MEET THE 2024 JURORS

Moses Bwayo is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker originally from Bududa, Uganda. In 2016, Moses started his own production company in Kampala, and the following year began shooting and co-directing Bobi Wine: The People’s President. During the production, Moses was arrested, imprisoned, shot and threatened, forcing his relocation to the United States. In 2024, Bobi Wine: The People’s President was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Academy Awards.

Emmy-winning and Grammy-nominated director, Lisa Cortés, creates powerful art that shines light on hidden stories. From producing Precious to directing Little Richard: I Am Everything, her work sparks cultural change. Cortés Filmworks is committed to telling complex stories from new perspectives and elevating overlooked talent.

Maxim Pozdorovkin is an award-winning director and writer based in New York. He has directed seven feature documentaries and multiple shorts. Maxim holds a PhD from Harvard University for a dissertation on early propaganda and is a frequent media commentator on Russian politics.

Academy Award, BAFTA, WGA and Emmy nominee Ramin Bahrani is the Iranian-American writer, director and producer of such films as Man Push Cart, Chop Shop, 99 Homes and The White Tiger. His debut feature documentary 2nd Chance premiered at Sundance and was released by Bleeker Street and Showtime.

J.M. Harper’s directorial debut is As We Speak (Sundance 2024), a documentary about rap lyrics on trial (Paramount+). A multi-hyphenate documentarian, he edited the Emmy-nominated Jeen-Yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy (Netflix, Sundance 2022); Down a Dark Stairwell (PBS, Criterion Channel); and Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma (New York Times OpDocs), which won Jury Awards at Sundance and SXSW in 2021.

Judith Mizrachy is a New York City-based independent producer. Her credits include The Martha Mitchell Effect (Sundance 2022), released by Netflix and nominated for a 2023 Academy Award for Best Short Documentary, The Booksellers (New York Film Festival 2019), and most recently, Uncropped (DOC NYC Centerpiece 2023).

Nick August Perna is an award-winning filmmaker whose work has been nominated for the Emmys, the Duponts, and the Academy Awards. He aims to present complex stories that challenge the shape and power of the documentary form. His latest film, Tell Them You Love Me, premiered on Netflix in June 2024.

Tania Cypriano is a filmmaker working between the United States and her native Brazil. Her most recent documentary, Born to Be, premiered at the NY Film Festival and was nominated for two Emmy Awards. She is a co-founder of the Brazilian Filmmakers Collective and presently directs the Films Fellowship Program at the Bronx Documentary Center.

Zeva Oelbaum is a documentary director and producer. She produced the multi-award-winning Ahead of Time, and co-directed and produced Letters from Baghad (voiced and exec produced by Tilda Swinton) with Sabine Krayenbühl. Oelbaum’s most recent film, Obsessed with Light, voiced by Cherry Jones and co-directed/co-produced with Krayenbühl, will be released theatrically in NYC/LA in December 2024.

David Fear is the chief film critic of Rolling Stone and was a critic/editor at Time Out New York from 2004 to 2013. His work has been published in the New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Village Voice, Film Comment, Spin, NY Daily News, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian, among others. He’s a member of the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics, and lives in Brooklyn, as all writers must.

Carlos A. Gutiérrez is the co-founding executive director of Cinema Tropical, the New York-based nonprofit media arts organization established in 2001, which has become the leading promoter of Latin American cinema in the U.S.

Eric Hynes is Senior Curator of Film at Museum of the Moving Image in New York, where he heads up year-round programming as well as the annual First Look Festival. He is also a longtime critic and journalist, with outlets that have included 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 and contributes a regular column on the art of nonfiction.

Kate Davis is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker for Traffic Stop, which also won DOC NYC’s Short Documentary Competition. Davis has won Peabodys for The Newburgh Sting and Stonewall Uprising,  an Emmy for Jockey, and a NAACP Award for Say Her Name: The Life and Death of Sandra Bland. Southern Comfort won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and top prizes at Berlin, Hot Docs, and The Grierson.

Kartiki Gonsalves is an Academy Award-winning director & filmmaker, who made history as the first Indian film director to ever win an Academy Award (for The Elephant Whisperers). She founded Earth Spectrum where she uses storytelling to raise awareness about bio-diversity and culture. Her prime focus is environmental and cultural diversity documenting conservation efforts and amplifying indigenous and women’s voices.

Muta’Ali is an award-winning film director known for acclaimed documentaries such as MoviePass, MovieCrash; Cassius X: Becoming Ali; Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn; and Life’s Essentials with Ruby Dee. His 2021 Gracie Award winning documentary short Hear Her Voice showcased the disparity in maternal mortality affecting the black community.

Faridah Gbadamosi is a pop culture-lover of film, working towards making the space more inclusive in whose stories get told and who gets to author those stories. She has extensive experience as a film programmer. In addition to her curation work, Faridah has provided consultations to several film/TV projects and non-profit organizations, published articles on different media topics, taught film courses, and even worked as Director of Distribution, handling the virtual theatrical release of the Peabody Award-winning film Mr. Soul!. She currently works at Tribeca Enterprises as a Senior Programmer.