DIRECTORS

Born in Colombia, Hazel is a NYC-based director/producer who shares the stories of women from underrepresented communities fighting to overcome intersectional injustice historically and today. Storming Caesars Palace, Hazel's first feature-length documentary, premiered as the Opening Night film at the BlackStar Film Festival in 2022 winning the coveted Shine Award, and picked up Best Documentary Feature and Best Director awards at numerous national and international festivals during its multi-year 75+ festival and impact screening run. The film broadcast nationally on PBS’s Independent Lens series on March 20, 2023 to over 1.3M viewers and was in the top 3 streamed IL episodes that season. The film also received industry recognition winning the 2023 IDA’s ABC News VideoSource Award for best use of archival material. Hazel obtained support for the film and impact campaign from ITVS, the NEH, Ford Foundation/Just Films, Black Public Media, The Better Angels Society, Fork Films, Ken Burns/Library of Congress/Levine finalist prize, Firelight Media, IDA's Sarowitz Completion Fund, Working Films, Perspective Fund, Big Sky Pitch, Film Independent, The Gotham, and Women Make Movies. Previously, Hazel directed 10 episodes of PBS’s primetime celebrity genealogy series, Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Hazel also created and produced a 5-part, short docu-series called, My Everyday Hustle, for PBS WorldChannel. She produced Roots: A History Revealed simulcast on A&E/History/Lifetime, which was nominated for a NAACP Image Award and screened at the Bushwick Film Festival in 2016. Hazel co-produced the 6-hour PBS series The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., which was honored with an Emmy, a Peabody, a duPont-Columbia, and a NAACP Image award. Hazel has contributed to documentaries for I.D./Max, CNN Originals, HBO, FRONTLINE, AMC, ABC News, and A&E.