2019 FILM SELECTION

Sahra Mani

Producer/Director Sahra Mani is the founder of ADH Films and Director of A Thousand Girls Like Me Films. She believes in the power of storytelling to understand our world and begin to make it a better place. Her work as producer, director, writer, and photographer is focused on human rights, equality and justice, and she is most driven to tell the stories of those who are shining a light in some of the darkest corners of our world. As Director of ADH Films, Mani is training and mentoring the next generation of correspondents and filmmakers. Mani has directed and produced nearly 13 documentary films that have screened at film festivals and aired on broadcast networks globally (Aljazeera, RTS, Afghan National Television). Her work as a multimedia producer, Impact Campaign director, Human Right Film Festivals organizer and author raises awareness and promotes action for issues and causes that demand social change.

Alexandria Bombach

Alexandria Bombach is an award-winning cinematographer, editor, and director from Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her feature-length documentary ON HER SHOULDERS follows Nadia Murad, a 23-year-old Yazidi woman who survived genocide and sexual slavery committed by ISIS. ON HER SHOULDERS premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival where Alexandria won Best Directing in the U.S. Documentary Competition.

Her first feature-length documentary, FRAME BY FRAME, follows the lives of four Afghan photojournalists who are facing the realities of building Afghanistan’s first free press.

Alexandria continued her work in Afghanistan in 2016 directing the Pulitzer Center-supported New York Times Op-Doc, AFGHANISTAN BY CHOICE—an intertwining portrait of five Afghans who must weigh the costs of leaving or staying as the country’s security deteriorates. In addition to her feature documentary work, Alexandria’s production company RED REEL has been producing award-winning, character-driven stories since 2009. Her 2013 film COMMON GROUND unearths the emotion behind a proposed wilderness-area addition for a community in Montana— as heritage and tradition are seemingly defended on both sides. Her Emmy Award-winning 2012 series MOVESHAKE captured the internal conflicts of people dedicating their lives to a cause.

Gini Reticker

Gini Reticker, director of The Trials of Spring, is an Academy Award-nominated and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, an executive producer of Women, War and Peace II, and a producer of Wave Goodbye to Dinosaurs. Throughout her career, Reticker has been a passionate advocate for women’s rights with a focus on enabling the worlds’ unsung heroines to tell their stories. She has created numerous films, directing the acclaimed Pray the Devil Back to Hell, the Emmy-winning Ladies First, and producing the Oscar-nominated Asylum. Reticker co-founded Fork Films, serving as executive producer on numerous projects including The Armor of Light, Cameraperson, and Hot Girls Wanted.

Jeanne Hallacy

Jeanne Marie Hallacy

Director Jeanne Hallacy has worked in Southeast Asia for 25 years, producing stories about human rights and social justice issues. Her films are used as advocacy tools by civil society organizations.

Alexia Maltner

Alexia Maltner

Alexia Maltner began her directing experience in the world of theater in 1999, when she directed a play called “The Dumb Waiter” written by Harold Pinter, and in 2002, when she directed another Harold Pinter play entitled “The Lover.” After gaining her initial directing experience with theatrical plays, Maltner switched to television in 2003, where she has worked as a director’s assistant with several Globo’s household names. Her directing assistance contributions in television include work in many productions, including the 2003 mini-series “A House of Seven Women” and 2004 mini-series “One House Only,” 2004 soap opera “Lady of Destiny,” 2005 television adaptation of the comic series “The Big Family,” 2011 “The Shameless”, 2014 “Didi and the Angles’ Secret”, and 2015 “Hot Plate”.

Maltner’s filmmaking directing credits include 2010 short film “Till Death Brings Them Together” and 2014 web series “Tormented,” which she wrote as well as directed. Many of the titles of the productions Maltner has directed have been translated, as most of them were originally written and titled in Portuguese. Maltner’s talents are varied, and her extensive directing experience helps her bring unique charm to all of her projects.

Jeannie Donohoe

Jeannie Donohoe

Jeannie Donohoe is an award-winning filmmaker based in Los Angeles. She has written and directed several short films, including GAME (screening in 200 festivals internationally; Oscar-qualifying awards at Raindance and New York International Children’s Film Festival; Bronze Cannes Lion Award), Lambing Season (selected for over 50 film festivals and multiple awards; named one of the “Best Short Films of 2014” by Indiewire; currently airing on PBS Film School Shorts) and Public (Palm Springs ShortFest, PBS Imagemakers). Jeannie was selected from over 4,600 applicants to write and direct GAME through the Lexus Short Films program. Jeannie earned her MFA with honors in Directing from Columbia University. She attended Dartmouth College as an undergraduate and also earned an MS in Education while teaching middle school in the Bronx through the Teach for America program. Jeannie is currently developing her first feature-length film.

Paloma Martinez

Director Paloma Martinez

Paloma began her storytelling career as a labor organizer in her native Texas. With her films, she hopes to empower communities and spark a dialogue about difficult subjects.

In 2018, Paloma was named one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker Magazine. Her short documentaries have screened at leading festivals including Hot Docs, AFI Docs, DOC NYC, San Francisco International Film Festival, and Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, winning multiple awards.

Crisanto Street won both the Golden Gate Award for Best Short Documentary and Best Family Film at the San Francisco International Film Festival. Her co-directed short The Shift was shortlisted for the BAFTA Student Film Awards.

Paloma is a graduate of Stanford University’s Documentary Film M.F.A. program.

Kerry Skinner & Stewart Alexander

Kerry Skinner and Stewart Alexander are founding members of Park Bench Pictures. Their first collaboration as Director/Producers was the British feature film ‘Common People’. It won numerous awards at international festivals and played to packed houses for nine weeks in one London cinema before receiving a nationwide theatrical release in the UK. After it screened in consideration for the 2015 BAFTAs, host Stephen Fry described the film as, “a rare gem … that is intensely moving and highly rewarding.” Their second film, ’The Bicycle Thief,’ won Directors UK’s Challenge ALEXA competition and was shot over two days in April 2018 by a Production Team that was over 70% female. They are currently developing their next two features.

Ellie Wen

Ellie Wen was born in Hong Kong and moved to Los Angeles when she was eight years old. She attended Stanford University and graduated with a B.A. in Drama and a Minor in Sociology. Upon graduation from Stanford, she moved back to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the film industry. Ellie was selected for the Project Involve fellowship program and was named the Barbara Boyle Scholar. She has directed and produced numerous shorts, documentaries, and features, including ​White Frog​, which she co-wrote. In addition to creating independently, she has also worked at CAA and CBS Films in all aspects of film finance, sales, acquisitions, production, and development. Most recently, she was the Director of Development in Original Series at Super Deluxe, an independent entertainment studio funded by Turner. Her documentary ​Single Mother Only Daughter screened at the American Cinematheque’s 12th Annual Focus on Female Directors and numerous film festivals. It has since premiered online on Short of the Week and been chosen as a Vimeo Staff Pick. She recently released a short documentary series on Participant Media’s digital platform SoulPancake called “Doing Good Business” about social entrepreneurs around the world. Ellie is currently pursuing her M.F.A. in Documentary Film and Video at Stanford University.

Whitney Legge

Whitney Legge grew up in a small town on the coast of Maine and after graduating high school relocated to Guatemala to develop photography programs for at-risk youths. In 2008, Whitney was accepted to the San Francisco Art Institute where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Photography and was honored with the John Collier Humanitarian Award. After graduation, Whitney helped organize and lead DocuPhoto, a public lecture series with acclaimed documentary photographers and filmmakers. She works for The Asia Foundation producing documentary short films. She is currently pursuing her M.F.A. in Documentary Film at Stanford.