American Documentary

Overview

Brooklyn, N.Y. — April 25, 2024 — American Documentary, the nonprofit organization behind award-winning series POV, POV Shorts and America ReFramed, will host the filmmakers selected for the seventh annual Wyncote Fellowship program May 13-15 at the 2024 PBS Annual Meeting in Las Vegas.

Coordinated by American Documentary, the Wyncote Fellowship is a collaboration between PBS Indies partners with filmmakers nominated by POV, Firelight Media, ITVS, Reel South, America ReFramed, WORLD, and the National Multicultural Alliance. Made possible with support from Wyncote Foundation, the program helps independent filmmakers better understand the public media landscape through one-on-one meetings and curated events during PBS Annual Meeting.

"Wyncote Foundation has been proud to support this valuable fellowship since its inception in 2017, and we are thrilled to convene a new cohort in Las Vegas this year,” said David Haas, Vice Chair. “These innovative filmmakers truly exemplify the broad range of diverse and compelling voices that public media brings to local communities and national audiences.”

This year, a cohort of 12 Wyncote Fellows will explore opportunities to learn more about the public media landscape through participation in small group sessions, peer and station networking. Several fellows will be featured in upcoming programs on POV, POV Shorts, and America ReFramed including Jane M. Wagner, Alfredo Torres, Stevie Walker-Webb and Adamu Chan.

Fellows

MEET THE 2024 WYNCOTE FILMMAKER FELLOWS

Elizabeth Ai is a documentary and fiction filmmaker, show creator, and alum of Sundance Institute, Berlinale Talents, Center for Asian American Media, Film Independent, and Firelight Media. She’s currently in post-production with her documentary feature New Wave and is simultaneously developing the dramatic series adaptation.

Sisa Bueno Originally from New York City, Sisa Bueno is a filmmaker dedicated to exploring powerful ripple effects within humanity. Her work as a filmmaker has received support from the Ford Foundation, ITVS-PBS Open Call, Sundance Documentary Fund, International Documentary Association (IDA) Pare Lorentz grant, Firelight Media Lab Fellowship, and the Film Independent Documentary Lab Fellowship among others for her current work in progress, For Venida, For Kalief. She studied both film production and interactive technologies at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University (NYU). Sisa spent years filming Indigenous and Afro-Latine social movements in South America and completed a short film for Al Jazeera/AJ+ related to Afro-Bolivian constitutional movement called "Afrobolivianos Presente." The NBC Network named Sisa a Latino Innovator for her work in Bolivia, and she was a 2018-2021 Member of the NEW INC tech incubator program within the New Museum working with Augmented Reality (AR) to create new modes of storytelling with more tech integration. She is currently an adjunct instructor at her alma mater, Tisch-NYU, and a traveling instructor for the Film Independent Global Media Makers program.

Juan Carlos Dávila Born in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, Juan C. Dávila is a documentary filmmaker, journalist, and activist. He directed the feature-length documentary film, Simulacros de Liberación (2021). Previously, he directed two mid-length documentaries about environmental issues in Puerto Rico: Compañeros de lucha (2012) and Vieques: una batalla inconclusa (2016). His filmography includes a handful of short-documentaries, including the award-winning short, La generación del estanbai (2016), Networked Education (2020), and Rayito de sol (2021). In 2023, he won two NY Emmys® for the TV series Puerto Rican Voices, where he worked as executive producer and directed one episode.

Dávila is a former producer at When We Fight, We Win! The Podcast!, and news producer fellow for Democracy Now! where he continues to contribute as correspondent and producer. Beyond Democracy Now!, his journalistic work has been featured in TeleSur, The Washington Post, and The Indypendent. He holds a BA in Communication from Universidad del Sagrado Corazón (2011) and two Master degrees from the University of California-Santa Cruz: the first in Social Documentation (2015) and the other Latin American and Latinx Studies (2020). Now, Dávila currently lives in Vieques while directing a biographical documentary about Carlos Zenón and just finished a short titled, Farmers of the Sea.

Adamu Chan is a filmmaker, writer, and community organizer from the Bay Area who started filmmaking while he was incarcerated inside of San Quentin State Prison. He produced numerous short films while incarcerated, using his vantage point and experience as an incarcerated person as a lens to focus the viewer’s gaze on issues related to social justice. In 2021, he was a recipient of the Docs in Action Film Fund through Working Films, and was tapped to produce and direct his film What These Walls Won’t Hold, which won Best Documentary Mid-Length at the 2023 San Francisco international Film Festival and broadcast nationally on America ReFramed. In 2022, Adamu directed a documentary short for the doc-series Bridge Builders, partnering with ITVS/Independent Lens, about a community member working at the intersections of immigration, incarceration, and gender justice. He is also a 2022 Stanford University Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity Mellon Arts Fellow and a 2023 Rockwood Institute Documentary Leaders Fellow. Adamu draws inspiration and energy from the voices of those directly impacted and seeks to empower them to reshape the narratives that have been created about them through film.

Amanda Erickson is born for the San Carlos Apache of the White Water Clan on her father’s side. Her journey of reconnection to culture and community would be the catalyst for her first feature documentary, She Cried That Day, which investigates the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives through the eyes of the Indigenous Women and Allies on the frontlines in New Mexico. Before making her directorial debut, Amanda worked as a non-fiction TV Producer for 16 years, where she created compelling programming for networks like: Travel Channel, National Geo WILD, Investigation Discovery, and CuriosityStream. She intends to continue her work in journalism bringing fresh perspectives and new voices to mainstream media.

Amanda is a 2023 Jackson Wild Fellow, Native American Media Alliance Fellow, 2023 Film Independent Doc Lab Fellow and recipient of the International Women’s Media Foundation Journalist Fund and LEF Foundation Moving Image Fund. She is a proud member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia, Array Crew and a Teaching Artist for newportFILM.

Gabrielle Alafagamalufilufi Faʻaiʻuaso loves the layers of storytelling, escaping into books and movie plots. Filmmaking combined her love of visuals and stories, and went on to study film at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa to the Academy for Creative Media where she received her Bachelor of Art: Digital Film Track. During her time there, she mentored and taught at the Hawaiʻi Women in Filmmaking non-profit to girls (grade 8-high school). Gabby has participated in several film festivals including the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival 2015, Shanghai International Film Festival 2014 and prior to COVID, participated in Māoriland's 72 Hour Native Film Festival 2020. She returned home to continue her love of film to share the stories of her Sāmoan people through her creative media businesses, Alafaga and Fale Film LLC. Many of her work serves her community, creating public service announcements and short documentaries for government departments, federal agencies and nonprofits, as well as corporate commercials for private sector businesses. As a photographer, she has shot for The New York Times and album covers for Pasifika artists like JBoog and Siaosi. In her spare time, Gabby conducts student filmmaking workshops for local high schools and the community college, and volunteers as a videographer and lead A/V Media person for several youth focused non-profits including her village's Fagatogo Youth, the Mosoʻoi Festival of Arts & Humanities, Pacific Roots Open Mic and more.

Matthew Hashiguchi is a documentary filmmaker and Associate Professor in Multimedia & Film Production at Georgia Southern University. His most recent documentary, The Only Doctor, had its world premiere at the 2023 Hot Docs Documentary Film Festival and was broadcast nationally on PBS Reel South. His previous documentary feature, Good Luck Soup, had a national broadcast on WORLD’s America ReFramed, and received a 2016 Documentary Fund Award from the Center for Asian American Media and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He is a recipient of a 2019 Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund Award, a 2021 American Stories Documentary Fund from Points North Institute and CNN Films, and successfully installed an irrigation system in his backyard.

Eric D. Seals is a seasoned cinematographer and film director with 10+ years of experience creating and managing feature films, television, and digital content series. Most recently, he was a Director of Photography on The History Channel’s Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Massacre and ESPN’s Omitted: The Black Cowboy. He graduated from Murray State University in Kentucky with a degree in Electronic Media and is an adjunct Professor at DePaul University, teaching a Sports Documentary class. Eric is also the founder and creative director of Digife, a documentary production company based in Chicago.

Erica Tanamachi's first documentary feature, Home Court (2024) received the 2023 ITVS Open Call award and will broadcast on Independent Lens in 2025. Her previous film, WINN, premiered at the 2022 Atlanta Film Festival and won a Reel South Shorts Award and Best Short Award from the PBS Short Film Festival and Justice on Trial Festival. WINN is distributed on PBS’ The Reel South. Erica was Creative Producer for the feature documentary Motherload (2019) which garnered the HERO award from Better Cities Film Festival and "Best International Documentary'' from the Hollywood North Film Awards. Tanamachi also won "Best Documentary" from The Sonoma Film Festival, Silverlake Film Festival, and The Documentary Foundation for her short documentary, Living Poets. Erica is an MFA Cinema graduate of San Francisco State University (2007) and has been producing and directing documentaries and commercials for over 20 years.

Alfredo Torres is a documentary filmmaker from Costa Rica. With a strong focus on themes of migration, LGBTQIA+ rights, and the environment, his work often explores contemporary aspects of creativity, culture, and identity. Alfredo's debut short documentary Jardines premiered at the esteemed Telluride Film Festival in 2023. Alfredo holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from UC Berkeley, where he was awarded the special Marlon T. Riggs Fellowship Award. His work has appeared in outlets for the United Nations and Mongabay. His pursuits in non-fiction work have also been supported by renowned institutions like the Berkeley Film Foundation.

Jane M. Wagner is a documentary filmmaker and television producer based in Los Angeles. Her debut feature documentary Break The Game had its world premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival, where it won a Special Jury Mention for Best New Documentary Director. On the television side, Jane was a supervising producer on the National Geographic science series When Sharks Attack and Why, a producer on Hulu’s Mormon No More, a supervising producer on the long-running Travel Channel series Mysteries at the Museum, and an associate producer on the Emmy-award winning series Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown. In 2023, Jane was featured in Filmmaker Magazine as one of the “25 New Faces of Film.” Her work has been supported by the Sundance Institute, Film Independent, the IDA, the Logan Nonfiction Program, DOCNYC, and the True / False Rough Cut retreat. Jane is currently in production on her second feature documentary *holds you tight*.

Stevie Walker-Webb is a Tony Award-nominated, Obie Award-winning director, playwright, and cultural worker who believes in the transformational power of art. He is the Artistic Director of Baltimore Center Stage and his work has been produced on and off-Broadway, including Aint’ (The Public Theatre/ Broadway), One in Two (The New Group), Black Odyssey (Classic Stage), Fairview (Woolly Mammoth), and Our Town (Baltimore Center Stage). Upcoming productions include Gun & Powder (Paper Mill Playhouse).

He is founder of HUNDREDSofTHOUSANDS, an arts and advocacy organization that makes visual the suffering and inhumane treatment of incarcerated mentally ill people. He has received the Princess Grace Award for Theatre, The Lily Award from the Dramatists Guild of America, and is a 2050 Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop. He's a contributing writer for BET’s Emmy Nominated hit comedy ‘The Ms. Pat Show’ and a visiting artist and lecturer at Harvard University and is the Founding Artistic Director of the Jubilee Theatre in Waco, Texas. Stevie has created art and theater in Madagascar, South Africa, Mexico, and across America. steviewalkerwebb.com

The Partners

America ReFramed is a year-round anthology series airing on WORLD. Every year, the series premieres a dozen new documentaries in addition to thematic curation from its deep catalog that explore the nation’s most timely topics–including civil rights, immigration, the environment, and more. Currently in its eleventh season, America ReFramed is long regarded as a critical platform for diverse voices in public media and a launchpad for new independent filmmakers. In its landmark first decade, the series supported a total of 395 filmmakers with acquisition fees, national broadcasts, marketing campaigns, and awards submissions. Digital engagement strategies include live online film chats alongside broadcast on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, PBS, and a presence on both the AmDoc and WORLD websites.

Firelight Media is a premier destination for non-fiction cinema by and about communities of color. Firelight Media produces documentary films, supports filmmakers of color, and cultivates audiences for their work. Firelight Media’s programs include the Documentary Lab, an 18-month fellowship that supports emerging filmmakers of color; Groundwork Regional Lab, which supports filmmakers in the American south, midwest, and U.S.-controlled Territories; the PBS/Firelight William Greaves Production Fund for mid-career nonfiction filmmakers from racially and ethnically underrepresented communities, and the FRONTLINE/Firelight Investigative Journalism Fellowship. Firelight Media also produces short films in partnership with public media partners, including American Masters In the Making: Season 2, and the upcoming collection Homegrown: Future Visions, publishing on PBS Digital Studios on May 4th.

Independent Television Services (ITVS) is the largest co-producer of independent documentaries in the United States. For more than 30 years the San Francisco non-profit has funded and partnered with documentary filmmakers to produce and distribute untold stories. ITVS incubates and co-produces these award-winning titles and premieres them on our Emmy® Award-winning PBS series, INDEPENDENT LENS. ITVS titles appear on PBS, WORLD, NETA, and can be streamed on various digital platforms including the PBS app. ITVS is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Acton Family Giving, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation, Wyncote Foundation. For more information, visit itvs.org

Produced by American Documentary, POV is the longest-running independent documentary showcase on American television. Since 1988, POV has presented films on PBS that capture the full spectrum of the human experience, with a long commitment to centering women and people of color in front of, and behind, the camera. In 2018, POV Shorts launched as one of the first PBS series dedicated to bold and timely short-form documentaries. To date, POV films have won 45 Emmy Awards, 26 George Foster Peabody Awards, 155 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, three Academy Awards and the first-ever George Polk Documentary Film Award. Learn more at pbs.org/pov and follow @povdocs on social media.

Reel South is a platform for and a service to non-fiction filmmakers in the American South revealing the region's proud, diverse, and complicated heritage. The documentary series curates, distributes, and commissions films honoring the South's legacy of storytelling. The series is co-produced by PBS North Carolina, South Carolina ETV, and Louisiana Public Broadcasting and produced in association with Alabama Public Television, Arkansas PBS, South Florida PBS, Tennessee Public Television Council, Atlanta’s WABE, and Richmond’s VPM. Facebook/Twitter/Instagram @reelsouthdocs

WORLD shares the best of public media in news, documentaries and programming. WORLD’s original series examine the issues and amplify the voices of those often ignored by mainstream media. The multicast 24/7 channel helps audiences understand conflicts, movements and cultures from around the globe. Its original work has won a Peabody Award, an Alfred I. duPont- Columbia Award, an International Documentary Association Award, a National News and Documentary Emmy Award, two Webby Awards and many others honoring diversity of content and makers. WORLD is carried by 194 member stations in markets representing 77% of US TV households. Funding for WORLD Channel is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Wyncote Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts and Artworks. WORLD is produced by GBH in partnership with WNET and is distributed by American Public Television (APT). Find out more at WORLDChannel.org.

An alliance of five distinct national organizations, who, with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), bring the authentic stories and diverse perspectives of America’s multicultural communities to public media and its digital platforms. The NMCA is comprised of the following organizations: Latino Public Broadcasting, Black Public Media, Vision Maker Media, Pacific Islanders in Communications, and the Center for Asian American Media.

Black Public Media supports the development of visionary content creators and distributes stories about the global Black experience to inspire a more equitable and inclusive future.

The Center for Asian American Media is a nonprofit organization dedicated to presenting stories that convey the richness and diversity of Asian American experiences to the broadest audience possible. We do this by funding, producing, distributing and exhibiting works in film, television and digital media. For 40 years, CAAM has exposed audiences to new voices and communities, advancing our collective understanding of the American experience through programs specifically designed to engage the Asian American community and the public at large.

Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB) is the leader in the development, production, acquisition and distribution of film and digital cultural media that is representative of Latino people or addresses issues of particular interest to Latino Americans. These programs are produced for dissemination to public broadcasting stations and other public media entities. Providing a voice for the diverse Latino community throughout the United States, Latino Public Broadcasting is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. LPB also produces the acclaimed PBS documentary series VOCES, exploring the rich diversity of the Latino experience. VOCES presents new and established filmmakers and brings their powerful and illuminating stories to a national audience — on TV, online and on the PBS app.

Pacific Islanders in Communications amplifies Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) voices that enrich America’s cultural landscape through the art of storytelling. We are the only organization in the country that does this by developing, producing, and funding films, providing professional development opportunities to emerging filmmakers, and engaging audiences through public media distribution and community engagement screenings.

Vision Maker Media’s mission is empowering and engaging Native people to share stories. All of us envision a world changed and healed by understanding Native stories and the public conversations they generate. We are the nation’s leader in film and media by, for, and about Indigenous people. Together we generate conversations about current Native issues and shed new light on American history through Indigenous eyes.

About

About American Documentary, Inc.

American Documentary, Inc. (AmDoc) is a multimedia organization dedicated to creating, identifying and presenting contemporary stories that express opinions and perspectives rarely featured in mainstream media outlets. AmDoc is a catalyst for public culture, developing collaborative strategic engagement activities around socially relevant content on television, online and in community settings. These activities are designed to trigger action, from dialogue and feedback to educational opportunities and community participation.

American Documentary, Inc. (AmDoc) is a multimedia organization dedicated to creating, identifying and presenting contemporary stories that express opinions and perspectives rarely featured in mainstream media outlets. AmDoc is a catalyst for public culture, developing collaborative strategic engagement activities around socially relevant content on television, online and in community settings. These activities are designed to trigger action, from dialogue and feedback to educational opportunities and community participation.

Major funding for POV is provided by PBS, the Open Society Foundations, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Wyncote Foundation, Reva & David Logan Foundation, Park Foundation, and Perspective Fund. Additional funding comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Chris and Nancy Plaut, Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee, Acton Family Giving, and public television viewers. POV is presented by a consortium of public television stations, including KQED San Francisco, WGBH Boston and THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG.

About PBS

PBS, with more than 330 member stations, offers all Americans the opportunity to explore new ideas and new worlds through television and digital content. Each month, PBS reaches over 120 million people through television and 26 million people online, inviting them to experience the worlds of science, history, nature and public affairs; to hear diverse viewpoints; and to take front row seats to world-class drama and performances. PBS’s broad array of programs has been consistently honored by the industry’s most coveted award competitions. Teachers of children from pre-K through 12th grade turn to PBS for digital content and services that help bring classroom lessons to life. Decades of research confirm that PBS’s premier children’s media service, PBS KIDS, helps children build critical literacy, math and social-emotional skills, enabling them to find success in school and life. Delivered through member stations, PBS KIDS offers high-quality educational content on TV – including a 24/7 channel, online at pbskids.org, via an array of mobile apps and in communities across America. More information about PBS is available at www.pbs.org, one of the leading dot-org websites on the internet, or by following PBS on Twitter, Facebook or through our apps for mobile and connected devices. Specific program information and updates for press are available at pbs.org/pressroom or by following PBS Communications on Twitter.