Mark Decena is a writer, director and producer of feature films, television programming, web films, and commercials. A three time Sundance alumni, Mark’s first feature, Dopamine won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize. Decena’s documentary work spans across themes of social justice, sustainable design and the environment. He wrote and directed the Redford Center’s latest film, Watershed, and was a writer and producer onStand Up Planet, a Gates funded project currently on air on Participant Media’s channel, Pivot. Mark is also the founder of Kontent, a boutique production company based in San Francisco, housing a Kollective of award winning filmmakers, as well as producers and creatives working on original and branded works.
Alison Byrne Fields is the President of Aggregate, a creative strategy firm that works with nonprofits, foundations, authors, and filmmakers to bring people and resources together to create progressive social change. She has worked domestically and globally to engage young people in politics (as the Creative Director/Chief Strategist for Rock the Vote and in Mexico and Cambodia), mobilize private industry resources to fight HIV/AIDS, promote criminal justice reform, strengthen the advocacy efforts of abortion providers, mobilize investment in global health, educate people about the violence experienced by the transgender community, and facilitate innovation in health and health care. Alison earned her BA in media studies at Hampshire College and her Master of Public Policy degree from Harvard University.
Sam Green is an Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker based in New York. Green’s recent film A Thousand Thoughts premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and is a live cinema collaboration with the legendary classical ensemble the Kronos Quartet. His previous film The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller features a live score by the indie band Yo La Tengo. His earlier documentary The Weather Underground was nominated for an Oscar, broadcast on PBS, and included in the Whitney Biennial. www.samgreen.to
Josh Penn is a producer with the Department of Motion Pictures. He produced Beasts Of The Southern Wild, which won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize, the Cannes Caméra d’Or, and was nominated for four Academy Awards (including Best Picture). In addition, Josh was nominated for Outstanding Producer at the 2013 Producer’s Guild Awards. He has produced Monsters And Men (Sundance Special Jury Prize), Philly D.A. (Winner of the 2021 Gotham Award for Breakthrough Nonfiction Series), the live documentary A Thousand Thoughts, Wendy, Users (Sundance 2021 Best Directors Award), and Farewell Amor among others. He was an Executive Producer on Patti Cake$, Western (Sundance Special Jury Prize), The Great Invisible (SXSW Grand Jury Prize), and Bloody Nose Empty Pockets. Josh and the DMP had three films premiere at Sundance 2020, and three more in Sundance 2021. In 2018, Josh became a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences. Outside of his work in film, Josh was previously the Michigan New Media Director for President Obama’s 2008 campaign and a Senior Digital Program Manager for the 2012 re-election campaign.
Chi-hui Yang is a film programmer, lecturer and writer based in New York. Yang sits on the selection committee for MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight and is the president of the board of directors of the Flaherty Film Seminar. Yang was the consulting series producer for POV’s 2013 26th season and from 2000-2010 he was the Director and Programmer of the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, the largest showcase of its kind in the US. Yang is also the programmer of “Cinema Asian America,” an On-Demand service offered by Comcast, a Visiting Scholar at New York University’s Asian/Pacific/American Institute and an adjunct professor at Hunter College and Columbia University.
Tabitha Jackson has spent the last 30 years supporting the independent voice, championing the social and cultural power of artful cinema, and furthering the mission of uplifting a more expansive set of makers, audiences, and forms. Most recently as the first woman and person of color to be appointed Director of Sundance Film Festival she re-imagined and led two technologically innovative and radically accessible pandemic editions. They ‘expanded the possibilities of what a film festival can be, and who it can be for’. Between 2013 and 2020 she headed the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program rethinking traditional project support in favor of more artist-centered models, and advocating for institutional support of formal innovation in nonfiction cinema. Tabitha is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and is currently a Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School.
EMERITUS
Bill Siegel was a founding member of The Free History Project and a dear friend. He was one of Chicago’s most celebrated documentary filmmakers and educators, working for 23 years with The Great Books Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to literacy and lifelong learning. He co-directed the Academy Award-nominated documentary, The Weather Underground, was as a researcher on the documentary films, Muhammad Ali: The Whole Story and Hoop Dreams, and a writer on One Love, a documentary on the cultural history of basketball by Leon Gast. Bill was born and raised in Minneapolis, MN, received a BA in History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an MS in Journalism from Columbia University in New York.