The DOC NYC x Video Consortium Storytelling Incubator, an initiative from DOC NYC and the Video Consortium, provides first-time feature documentary filmmakers with hands-on creative consultation and professional guidance from established industry voices. In a six-month mentorship, emerging filmmakers with underrepresented perspectives receive support and feedback on their story development, creative process, and funding and distribution potential.
Following an open call for applications, the Video Consortium’s Filmmaker Advisory Council, in collaboration with DOC NYC, reviewed more than 200 promising work-in-progress documentaries and selected 8 film teams to participate as mentees in the program.
As Incubator participants, mentees also receive free access to DOC NYC’s online educational events; complimentary access to its 8-day professional conference, DOC NYC PRO, and waived submission fees to its Industry Roundtables networking program for works-in-progress.
2022 Mentees:
Martin Awano
Life of the Mind
Martin Awano
Life of the Mind
Martin Awano is a documentary filmmaker and cinematographer based in New York and Chicago. He has completed a short documentary series that is a Fulbright-National Geographic Semi-Finalist. He has filmed for PBS, Frontline, and Discovery. He is part of the leadership team for The Video Consortium and is a co-leader of The Filmshop’s Docshop.
Marta Effinger-Crichlow
Little Sallie Walker
Marta Effinger-Crichlow
Little Sallie Walker
Marta is a documentary filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist/writer. She is passionate about telling stories that center Black women, social issues and the archive. She interviewed Black female migrants from World War II and authored Staging Migrations by UPC Press. Marta’s work-in-progress Little Sallie Walker received support from WIF x Sundance, DOC NYC OINY, Women Make Movies and Working Films.
Mohammad Reza Eyni
Cutting Through Rocks
Mohammad Reza Eyni
Cutting Through Rocks
Mohammad Reza Eyni is a director, producer, DP, and the co-founder of Gandom Films Production LLC. He has produced and directed international films such as his co-directing contribution on a feature-length documentary, Convergence, a Netflix Original, which received a 2022 Emmy Nomination. A recent Sundance film Institute grantee, Mohammad Reza’s co-directed short, Our Iranian Lockdown, featured in the Guardian, was nominated for IDA Awards. Mohammad Reza’s recent documentary feature, Cutting Through Rocks, currently in production, has received support from Sundance Film Institute, Bertha Foundation, and IDFA, among others.
Berenice Fernández Mateos
Mined Land
Berenice Fernández Mateos
Mined Land
Born and raised in Mexico, Berenice has a master’s degree in Documentary Film from ENAC, the National School of Cinematographic Arts. She recently co-directed a documentary series for public channel 14 and has worked as sound recorder, assistant editor and 1st AD in films and series both documentary and fiction. Mined Land is her feature documentary directorial debut.
Sareen Hairabedian
Swinging Fields (WT)
Sareen Hairabedian
Swinging Fields (WT)
Sareen is an Armenian-Jordanian documentary filmmaker based in the US. Through an intimate observational style, she tells stories of underrepresented communities. Her HBO documentary We Are Not Done Yet follows US veterans grappling with PTSD who write poetry to heal. She is directing, producing and shooting her first feature documentary, an international co-production that’s supported by Arte, IDA and others.
Azza Hourani
Swinging Fields (WT)
Azza Hourani
Swinging Fields (WT)
Jordanian producer Azza Hourani obtained her degree in Producing in 2011, in the Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts. She has 15 years of experience working with regional and international institutions and is currently producing two feature documentaries. Her latest collaboration with director Sareen Hairabedian, Swinging Fields, is in post production, and has been endorsed by IDA, Screen Ireland, ARTE, IDFA and others.
Jennifer Huang
Director
Jennifer Huang
Director
Jennifer is directing her first feature documentary, The Long Rescue, and distributing her first short documentary, This Adventure Called California. Previously, she co-produced From Baghdad to the Bay and Standing on Sacred Ground, and at Lucasfilm, wrote and produced Harlem’s Hellfighters: Black Soldiers of World War I. Recent awards include Shifting Voices, Movies that Matter and Berkeley Film Foundation.
Sara Khaki
Cutting Through Rocks
Sara Khaki
Cutting Through Rocks
Sara Khaki is an Iranian-American documentary director, producer and editor. A Sundance film Institute grantee, Sara is dedicated to telling stories related to women’s rights and empowerment, shedding light on those who have been neglected. Her co-directed short, Our Iranian Lockdown, featured on the Guardian, was nominated for the 2020 IDA Awards, which led to her co-directing contribution to a Netflix Original, the 2022 Emmy-nominated Convergence. Her first feature film, Cutting Through Rocks, currently in production, has received support from Sundance Film Institute, Chicken & Egg Pictures and Bertha Foundation, among others.
Patrick G. Lee
Untitled KQT Project
Patrick G. Lee
Untitled KQT Project
Patrick G. Lee (he/they) is a queer diasporic Korean documentary filmmaker, writer and community organizer. He’s interested in building collaborative, community-based models of filmmaking that equip queer and trans people of color with media-making skills. His short film Unspoken won several festival awards, including the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary Short at the Austin Asian American Film Festival. Patrick’s five-part docuseries Searching for Queer Asian Pacific America won the NAMIC Vision Award for Long Form Digital Content.
Kryhzal Olalde Dávila
Mined Land
Kryhzal Olalde Dávila
Mined Land
Born and raised in Mexico City, Kryhzal has a degree in Social Communication and has 16 years of experience as a television, documentary, film and video clip editor. Her work has focused on both documentary and fiction series for different cultural channels in the country, as well as platforms like Netflix and Amazon, mainly on social issues and people portraits.
Jethro Patalinghug
Producer
Jethro Patalinghug
Producer
Jethro Patalinghug is a Filipino non-binary documentary filmmaker, visual artist, and activist. They were the featured visual artist for the 2023 Oaklash Drag Festival in Oakland, California which featured their sculptural works Disco Balling Heads, The Performer and Gabriela Rising. Their works were also featured in the 2022 Trans Aware Art Exhibition in San Francisco. Jethro was a fellow for the 2022 Film Independent’s CNN Docu-Series Intensive and DOCNY’s Storytelling Incubator.. Their first feature documentary film 50 Years of Fabulous was opening film at QDocs 2018 Film Festival and an official selection to Frameline42. Jethro was a fellow for BVAC’s National Media Maker 2016 for his documentary film #MyNameIs. Jethro is also known as the drag persona Virginia Please on TikTok and teaches indigenous, black and brown queer and trans representation. They serve as one of the Board of Directors for the GLBTQ+ Asian Pacific Alliance, Oaklash and EyeZen.
Alexandra Roca
Urge (WT)
Alexandra Roca
Urge (WT)
Alexandra Roca is a hands-on, award-winning documentary director and producer who has found her stride covering human-centric stories. She has worked in more than 14 countries and is bilingual in English and Spanish and fluent in French. As an on-host you can also see her work on National Geographic, Amazon Prime and the United Nations.
2022 Mentors:
Jameka Autry
Jameka Autry is an award-winning producer and director dedicated to artfully told documentary features, shorts, and series. She is a 2020 Women at Sundance | Adobe Fellow. She was a recipient of the 2017 Impact Partners Documentary Producers Fellowship and selected for the inaugural DOC NYC ‘40 Under 40’ list. In 2019 she was awarded the Sundance/A&E Brave Storyteller Award, and received a post graduate fellowship at the Investigative Reporting Program at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Jameka is an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, and a graduate of Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies. She is a Mentor of SFFILM FilmHouse and sits on the board of Investigative Studios. Recent credits include Through the Night, Ernie & Joe: Crisis Cops, Sisters on Track, Dreamland, and Down a Dark Stairwell.
Tabs Breese
Tabs’ films include Isabel Castro’s ‘Mija’ (Sundance, CPH:Dox 2022) and Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan’s ‘Naked Gardens’ (Tribeca, IDFA 2022). ‘Mija’ is nominated for the Cinema Eye Audience Prize, IDA’s Best Feature and Indie Spirits’ Truer Than Fiction. Tabs is a twice Sundance Institute Grantee. She was in Doc NYC’s 2021 ‘40 Under 40’ and the 2022 Berlinale Talents.
Èlia Gasull Balada
Èlia Gasull Balada is a NAACP Image Award-nominated visual artist and filmmaker. Her body of work is focused on stories that underscore deeply felt themes of trauma, race, inequity and activism in the face of steep odds. Her latest work examines the experiences of the Shipibo-Conibo women of the Peruvian Amazon who suffered the trauma of forced sterilization at the hands of President Alberto Fujimori’s government between 1995 and 2000.
Lauren Haber
Lauren Haber is a Brooklyn-based, Emmy-winning producer and mom of two whose experience spans documentary and scripted, features and series. She is currently Head of Development at Impact Partners. Her recent credits include the Independent Spirit and Peabody-winning series Immigration Nation (Netflix), Ry Russo Young’s Nuclear Family (HBO), and French visual artist JR’s latest documentary Paper & Glue (MSNBC).
Daniel Hymanson
Daniel Hymanson’s first feature So Late So Soon screened at True/False, DOC NYC, and BAFICI. Oscilloscope Pictures released the film theatrically. Organizations including Catapult, The Gotham, Illinois Arts Council, and Sundance Institute have supported his work. Filmmaker Magazine named him one of its “25 New Faces of Independent Film” and DOC NYC included him on its “40 Under 40” list.
Sura Mallouh
Sura Mallouh is a Palestinian-Canadian documentary filmmaker. She is a Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program Grantee and NBC Original Voices Fellow. Her documentaries have been featured on CBC Short Docs, CBC Arts, Upworthy and have been viewed globally. She was listed as one of the DOC NYC’s 40 Under 40 documentary talent honorees in 2021. Sura’s documentaries focus on contextualizing underrepresented stories with an investigative thread throughout.
Nevo Shinaar
A creative producer based in Chicago, Nevo’s award-winning films have been nominated at The Academy Awards, shown at film festivals including Sundance and SXSW, and acquired by Disney+, HBO Max, POV/PBS, the NY Times and The Criterion Channel.
Elizabeth Woodward
Elizabeth Woodward is a producer and founder of Willa Productions. She was selected for Forbes 30 Under 30, DOC NYC 40 Under 40, Berlinale Talents, the Impact Partners Producers Fellowship. Past projects include ON THE DIVIDE (Tribeca Film Festival, POV on PBS) and YOU RESEMBLE ME (Venice Film Festival, executive produced by Spike Lee, Spike Jonze, Alma Har’el, Riz Ahmed), Netflix’s THE GREAT HACK (Oscars shortlist, Emmy nominee, BAFTA nominee).