Building Trust in Documentaries

Ashley O’Shay (she/her) is a DP and documentarian based in Chicago, IL, whose work focuses on illuminating marginalized voices. She has produced work for national brands, including Lifetime, Ford Motor Company, Boost Mobile, KQED, and Dr. Martens. Most recently, she filmed the final episode of Dr. Martens’ Tough As You series, starring the band Phony Ppl, accruing over 65K views on social and web. In 2019, she co-produced the Chicago episode of KQED’ award-winning series If Cities Could Dance, which became one of their most viewed episodes to date. Her work also appeared in the critically-acclaimed Lifetime docuseries Surviving R. Kelly. Although she has crafted many short films, Unapologetic is her first venture into the feature world, and she could not be more excited to help portray this powerful narrative.

Valerie Red-Horse (she/her) is a filmmaker of Cherokee ancestry, is the owner/founder of Red-Horse Native Productions, Inc., which has become a preeminent collaborator with American Indian tribal nations to bring important Native stories accurately and respectfully to the screen. She is a member of the Directors Guild, the Screen Actors Guild, and an inductee of the NAWBO (National Association of Women Business Owners) Hall of Fame. Her directorial work includes Mankiller, Naturally Native, True Whispers: The Story of the Navajo Code Talkers, and Choctaw Code Talkers.

Yoruba Richen (she/her) is a documentary filmmaker who has directed films in the U.S. and abroad. Her most recent films, The Killing of Breonna Taylor  premiered on FX and Hulu and The Sit In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show  premiered on MSNBC. Yoruba’s previous film The Green Book: Guide to Freedom was broadcast on the Smithsonian Channel to record audiences and was nominated for an EMMY. Her feature documentary, The New Black, won multiple festival awards and was nominated for an NAACP Image Award and a GLAAD Media Award before premiering on PBS’s Independent Lens. Her film Promised Land was broadcast on POV. Yoruba won a Clio award for her short film about the Grammy-nominated singer Andra Day. She has also won a Creative Promise Award at Tribeca All Access and was a Sundance Producers Fellow. Yoruba is a featured TED Speaker, a Fulbright fellow, a Guggenheim fellow and a 2016 recipient of the Chicken & Egg Breakthrough Filmmaker Award. She is the Director of the Documentary Program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.

Yu Gu (she/her) is a multinational filmmaker and visual artist whose award-winning films explore the clash between individuals and systems of power. Her latest feature documentary, A Woman’s Work, world-premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival in competition. Variety hailed the film as, “Defiant…a tale of injustice that should speak to many.” Following screenings at over 15 film festivals and a college impact tour across the United States, the film will be broadcast on PBS’ Independent Lens and released digitally in January 2021. Yu co-directed the feature documentary, Who is Arthur Chu? which premiered at the 2017 Slamdance Film Festival. Praised as “Raw, unfiltered and poignant” by Indiewire, the documentary won two festival grand jury awards and was broadcast on America Reframed. She is currently directing Interior Migrations, an experimental project documenting the memories of migrant workers in Canada. The first 3-channel short documentary from this project premiered at the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Every.Now.Then: Reframing Nationhood exhibit and participated in The Public – Land and Body, a site-specific installation curated by Anique Jordan. Yu’s work is supported by the Sundance Institute, ITVS, Tribeca Film Institute, Points North Institute, HBO and California Humanities. She was a directing fellow with Firelight Media and Film Independent. Mounting two successful crowdfunding campaigns, she has raised over $50,000 for her projects and surpassed designated goals. Yu received her MFA in film production from the University of Southern California and a BA from the University of British Columbia.

Erika Cohn (she/her) is a Peabody and Emmy Award-winning director/producer who Variety recognized as one of 2017’s top documentary filmmakers to watch and was featured in DOC NYC’s 2019 “40 Under 40.” Most recently, Erika completed The Judge, a Peabody Award-winning and Emmy nominated film about the first woman judge appointed to the Middle East’s Shari’a courts, which premiered at TIFF ’17 and was broadcast on PBS’ Independent Lens. Erika co-directed/produced, In Football We Trust, an Emmy award-winning, feature documentary about young Pacific Islander men pursuing their dreams of playing professional football, which premiered at Sundance ’15 and was also broadcast on Independent Lens. She has received numerous accolades for her work, including a DGA award for her film, When The Voices Fade, a fiction short about the Lebanese-Israeli war of 2006, and her work has been supported by IFP, the Sundance Institute, Tribeca Institute, Hot Docs, Sheffield, ITVS, Women in Film, BAVC and the CPB Producer’s Academy among others. Erika studied at Chapman University (California) and Hebrew University (Jerusalem) and has degrees in Film Production, Middle East Studies, and Acting Performance. In 2013, she founded Idle Wild Films, Inc., which has released 3 feature documentaries and produced numerous branded content and commercial spots, including Gatorade’s Win from Within series for which she received a 2016 Webby award nomination. Erika’s next film, Belly Of The Beast will be released in 2020.