OUR PANELISTS

Widely credited with inventing the reality television genre with his late partner Mary-Ellis Bunim, Jonathan Murray continues to inspire and entertain television audiences worldwide. Since creating The Real World in 1992, Jonathan has executive produced some of the industry’s most innovative, unscripted, and raw storytelling entertainment, including the Emmy®️ award-winning Born This Way, Starting Over, and Autism: The Musical, as well as fan favorites, The Challenge, Project Runway, The Simple Life, and Keeping Up With The Kardashians. In 2012, Murray was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame. Today, Jonathan serves as Founder and Executive Consultant, remaining at BMP in a creative capacity to develop series and documentary passion projects. He currently lives in the Los Angeles area where he serves on the boards of The Television Academy Foundation and The Producers Guild. He also serves on the board of The Local Journalism Project based in Provincetown, MA. In 2012 Murray was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame.

Joshua Oppenheimer is a two-time Academy Award nominee and BAFTA prizewinner. His newest film THE END, represents his fiction debut and premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in 2024. His films have redefined the possibilities of documentary cinema. His debut feature, The Act of Killing (2014) was Oscar® Nominee for Best Documentary, and has won many awards. His second film, The Look of Silence (2016 Oscar® Nominee for Best Documentary), premiered at the Venice Film Festival, where it won five awards, including the Grand Jury Prize. Both films have helped transform Indonesia’s understanding of the most important event in its modern history – the 1965-66 genocide – inspiring a movement for truth, reconciliation and justice. Beyond Indonesia, public discussions around the films prompted the US government to declassify 30,000 previously secret files detailing America’s complicity in the massacres. Cinema Eye Honors named Joshua a decade-defining filmmaker in 2016, and both his films as decade-defining films. In 2014, he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. He is Principal Investigator on the project Documentary of the Imagination, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Sabrina Schmidt Gordon is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and impact strategist from New York City. Since her Emmy-winning editing debut, Sabrina has distinguished herself as a leading voice in socially-conscious filmmaking as a producer, editor and director. She is a Women at Sundance Fellow, recipient of the Dear Producer Award for excellence in independent filmmaking, and a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).  Through her production company, Vespertine Films, Inc., her work continues to break boundaries, amplify marginalized voices, and illuminate issues that impact our global society. Sabrina is the producer of many critically-acclaimed films, including QUEST, TO THE END, and VICTIM/SUSPECT, all of which premiered at Sundance and are recipients of numerous awards, including a 2024 Emmy for Outstanding Investigative Documentary. Sabrina is the co-director, producer and editor of the Emmy-nominated BADDDDD SONIA SANCHEZ, for which she won the ADIFF Best Director award; producer and editor of both HIP-HOP: BEYOND BEATS AND RHYMES, a Sundance premiere named on MSNBC’s 10 Most Important Black Films of the Decade, and DOCUMENTED, which had record-breaking viewership on CNN. Other credits include Peabody Award winner BELLY OF THE BEAST, CUSP, and BLACK GIRLS which is also playing at Sundance this year in the BrandStorytelling section. Sabrina is a sought after speaker, consultant, mentor, film juror, and field builder as president of the Black Documentary Collective, and member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia.

Danielle Varga is an award-winning nonfiction producer who has been working in documentary film for the past decade. She recently received the Sundance Institute | MGM Studios Producer Award for nonfiction film in 2025. Her producing credits include Brittany Shyne’s award-winning SEEDS (Sundance Film Festival 2025, Grand Jury Award winner), Brett Story’s critically acclaimed THE HOTTEST AUGUST (True/False 2019, Grasshopper Film, PBS Independent Lens), Todd Chandler’s BULLETPROOF (SXSW 2020, Winner of Hot Docs Best International Filmmaker Award), Vicky Du’s LIGHT OF THE SETTING SUN (Full Frame and IDFA 2024, PBS Independent Lens) and Rachel Elizabeth Seed’s A PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY (True/False 2024, Winner of Film Independent’s Emerging Filmmaker Award). Varga was also co-producer on Zackary Drucker and Kristen Lovell’s Peabody winning THE STROLL (Sundance 2023) and Kirsten Johnson’s Oscar-shortlisted film, CAMERAPERSON (Sundance 2016).  She has also produced a number of programs for television, including a recent hour-long episode for PBS’s series Art in the Twenty-First Century. Varga was a 2016-2017 Sundance Creative Producing Fellow and was selected in DOC NYC’s inaugural “40 under 40” class. She’s been an advisor for Sundance, a mentor for emerging filmmakers, and a consultant.

Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe is an artist, curator and composer that works primarily with, but not limited to voice and modular synthesizer for sound works in the realm of spontaneous music. Along with analog video synthesis exploration, he has produced a series of A/V works focused on live performance and installation/exhibition. As of late Robert has focused his aleatoric practice on composition for film and television, both in solo scoring and collaboration. Over the last several years Robert has collaborated on projects or provided sound in a featured artist capacity for such films as “End of Summer”, “Sicario”, “Arrival”, “Last and First Men” with Johann Johannsson and “It Comes at Night” with Brian McOmber. In recent years Robert has scored “Candyman” for Nia DaCosta, “The Color of Care” and “Power” for Yance Ford, “Master” for Mariama Diallo, “Grasshopper Republic” for Daniel McCabe, docuseries “Telemarketers”, “UNION” for Brett Story and Stephen Maing, “The Man In My Basement” for Nadia Latif, “Life After for Reid Davenport and “Seeds” for Brittany Shyne. Each score is meant to have a very specific voice and sonic palette, so each project is approached with clear intention. Creating a unique signature in composition and instrumentation for each is film is always most important.

Brittany Shyne is an independent filmmaker based in Dayton, Ohio. Working in the narrative and non-fiction artform, her work seeks to depict the complexity of everyday life by examining themes such as personal histories, alienation and cultural modernization. By utilizing observational techniques and poetic language, her films lyrically weave together frameworks of race, class, culture and family lineage. She also works as a cinematographer on films such as The Debutantes (Tribeca, ‘24), This Time, This Place, (Tribeca, ‘21), and Julia Reichert and Steve Bognar’s academy award-winning film American Factory 美国 工厂(Sundance ‘19).  Shyne was the recipient of the 2021 Artist Disruptor Award from the Center of Cultural Power.  Her work has received institutional support from Sundance, Black Public Media, Cinereach, ITVS, IDA, Doc Society’s Threshold Fund, Just Films | Ford Foundation, BAVC, The Flies Collective, The Puffin Foundation, The Points North Institute and SFFILM. The film has also participated in the inaugural PROGRESSIO lab in conjunction with ICA London and Cineteca Madrid, True/False’s PRISM program, Open City’s Assembly Development Lab, and the Catapult & True/False Rough Cut Retreat.She is an alumni of the Chicken & (Egg)celerator Lab and was a Firelight Media Documentary Fellow (2020-2022). Shyne received her MFA in Documentary Media from Northwestern University and a BFA in Motion Pictures from Wright State University.

Bennett Elliott an Emmy award-winning, Peabody award-nominated producer based in New York. She is the producer and co-director of COUPLES THERAPY (Showtime, Seasons 4 & 5), and the producer of Robert Kolodny’s THE FEATHERWEIGHT (Venice 2023) Robert Greene’s PROCESSION (Netflix, 94th Academy Awards Short List), Kim Snyder’s US KIDS (Sundance 2020), Abel Ferrara’s SPORTIN’ LIFE (Venice Film Festival 2020) and Robert Greene’s Gotham Awards-nominated BISBEE ’17 (Sundance 2018). Bennett was the co-producer of Greene’s multiple award-winning Sundance documentary KATE PLAYS CHRISTINE (2016). She was selected as a 2017-2018 Sundance Institute Creative Producing Fellow, a DOC NYC “40 Under 40” fellow, and has produced documentary films for David Byrne, Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman and Nan Goldin. Bennett has coordinated television series for Bravo, the Food Network and Sundance Channel. In 2015 she was named Head of Production at Mustache Agency, a Brooklyn-based creative agency and produced hundreds of video campaigns for clients including American Express, Chevy, Ford, Conde Nast and the Netherlands Board of Tourism. Her award winning documentary, fiction film and music video work as producer and co-founder at the production collective House of Nod has taken her all over the world.

Jesse Miller is a producer based in Brooklyn who has shepherded numerous documentary and narrative features through all stages of production, as well as short-form branded docs and commercial content. Recently he produced (with frequent collaborator Taylor Hess) Michael Almereyda and Courtney Stephens' feature documentary "John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office" (screening at True/False this year), co-produced the narrative feature “Between the Temples” (Sony Pictures Classics) from Ley Line Entertainment, and produced Noah Schamus’ debut narrative feature, “Summer Solstice” (Cartilage Films), which had its theatrical premiere at IFC Center.

Jesse also produced the narrative feature film “Lapsis,” which premiered in competition at SXSW in 2020, the feature documentary “In Silico” (Sandbox Films), and co-produced the award-winning documentary feature “Deep Time” (SXSW 2015).

Lauren Domino is a writer and Peabody,  PGA,  and Grammy award winning producer with a focus on the healing power of film. Her work as a producer includes the Academy Award nominated  TIME (Amazon Studios), and BAFTA and Academy Shortlisted American Symphony (Netflix), as well as  Alone, The Earth is Humming, Black Folk Don’t, Like, and America.  She has produced branded content and live events for The New Yorker, Elle Magazine, The Oscars, Microsoft, and Essence Festival. She is a member of  the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Doc Branch, Producers Guild of America, The Documentary Producers Alliance and the Writers Guild of America.

Distribution is the art that Mia Bruno practices. With decades of experience that span many iterations of the independent film marketplace, Mia is a producer of marketing and distribution, designing and executing distribution strategy, theatrical booking, impact campaigns, sales, and grassroots marketing.  Mia infuses innovation into the traditional distribution framework, working with filmmakers both who are working with distributors or who are self-releasing their films.  Mia creates campaigns tailored specifically to each project, creating release strategy to elevate films in the marketplace and connect with audiences meaningfully, achieving goals both financial and impact-based. Mia's recent campaigns include BAFTA and Academy award-winning documentary, NAVALNY, Oscar shortlisted HOLLYWOODGATE, critically acclaimed KING COAL, and "Reading Rainbow" documentary, BUTTERFLY IN THE SKY.

Andrew is co-founder and Executive Director of FilmScene, Iowa City’s nonprofit cinema and a producer/director at Northland Films. He most recently produced Hockeyland, which tells the story of two rival hockey towns in Minnesota vying for a national championship. His previous film, Saving Brinton, was named one of “the Best Movies of 2018” (Washington Post). Andrew’s filmography includes Gold Fever (2013), which earned the 2013 International Federation for Human Rights Film Award, Forgotten Miracle (2010) and Pond Hockey (2008). His films have played at over 80 festivals in 43 countries. He is currently at work on two features, Hockeyland, a coming of age doc in Minnesota’s north country, and The Workshop, a portrait of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Alice is an impact and engagement producer with more than ten years of experience using storytelling to drive social change. As Co-Founder and Partner at Red Owl, she leads campaigns with responsive strategies and an eye for creative partnerships and community-based work. Current and recent campaigns include STORM LAKE, VICTIM/SUSPECT, SUGARCANE and UNION. Previously, as the Director of Community Engagement and Education at POV, Alice developed national engagement campaigns for POV documentaries, produced resources around POV's features, shorts and digital projects, and facilitated hundreds of free screenings nationwide every year with her team. Alice is the director of programming at the Dome House, a community space and studio in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, which seeks to provide artists of all mediums with space for creativity, contemplation and wonder.

Debra McClutchy is a Brooklyn-based independent filmmaker and archival producer. She co-directed THE MARTHA MITCHELL EFFECT (2022), an Academy Award nominated 40-minute archival documentary short distributed by Netflix. Her most recent archival producing credits include WTO/99 a documentary feature premiering at the 2025 True False Film Festival. Debra is the Industry Liaison for the Archival Producers Alliance. She contributed to the writing of the APA’s guides “Best Practices for Use of Generative AI in Documentaries” as well as “Working With Archival Producers.”

Damon Davis is an award-winning, post-disciplinary artist based in St. Louis, Missouri. In a practice that is part therapy, part social commentary, his work spans across a spectrum of creative mediums to tell stories exploring how identity is informed by power and mythology. Davis seeks to empower and give voice to the powerless and combat systems of oppression, focusing not only on pain but also on the joy of the Black experience. His first solo exhibition Darker Gods in The Garden of Low Hanging Heavens premiered in St. Louis in 2018, traveling to Art Basel Miami later that year. In 2020, critic Ben Davis cited Davis’ project All Hands On Deck, which captured the hands of people who shaped and upheld the Ferguson movement, as one of the “100 Works of Art That Defined the Decade.” Davis is co-director of the critically acclaimed documentary Whose Streets?, chronicling the 2014 Ferguson rebellion which premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Davis was named one of Filmmaker Magazine‘s Twenty Five New Faces of Independent Film and Independent Magazine‘s 10 Filmmakers to Watch. The documentary short A Story to Tell (2013), which profiled Davis’ work and creative process, earned him an Emmy Award Mid-America for Best Short Form Program as a producer.

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Alissa Wilkinson is the author of "We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine" and a movie critic at the New York Times, where she writes the weekly "Documentary Lens" column. She teaches creative nonfiction writing in NYU's XE: Experimental Humanities and Social Engagement M.A. program, and was a Sundance Art of Nonfiction fellow in 2017-2018. She was previously a senior correspondent at Vox.

Marley McDonald is a filmmaker, animator, and painter based in Queens, New York. Her documentary work focuses on archival filmmaking, exploring how history is told and tracing patterns in human nature across different times and contexts. Marley recently co-directed Time Bomb Y2K with Brian Becker and edited the film for HBO. She has worked on films such as All the Beauty and the Bloodshed and Spaceship Earth, and most recently edited the generative documentary Eno.

Keith Wilson is a producer, director, and artist based in Athens, Georgia, whose films have screened at Sundance, the Berlinale, the U.S. National Gallery of Art, documenta14, and the Museum of Modern Art. His live documentary Moore for Sale (2023) has been performed internationally at festivals, museums, and documentary conferences. He is the producer of Joonam (Sundance 2023) and I Didn’t See You There (2022), which won the Directing Award for U.S. Documentary at Sundance, the Grand Jury Prize at Full Frame, and a Film Independent Spirit Award. Keith is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, an Assistant Professor at the University of Georgia, and grew up on a cul-de-sac in suburban Atlanta.

DAVID OSIT is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning director, editor and composer. His most recent film IS PREDATORS, which premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. His film MAYOR, which he directed, produced, edited and filmed, won a 2021 Peabody and Emmy Award, was a New York Times Critics’ Pick, and holds a 100% Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. David also directed THANK YOU FOR PLAYING, which broadcast on POV in 2016 and was nominated for three Emmy awards, winning for Outstanding Arts & Culture Documentary. He also edited and produced OFF FRAME, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and Berlinale in 2016, and he edited, produced and composed NO MAN’S LAND, which premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival and broadcast on PBS Independent Lens in 2018. David’s feature directorial debut, BUILDING BABEL, premiered at True/False in 2012 and broadcast as the series premiere of PBS’s America Reframed in 2013. His work as an editor and consulting editor includes PROCESSION (Netflix), CRIME + PUNISHMENT (Hulu) and THE VOW (HBO). He holds a BA in Middle Eastern and North African Studies from the University of Michigan as a Wallenberg Fellow and studied Refugee Law at the American University in Cairo.

Eric Hynes was recently named Director of Film Curation and Programming at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York. He was previously Senior Curator of Film at Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, New York, where he led year-round programming as well as the annual First Look Festival, originating the Working on It sidebar for public-facing work-in-progress presentations. As a critic and journalist he’s written for outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, Film Comment, Rolling Stone, Slate, New York magazine, Sight & Sound, the Village Voice, and Reverse Shot, where he has been a staff writer since 2003. He’s served on festival juries at Sundance, SXSW, CPH:DOX, Dok Leipzig, DokuFest, Cinema du Reel and many others, and for three years was writer-in-residence at the Sundance Institute Documentary Edit & Story Lab.