape and abduction had become the cultural norm, one thirteen-year-old girl stood up to tradition and changed her nation’s laws. “Woinshet” chronicles the struggle of an Ethiopian woman who triumphs over violence and discrimination.

directors Marisa Tomei & Lisa Leone​