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Talkhouse

Ricki Stern is an Emmy-nominated documentary film director, producer and writer. Her new film, <a href="https://www.discoveryplus.com/show/a-radical-life-us" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A Radical Life</a>, about former Islamic State jihadi Tania Joya, is now streaming on discovery+. Ricki is the executive producer and director of six-part series Surviving Death, director and executive producer of the Emmy-nominated Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. Ricki is the co-director and co-producer of the four-part series Surviving Jeffrey Epstein (2020), the five-part series AMC/Sundance’s Preppy Murder – Death In Central Park, My So-Called High School Rank (2022), the Emmy-nominated Reversing Roe (2018), Marathon – The Patriots Day Bombing (2016), In My Father’s (2015), Knuckleball! (2012), Burma Soldier (2011), the Emmy-nominated The Devil Came On Horseback (2007), the Emmy–nominated The Trials of Daryl Hunt (2006). She was the director of In My Corner (1998) and the director-producer of the Emmy-nominated Neglect Not the Children (1992).

Ricki Stern

Film

Reaching a Place of Vulnerability and Authenticity

Karina Manashil is the president of Mad Solar, having begun her career in the mailroom at William Morris Endeavor, where she became a talent agent. Manashil represented notable clients including Scott Mescudi, known by his stage name, Kid Cudi, and built her career taking talent into new arenas. In 2020, she partnered with Mescudi and Dennis Cummings to launch Mad Solar, which is backed by BRON Studios. The first production released under the banner was the Amazon documentary, A Man Named Scott, from director Robert Alexander. Manashil then went on to executive produce SXSW fan-favorite X, along with its prequel, Pearl, and the recently announced sequel, MaXXXine. All three films are directed by Ti West and distributed by A24. Manashil is an executive producer on the critically acclaimed Netflix animated series directed by Fletcher Moules, Entergalactic, which was released alongside its album of the same name from Kid Cudi on September 30th. Manashil is a native of Los Angeles and graduated from Chapman University with a BFA in Film Production.

Karina Manashil

Opa + Me

Andrew Muscato is the producer of <a href="https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/the-greatest-beer-run-ever/umc.cmc.54tpvwt1vapino8t6kulcf2d1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Greatest Beer Run Ever</a>, directed by Peter Farrelly and starring Zac Efron and Russell Crowe. He began his career producing numerous critically acclaimed feature documentaries such as Ballplayer: Pelotero, and Schooled: The Price of College Sports. He has produced and directed short documentaries for VICE, and The Athletic, and was co-Executive Producer of MSNBC’s political documentary series American Swamp. Andrew recently directed the Bill Murray concert documentary, New Worlds: The Cradle of Civilization, an Official Selection of the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. He is a graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts. (Image courtesy Apple.)

Andrew Muscato

My Eight-Year Odyssey Trying to Get The Greatest Beer Run Ever Made

Ingrid Raphaël is a filmmaker, educator and artist. They draw from their immigrant experience(s) to understand, situate, and contextualize their work which is often described as “personal,” “intimate,” “transfixing,” “collaborative” and “reflective.” Interested by themes of place, memory, time, and accessibility, they co-created No Evil Eye Cinema, a nomadic radical microcinema, co-directed the short film <a href="https://fieldofvision.org/they-won-t-call-it-murder" target="_blank" rel="noopener">They Won&#8217;t Call It Murder</a> and is currently developing a speculative thriller narrative film. As an educator, they&#8217;ve extensively taught independent and collaborative curriculum at Black Quantum Futurism, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, EyeBeam, The Young Artist Program, Mono No Aware, Harlem School of the Arts, libraries and more.
Melissa Gira Grant is a journalist, author, and filmmaker. She is is a staff writer at The New Republic; the author of Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work (Verso), which was named a Village Voice favorite book of the year; and the co-director of <a href="https://fieldofvision.org/they-won-t-call-it-murder" target="_blank" rel="noopener">They Won’t Call It Murder</a>, selected for the 2021 DOC NYC Short List. Her forthcoming book, A Woman Is Against the Law: Sex, Race, and the Limits of Justice of America (Little, Brown and Company) is a feminist indictment of the criminal legal system. She was a senior staff writer at The Appeal, as well as a contributing writer at the Village Voice and Pacific Standard. She lives in New York.

Ingrid Raphaël and Melissa Gira Grant

Stories of What’s Left Behind: On Making They Won’t Call It Murder

Juan Pablo González is a Mexican director whose work spans fiction and nonfiction. His debut feature, Dos estaciones, had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and comes out theatrically on September 9 through Cinema Guild. His short films include the documentary The Solitude of Memory (2014), the scripted film La espera (2016), and the experimental short, Las Nubes. He made the 62-minute Caballerango, a documentary about a community coming to terms with the death of a horse wrangle, in 2018. In 2020 Juan Pablo had his first solo exhibition, What I Do To Remember, at the Visual Arts Center (VAC) at UT Austin&#8217;s Department of Art and Art history. Juan Pablo’s body of work is largely set in his hometown of Atotonilco el Alto, and he was named one of Filmmaker magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film” in 2015. Juan Pablo is currently the co-director of the Film Directing program at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).

Juan Pablo González

The Film As It Makes Itself

Mark Cousins is a Northern Irish filmmaker and writer who lives in Edinburgh. His latest film, The Eyes of Orson Welles, is in theaters through Janus Films from March 15. His work as a director includes The Story of Film: An Odyssey, an epic 15-hour documentary which won a Peabody Award and the Stanley Kubrick Award; A Story of Children and Film, a feature doc which world premiered in Cannes; I Am Belfast, a lyrical essay film about his home town; and his fiction debut Stockholm My Love, a grief musical starring and with music by Neneh Cherry. His latest book, The Story of Looking, was published in the UK last year by Canongate.

Mark Cousins

Revisited: How the World Became Wellesian

Rennik Soholt’s debut feature, <a href="http://forcedchange.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Forced Change</a>, is out now via iTunes, Apple TV and Amazon. Shot over the course of 14 years, the film is a groundbreaking documentary that looks past the modern news media’s broad coverage of Hurricane Katrina in order to reveal the touching human stories buried beneath the headlines. Soholt has produced and directed video shoots in over 25 countries across 5 continents, creating a body of work that includes web series, feature documentaries, branded content, animated segments, non-scripted television, and music videos. He produced and directed multiple episodes of the Emmy Award-winning travel series Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, as well as the award-winning PBS documentary series Weekends with Yankee Magazine and the reality TV shows House Hunters International and Pawn Stars. He is the recipient of the James Beard award for the PBS series, Gourmet’s Diary of a Foodie, for which he also received an Emmy nomination. He lives in New York City with his wife and son.

Rennik Soholt

The Art of the Finish

Dan Chen&#8216;s new Vimeo Staff Pick short documentary, <a href="https://vimeo.com/1032884093" target="_blank" rel="noopener">You&#8217;re Too Sensitive</a>, is now streaming. He developed his love of film as a Chinese-American teenager growing up in small-town Kansas. He picked up the camera to connect with others, partnering with friends to make elaborate coming-of-age movies, and documenting the moments they&#8217;d later be nostalgic for. He studied fine art film photography in college, and graduated from the USC School of Cinematic Arts focusing on cinematography and directing. His work at Jubilee Media has garnered over 100+ million views, and his films have been featured on Vimeo Staff Picks, Short of the Week, Slamdance Film Festival and most recently the 2021 Tribeca Festival, where he premiered his documentary feature debut, <a href="https://danchen.co/portfolio/accepted">Accepted</a>, to critical acclaim. Accepted follows four high school seniors at the controversial T.M. Landry school as they grapple with college admissions, national scandal, and the pains of growing up. Dan is currently based in Los Angeles, developing new projects as he prepares to direct his first narrative feature film. (Photo by Arielle Zakowski.)

Dan Chen

Why Media Representation Alone Will Never Make You Feel Accepted

Emily Branham is a director, producer and editor in NYC who makes films about artists and creative thinkers. Her debut feature documentary, Being BeBe, about BeBe Zahara Benet (winner of the first season of Ru Paul’s Drag Race), is out now on VOD through Giant Pictures and airs on Fuse on June 21. Her short documentary Legend: a film about Greg Garing won the jury prize for Best Film of the International Doc Challenge at Hot Docs in Toronto, then screened at Sheffield Doc/Fest, IDFA, Nashville, Big Sky, Rooftop Films, and on the Documentary Channel. Originally from Minneapolis, Emily was a child actor who earned her SAG-AFTRA card at five years old, and found her happy place both on- and off-stage at the Guthrie Theater and Children’s Theater Company. When she discovered that filmmaking combined all of the many varied art forms she loved, she studied Radio/TV/Film (on the directing track) at Northwestern University and has been happily behind the camera &amp; edit suite ever since.

Emily Branham

Being BeBe: No Acting Please

James Lee Hernandez is a multi-Emmy® and PGA Award-nominated filmmaker and critically acclaimed podcaster who with his creative partner Brian Lazarte wrote, direct, and executive produced the Apple TV+ original documentary series The Big Conn, which is now available to stream. Hernandez and Lazarte recently directed, wrote, and edited the five-time Emmy® nominated HBO original documentary series McMillion$ (Sundance 2020), and their upcoming project, The Jet, another Apple TV+ original documentary series, is forthcoming later this year. Hernandez is a founding partner of FunMeter, a TV &amp; Film production company specializing in stranger-than-fiction scripted and non-scripted content. Hernandez is a self-taught filmmaker who began his career in the industry writing, editing, and directing content for Hulu, Hallmark, and other major, national brands.
Brian Lazarte is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker and editor whose new four-part Apple TV+ original documentary series made with James Lee Hernandez, The Big Conn is now available to stream. His credits include a variety of award-winning documentaries and series, most notably McMillion$ for HBO, which he wrote, directed, executive produced, and edited alongside James Lee Hernandez. Additional notable credits include Katy Perry: Part of Me 3D, HBO&#8217;s Emmy award-winning Sonic Highways, Fed Up, ESPN&#8217;s Emmy award-winning “30 for 30” Hawaiian: The Legend of Eddie Aikau, The Price of Free (Grand Jury Prize, Sundance 2018), and Showtime&#8217;s Time of Death, which won IDA&#8217;s Best Limited Series in 2014. A recipient of the Panavision New Filmmaker grant, he is a founding partner with Hernandez of FunMeter, a TV and film production company specializing in stranger-than-fiction scripted and non-scripted content. (Photo courtesy HBO.)

James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte

The Music of Collaboration

Gilda Sheppard is an award-winning non-fiction filmmaker whose new feature documentary, <a href="https://www.sinceibeendown.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Since I Been Down</a>, is now available on VOD. Sheppard is a 2017 Hedgebrook Fellow for documentary film and a 2019 recipient of an Artist Trust Fellowship. Her documentaries include stories of resilience of Liberian women and children refugees in Ghana; stories of three generations of Black families in an urban neighborhood; and a film ethnography of stories from folklore started by Zora Neale Hurston in Alabama&#8217;s AfricaTown. For over a decade, Sheppard has taught sociology classes in Washington State prisons and is a co-founder and faculty for FEPPS- Freedom Education for Puget Sound, an organization offering college credited courses at Washington Correctional Center for Women. Gilda is a member of the faculty at The Evergreen State College Tacoma Campus. (Photo by Elliot Solomon, courtesy Gilda Sheppard.)

Gilda Sheppard

Film: To Imagine What is Possible

Born in the small town of King City, California, and raised up in the DIY Punk culture, Robert Machoian has been taking photographs his whole life and making films for well over a decade. His films have premiered at the Sundance, SXSW, LA, and Tribeca Film Festivals in the States and have screened at festivals around the world. His new film, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSNqjL1PP5I" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Notes From a Quiet Town</a>, made as a companion piece to the Killers’ latest album, Pressure Machine, is now streaming online. His debut solo feature as a director, The Killing of Two Lovers, premiered at Sundance and was released by Neon to huge acclaim in 2021. His work with his directing partner Robert Ojeda-Beck, including the features God Bless the Child, When She Runs and Forty Years From Yesterday, has won numerous awards and led to the pair being nominated for a Cinema Eye Honors Heterdox and Indie Spirit Filmmaker to Watch Awards. Robert has won awards for his cinematography and his photographs have appeared in magazines at Filmmaker Magazine, Indiewire, and Bright Ideas. His work comes from the intimate experiences of his life and the lives of those around him. In 2019, Robert had his fourth short film go to the Sundance Film Festival, which won the Jury Prize for Directing. (Photo by Ellie Hardiman.)

documentary