Sally Tran is a NYC-based writer and director, originally from Vietnam and New Zealand. Her work centers on stories of underrepresented communities, often drawing from her Vietnamese roots. She blends scripted and unscripted formats, creating a distinct narrative voice whose tone carries through both story and execution.

Her short Grandma Four Color Cards premiered at SXSW 2025, while her narrative short Don’t (2024) received support from NYCWF, NYFA, MOME, Panavision, and the Vimeo BIPOC Fund, premiering internationally at TIFF. She is in post-production on Still a Go Between and received funding for Love Cycle from NALIP and Netflix. 

Project Statement

Born to Kill: Love, Money, Sin is a raw feature-length mixed media documentary that uncovers the untold stories of Vietnamese refugees in New York City after the fall of Saigon. Confronted with systemic neglect and racial hostility, many were forced to navigate two worlds: one of hard-fought survival and another of crime and violence.

Through the voices of refugees, the film explores the desperate choices that shaped their lives. Some fight for a better future. Others are drawn into the notorious Born to Kill gang, which was founded by fellow refugee David Thai as both a brotherhood and a weapon against a city that treated them as disposable. The mantra Love, Money, Sin became their code, binding them together through loyalty, blood, and sacrifice. The film has also received support from BRIC and the Tribeca Film Institute.

Chloe Sarbib is an American and French Algerian DGA filmmaker drawn to characters who get in their own way. She is a 2025 Sundance Directors and Screenwriters Lab fellow whose previous shorts have won Best Student Short at Provincetown Film Festival, Best New York Short at NewFest, and the DGA Student Film Jury Award, and have played many Oscar- and BAFTA-qualifying festivals. She was selected for Tribeca/Chanel’s Through Her Lens program and directed an episode of the CW/Netflix’s In the Dark. An alumna of Yale (BA) and Columbia (MFA), where she won the Zaki Gordon Award for excellence in screenwriting, she’s received support from Cine Qua Non, Saltonstall, Indian Paintbrush, and more. She also studied at La Fémis in Paris and FAMU in Prague. Based in Brooklyn, she teaches at Montclair State University.

Project Statement

Brace Yourself is a dark comedy fiction short film about 15-year-old Mia Boukris, who is going to kill herself… but not until she gets her braces off.

Photo Credit: Jorn Swart

Rodrigo Olivar is a multidisciplinary director from Mexico City, based in Brooklyn, New York, dedicated to shining a light on multicultural narratives. He holds a BFA in Media Studies from Universidad Iberoamericana (CDMX) and an MFA in Computer Art from the School of Visual Arts (New York). For over eight years, he served as Head of Video at Remezcla, the leading Latino media company, where he directed and produced award-winning content. His films have screened at the New Orleans Film Festival, NY Latino Film Festival, and Morelia Film Festival, among many others. His latest short, Thank You, Have a Nice Day, won the Max Latino Short Competition. Through his work, Rodrigo explores the intersections of culture, identity, and resilience, crafting visually compelling stories that connect communities and spark dialogue.

Project Statement

We Save Us (El pueblo salva al pueblo) is a feature-length documentary about Indigenous Mexican delivery workers in New York City confronting a wave of violent robberies. With no support from authorities, they draw on the traditions of their hometown to form a civil guard, reclaiming safety and dignity. As their organizing grows, new challenges test their resolve and expand their solidarity, revealing the strength of collective action.

The film blends cinematic vérité with on-body cameras, social media content, and motion graphics to create an immersive portrait of workers who keep New York running yet remain invisible. Supported by Gotham Week Project Market and Tribeca Work-in-Progress, We Save Us reframes narratives of labor, migration, and justice—showing not only the hardships these workers endure, but also the power of community to envision change.

Matt Nadel is a filmmaker and journalist interested in stories about justice, survival, and historical memory. His short documentaries have been distributed by outlets like the New York Times, The New Yorker, and PBS. Matt’s most recent film, Cashing Out (The New Yorker 2025), tells the story of a controversial industry that emerged in the early days of AIDS—and his own unlikely connection to it. Previously, Matt directed An Unlikely Last Resort for Getting Out of Prison, a first-person documentary about clemency released by New York Times Opinion, and CANS Can’t Stand (The New Yorker 2023), which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival Emerging Filmmaker Showcase and was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award. Matt is from Florida and now lives in Brooklyn, NY. 

Project Statement

In the shadows of the American prison system, a network of self-taught legal warriors, known as jailhouse lawyers, are using the law to dismantle the carceral machine from within. Jailhouse Lawyer, the debut feature documentary from director Matt Nadel, enters this hidden world through the story of Quentin Lewis, a veteran jailhouse lawyer in New York who defends his peers against the abuses of the prison system—and, in the process, offers them hope, protection, and a path to rehabilitation. But even with an extraordinary record of legal victories, there's one case Lewis is still fighting to win: his own. Blending vérité captured in prison, intimate longitudinal interviews, and never-before-digitized archives, Jailhouse Lawyer offers a rare portrait of the hidden figures who, from behind prison walls, are using the law to transform themselves and the system that confines them.

Photo Credit: Luz Gallardo for ITVS

Crystal Kayiza is an artist and filmmaker based in New York City. A member of the New Negress Film Society, she is a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Creative Capital Award, the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, and the Sundance Ignite Fellowship. Her most recent film, Rest Stop, premiered at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival and won the 2023 Jury Prize for Best US Short Film at the Sundance Film Festival. Her short, See You Next Time, was an official selection of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and released by The New Yorker. Her film, Edgecombe, was an official selection of the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and was distributed by POV. Named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film,” Crystal is currently in production on her first feature film.

Project Statement

As keepers of one of the oldest Black cemeteries in Mississippi, The Worthy Women of Watkins Street nurture the liminal space between past, present, and future. The Gardeners is a feature non-fiction film that archives the labor of these aging worldbuilders, offering a blueprint to navigate memory, legacy and mortality while revealing the divine spirit residing in their daily lives.

Ash Goh Hua is a Singapore-born and raised, New York-based filmmaker. Utilizing both documentary and narrative forms, Goh tells personal stories that reveal the inherently embodied politics of relation, society and culture. Named one of the 25 New Faces of Film by Filmmaker Magazine in 2022, Goh is a 2024 Berlinale Talent and a 2025 Creative Capital Award recipient.

Project Statement

SUBTERRANEA is a short narrative film about Fang Lin, a teenager who does not want to exist. Between her naggy mother, a stifling environment, and a falling out with her best friend, she feels utterly trapped in ennui. Meanwhile, the magic of Singapore’s natural world begins to rumble, threatening to break the levee.

Photo Credit: Dan Chein

Sekiya Dorsett’s thought-provoking films have won her much praise. The Revival: Women and the Word, which premiered in 2017 and was quickly acquired by Women Make Movies. Dorsett also directed a four-episode documentary series for NBC News titled Stonewall Revolution which is currently on Peacock—an achievement that earned her both a GLAAD Media Award and NLGJA’s Excellence in Digital Journalism accolade. Barnard College named her their inaugural Artemis Rising Foundation Fellow for excellence in non-fiction storytelling. Her most recent film, Caribbean Queen in association with Caribbean Equality Project, addressing LGBTQ stigma in Caribbean communities, premiered at BAM during NewFest 2023, earning both the Audience Award and recognition for her directing. She is a Firelight Media Fellow for 2024–2026. Her films have been screened at the Tribeca Film Festival, the Urbanworld Film Festival, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Outfest Film Festival.

Project Statement

Amid shifting borders and rising intolerance, a Black lesbian couple from the Caribbean looks back on twenty years of love and longing. As they attempt to become mothers in a country that threatens to erase them, their story becomes a tender, urgent act of resistance. 20 Years of Longing is a personal memory, a collective memory, and an ongoing future. It is an intimate, character-driven documentary that follows a married Black lesbian couple from Haiti and the Bahamas, as they navigate love, immigration, faith, and queer family-making in a country that refuses to fully see us. It is not just a love story. It is a testimony.

Photo Credit: Rick Day NYC

Lydia Cornett is a filmmaker, composer and artist. Her work explores the contours of labor, language and artistic expression across nonfiction and experimental forms. Her films have screened at festivals such as True/False Film Festival, Camden Film Festival, Rooftop Films, Sheffield DocFest, Slamdance, BAMCinemaFest, Hamptons International Film Festival, and the Ann Arbor Film Festival, where she was awarded the Tom Berman Award for Most Promising Filmmaker in 2023. Her work has been distributed and featured by The New Yorker, POV Shorts, Vimeo Staff Picks, Nowness, and Paper Magazine.

Cornett has held residencies and fellowships at the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, the Jacob Burns Film Center, UnionDocs, BRICLab, and Marble House Project. She has received support for her work from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Pulitzer Center, the Princess Grace Foundation, Chicken & Egg Pictures, Field of Vision, the Fulbright Program, and New York Foundation for the Arts.

Project Statement

The Grain of Voice, Lydia's feature directorial debut, explores the ineffable essence of the human voice and its bodily origins, weaving together portraits of vocalists who blur the boundaries of genre, gender, ability, and technology.

Photo Credit: Amber Elison