THE TEAM
DACA activists Luis Cortes-Romero, Paul Quiñonez, Alejandra Perez and Kamau Chege. Seattle, November, 2020.
PRODUCER AND DIRECTOR, Marlene “Mo” Morris is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and From Here/From There (De Aquí/De Allá) is her second feature-length public television program. A NEW COLOR: The Art of Being Edythe Boone, was nationally broadcast on PBS’s America ReFramed and won several festival awards. A NEW COLOR follows a fearless muralist, activist and educator as she tackles poverty, racism and inequality through her work. Mo has produced short form content, most recently, Tomorrow, We Carry On/Mañana, Seguimos, winner of best short documentary Migrant Voices Challenge at the San Diego Latino Film Festival. Mo’s approach to filmmaking is informed by ten years as an immigration attorney and extensive experience as a mediator and social justice organizer. Mo is a former Bay Area Video Coalition MediaMaker Fellow and winner of the CINE Golden Eagle Award.
PRODUCER, Jed Riffe is a documentary film director, producer, and multimedia storyteller who has produced 15 nationally-broadcast public television specials including PBS series California and the American Dream and four interactive media programs. He is best known as the director of these award-winning films Ishi, the Last Yahi; Who Owns the Past? and California’s “Lost” Tribes. Jed produced Mo Morris’ directorial debut feature, A New Color (2015). He was also the producer of A Dangerous Idea: Eugenics, Genetics and the American Dream (2017); One Voice: The Story of the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir (2018); The Long Shadow (2020); Pleistocene Park (2022) and The 9 Lives of Barbara Dane (2023). Jed’s films have won 40 major awards and he is a Sundance Documentary Fund Alumni and Gerbode Fellow.
PRODUCER, Nicole Solis-Sison is a multi-racial DACAmented writer, producer and creative director. Her work focuses on cultural equity, diversity and sustainability in digital discourse across the art, media and film industries. Nicole is a proud founding member of the Undocumented Filmmakers Collective, a nationwide organization that tackles systemic inequities facing undocumented immigrants in the media field. Nicole received her BFA at University of California, Berkeley. Nicole is a 2022 Define American Fellow, a Sundance Asian American Collab Fellow, and the recipient of the 2016 Eisner Award for the Highest Achievement.
CONSULTING PRODUCER, Carlos Sandoval is an Emmy-nominated and Sundance award-winning filmmaker (Farmingville (POV), A Class Apart (American Experience) and The State of Arizona (Independent Lens)) whose work has been informed by his legal training, as well as by his experience on refugee and immigration policy, including as a member of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations. He is currently on faculty at the Columbia School of Journalism and has served on several film boards and festival jury panels. Sandoval writes a monthly column named “Best in New York” by the New York Newspaper Association and is at work on a family memoir.
EDITOR, Manuel Tsingaris is a documentary editor who draws from his rich Guatemalan and Greek-American heritage. Over more than 20 years, he has edited dozens of feature documentaries for PBS, ABC, HBO and others. A believer in the adage, “you get to the head through the heart”, to Manuel, the story is paramount. He edited the Peabody Award winning The Latino Americans, a 6-hour PBS mini-series retelling US history through a Latin lens. Manuel’s Alive Inside received the Audience Award for Best Documentary at Sundance and other films have received awards at top festivals.
EDITOR, Ken Schneider is a documentary editor and producer. He has edited nearly 40 feature documentaries for PBS, HBO, Showtime and others. He edited the Oscar-nominated Regret to Inform, about cross-cultural loss in times of war described by the New York Times as “unforgettable ... exquisitely filmed, edited and scored.” Ken received a Peabody award for Soft Vengeance. Other films he edited, including Truth to Power: Barbara Lee Speaks for Me and Have You Heard From Johannesburg have earned multiple Emmys, a Columbia-Dupont, three Peabodys, an Indie Spirit and top awards at the Sundance Film Festival.
CINEMATOGRAPHER, Vicente Franco is a director of photography and producer for documentaries, drama, and news. He was an Oscar nominee for Best Documentary and Emmy nominee for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography for Daughter from DaNang, about child separation during the Vietnam War, winner of the Sundance Film Festival 2002 Grand Jury Prize. He has shot numerous other Academy Award nominated films including The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, Barber of Birmingham and Freedom on My Mind.