Documenting Together

As the new Director of Industry and Education at DOC/NYC, Malikkah Rollins oversees a portfolio of projects including DOC NYC PRO, the festival’s line-up of educational courses and industry networking opportunities; Only In New York industry meetings for filmmakers with works-in-progress; and the 40 Under 40 list. Malikkah brings 15 years of experience in education, counseling, and professional development to the role. As a freelance doc producer, WIFV/DC board member, Sundance Collab Community Leader, and D Word Ambassador, Malikkah’s passion is rooted in connecting people and building stronger, more collaborative film communities.

Dami Rock, is a British-Nigerian filmmaker who works internationally. Her career in media started over 15years ago in broadcast television and music journalism working for LWT/Granada Media and hosting the Lil Miss Chatterbox radio show. She is also an alumni of the BBC/Skillset Millennium Awards, and recipient of the bespoke BBC Directing and journalism training. As part of her fellowship, she produced the film Go to your room: The Bedroom MC Competition, which was selected to tour internationally with the British Council, representing UK arts and culture. Her television directing credits include: I used to be a Gangsta, Finding Inner Peace, Jude Law’s Nanny, Darklingdami About Town, Africans of the Burial Ground and ground breaking film Bleach My Skin White, the first UK ITV documentary to tackle the issue of skin bleaching on primetime television. Her first feature Malcolm’s Echo: The Legacy of Malcolm X won the African Movie Academy Award for Best Documentary, and inspired her move to America, re-launching her film company Darkling Productions, and kicking off with an exclusive piece about “25yrs of Public Enemy”. She has a number of projects in development; one of which asks: Where are the Black Panthers of the 21st century?

CJ Russo is the award-winning Director-Producer of Lady Buds, the critically acclaimed feature documentary about cannabis legalization in California through the eyes of six courageous women. The film opened theatrically in the fall of 2021 to rave reviews earning 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, winning multiple festival awards, and is currently airing and streaming on Starz, Amazon, and AppleTV+. Driven to create content that amplifies underrepresented voices, Russo currently has two spin-offs in development — Mama Sue, a docuseries following the inspiring life journey of septuagenarian entrepreneur Sue Taylor with Village Roadshow, and a scripted feature version of the documentary with Hellcat. She is attached to Executive Produce the upcoming series, Buck Angel’s Cannacopia with trans activist Buck Angel for Altrd.TV and is currently a Story Producer on the upcoming series, The Road to Women of Wrestling for CBS. Russo’s short films have screened all over the world, including the Sundance Film Festival, and have been broadcast on Showtime, PBS, IFC, LOGO, and Netflix.

Leila Jarman is an Iranian-Brazilian, L.A. based filmmaker, multimedia artist and feminist activist. Her work focuses on exploring the boundaries of unconventional narrative and subverting expectations and ideals around beauty and aesthetics. By visually experimenting with the dualities and contradictions inherent in nature and the human existential experience, Leila‘s work explores the human body and its relationship to movement, sound, space and time and allows for juxtaposing and investigating subtlety and drama, fiction and non-fiction, the beautiful and the grotesque, masculinity and the femininity, and more. Her works have shown in film festivals worldwide, in galleries, and museums including the TATE Britain, Ars Electronica, and LACMA. Her films and videos have been featured on media outlets such as VICE, Thump!, AFROPUNK, MTV, VH1, and The Creator’s Project among others. She is currently in pre-production on a documentary project about skateboarders in Cuba.

Award-winning director, writer, actor, singer and songwriter Renée Wilson has been working in film, television and theatre for over 20 years and made her film debut portraying Raelette Pat Lyle in the Academy Awarding -Winning film Ray. Renée is a graduate of Tulane University with a B.A. in Communication and directed and co-produced the documentary Crepe Covered Sidewalks about her hometown of New Orleans post hurricane Katrina. The documentary was the centerpiece film of The New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival and Renée won the Best New Filmmaker award at the Peachtree Village International Film Festival. Wilson’s film work has been generously supported by The Nation, One Foundation, Aepoch Fund, Panta Rhea foundation, Qinti Fund – a fund of Tides Foundation and many individual donors. Following the film, Renée released her debut album, Voodoo Queen and is releasing music from her second record All About Love in 2020. Renée’s work is about exploring the social issues of our time, love, truth, authenticity and spirituality and she brings these pillars to her work as a storyteller whether that be through a song, photograph, poetry, a film or a role. As a passionate advocate for social change and justice, Wilson has worked with organizations like the Pride Foundation, YES!, and HOPE, and appears as a guest host, speaker, panelist, and facilitator at arts and activism workshops and events across the country.