SXSW Mixer 2022

Paula Eiselt is an independent filmmaker drawn to stories that disrupt strong-held assumptions. A co-production with ITVS/PBS and Arte/SWR, her award-winning documentary feature debut 93Queen was released theatrically across the U.S. and Canada, including a six week hold over at NYC’s IFC Center. Now streaming across HBOMax’s U.S and Latin American platforms, 93Queen was broadcast nationally on PBS’s POV, as well as internationally on ARTE in France and Germany, UR in Sweden, yes DocU in Israel, and CBC in Canada. 93Queen played at over 75 film festivals worldwide and was selected for the U.S. State Department’s American Film Showcase. Paula is currently a fellow at Laurene Powell Jobs and Davis Guggenheim’s Concordia Studio where she developed her latest feature length documentary Aftershock, now in post-production. Her work has been supported by ITVS, the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Fund, Sundance Catalyst, Impact Partners, American Stories Documentary Fund (sponsored by CNN Films), Points North Institute, Just Films | Ford Foundation, NYSCA, Fork Films, Gucci Tribeca Doc Fund, IDA Enterprise Fund, IDA Pare Lorentz Doc Fund, Chicago Media Project, the Hartley Film Foundation, IFP, and Women Make Movies. Paula is previously a Sundance Producers Summit fellow and IFP Filmmaker Lab fellow.

Sara Dosa is an Indie Spirit Award-nominated doc director and Peabody award-winning producer whose interests lay in telling character-driven stories about the human relationship to ecology and economy. Her first feature as a director, The Last Season, which tells the story of two former soldiers turned wild mushroom hunters, took home a Golden Gate Award at its SFIFF 2014 premiere, and was nominated for the Indie Spirit Truer than Fiction Award. Recently, Dosa co-directed an Emmy nominated episode of the Netflix music series Re-Mastered about Johnny Cash’s 1970 concert for Richard Nixon. Dosa‘s third feature as a director, The Seer & The Unseen, premiered in 2019, winning awards at a number of festivals, including the McBaine Bay Area Documentary Prize at its SFIFF premiere. The Seer & The Unseen was called “Captivating, strong and surprising” by The Hollywood Reporter and “Elegant, deft and inquisitive” by Variety, and “Sublime” by The Playlist. As a producer, she produced the Peabody winning Audrie & Daisy (2016 Sundance / Netflix Originals); and the Peabody and Emmy-nominated Survivors (2018 IDFA / POV). Dosa co-produced the Academy Award-nominated The Edge of Democracy (2019 Sundance / Netflix Originals) and An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power (2017 Sundance / Paramount). In 2018, DOC NYC named Dosa to the inaugural “40 under 40” class of documentary filmmakers to watch and was inducted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

Julie Cohen is an award-winning filmmaker and producer with eight feature-length documentaries to her credit. Her films include The Sturgeon Queens, American Veteran, and Ndiphilela Ukucula: I Live to Sing, which won a New York Emmy Award. She co-directed the documentary feature RBG which had its world premiere at Sundance 2018 and has continued touring the festival circuit.

Betsy West is a filmmaker, journalist and professor. She and Julie Cohen directed RBG (Magnolia, Participant, CNN Films 2018) which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. She is a 21-time Emmy Award winner for her work as an ABC News producer and EP of the documentary program Turning Point. A principal at Storyville Films, she was executive producer of the MAKERS documentary and digital project (AOL & PBS 2012), the feature documentary The Lavender Scare (2017), and the short doc The 4%: Film’s Gender Problem (Epix 2016). She is the Fred W. Friendly professor at Columbia Journalism School.

Daresha Kyi writes, produces, and directs film and TV in Spanish and English. A natural born storyteller, she graduated with a degree in Film & TV from NYU. In 1991 her short drama Land Where My Fathers Died, which she wrote, produced, directed, and co-starred in with Isaiah Washington in his screen debut, landed her a directing fellowship in the conservatory at AFI. Most recently Daresha won 2 Webbys for Texas Strong, the short doc she directed for the ACLU series on transgender rights. In 2017 she co-directed and co-produced her first feature-length documentary, Chavela. which celebrates the wild, rollercoaster life of badass singer Chavela Vargas and was nominated for the Teddy award and won the 2nd place Panorama Audience Award at the 2017 Berlinale, and Audience Awards at the San Francisco Int’l LGBTQ Film Festival, amongst numerous others. Daresha also co-produced Dispatches from Cleveland for Aubin Pictures in 2017. In 2011 Daresha was Executive Producer of Emmy winning writer Kevin Avery’s short comedy Thugs The Musical. She also produced a short satirical take off on The Wiz called The Whizz, starring an all white cast and the web series Kristina Wong’s How Not To Pick Up Asian Women. Daresha has produced television for FX, WE, AMC, Oxygen, E!, Telemundo, Bravo, and FUSE, among others. She is a former fellow in the Firelight Media Doc Lab and a current member of the Wyncote, Creative Capital, and Chicken & Egg Eggcelerator cohorts.

Maureen Bharoocha is a Los Angeles based writer/director. She recently directed her third feature film, the arm wrestling comedy, Golden Arm. It was set to premiere at SXSW 2020. Maureen spent 3 seasons as a segment director on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and is currently writing a new feature and comedy pilot. Maureen started her career with her short film, Abajee (shot on the streets of Karachi) which premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Maureen was then commissioned by Sprinkles Cupcakes to create a film series in which she wrote and directed 10 shorts based on their cupcake flavors. Maureen is half Irish Catholic and half Indian/Pakstani Muslim and because of her mixed background, she enjoys telling stories about complicated characters and mixing genres. Maureen is one of Indie Wire’s rising female directors of 2020, named on HBO’s 2018 Director’s list, and was nominated for the SXSW 2020 Adam Yauch Hörnblowér Visionary directing Award. Maureen is repped by CAA and Ginsburg Daniels Kallis.