John, born and raised in American Samoa, attracted an astonishing variety of “best friends”. Runners whom John had mentored pushed him through his favorite races.  Local Lions Club members honored him with the club’s highest award and an exquisite quilt sewn from his running shirts. At the VA care facility in Martinsburg, WV, he bonded with other veterans and charmed the entire nursing staff. As a daytime resident of Daybreak Senior Services, he regaled seniors and staff members with risqué stories and spicy inuendo. American Samoans in the mid-Atlantic all knew and loved him, and his family back home remained fiercely proud of him. His husband, Peter, cared for him 24/7 throughout the pandemic with no relief. His friends, dressed in parkas, managed the Covid threat by chatting on cell phones through double-layered windows. His dogs, Piglet and Ginger, were his confidants.  And a veteran documentary filmmaker decided that spending five years with John would be fun and fulfilling!

Robert Rooy, Producer/Director/Camera (he/him) is an independent documentary film producer and director. His most recent feature film, Deej, received a 2017 George Foster Peabody Award and was nominated for an Emmy in Graphic Design and Animation.  Rob has worked in more than twenty countries creating media in support of international development, human rights and environmental organizations.  His collaboration with Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, led to producing and directing To Our Credit, a two-part PBS series that aired in 1998.  In addition, he has worked as a first assistant director on more than forty films and television programs, including Lonesome Dove, Honeymoon in Vegas, Minority Report and The West Wing. He holds an MFA degree from Yale School of Drama, a Distinguished Alumnus Award from Calvin University, and a National MediaMaker Fellowship from BAVC Media.

Kimberlee Bassford, Producer (she/her) combines her love for storytelling with her background in journalism to bring the underrepresented stories of the Pacific to the world. She directed and produced the documentaries Winning Girl (2014, The World Channel), Patsy Mink: Ahead of the Majority (2008, PBS) and Cheerleader (2003, HBO Family) and was a producer on two national PBS documentary series: Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick? (2008) and The Meaning of Food (2005). She has garnered festival awards, a duPont-Columbia Award, Student Academy Award and CINE Golden Eagles. Her work has been supported by the Sundance Institute, CNN, PBS, ITVS, Center for Asian American Media, Pacific Islanders in Communications, Firelight Media, International Documentary Association, Film Independent, Fund for Investigative Journalism, Asian American Documentary Network, Women in Film and Brown Girls Doc Mafia. Kimberlee holds a BA in psychology from Harvard University and a Master of Journalism from University of California Berkeley.

Anne de Mare, Producer/Writer (she/her) is an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker and recipient of both a MacArthur Foundation Media & Journalism Grant and a Carnegie Corporation of NY Democracy Program Grant.  Her feature films as Director/Producer include The Homestretch, which aired on PBS’s Independent Lens (Emmy Award, 2015), Capturing the Flag (2018), and Asparagus! Stalking the American Life (2008). She was the Co-Producer on Deej (Peabody Award, 2017).  Her work has been supported by Sundance Institute, Chicken & Egg Pictures, The Chicago Media Project, GoodPitch (now, DocSociety), and many more.  She also directed and produced The Real Rosie the Riveter Project, a filmed archive of WWII women munitions workers for NYU Libraries and her most recent film, The Girl with the Rivet Gun, is an award-winning animated documentary short based on those personal histories. 

Lynn True, Editor is a documentary filmmaker and editor, and co-founder of True Walker Productions. Her films include the verité features Lumo  (PBS/P.O.V. 2007), about a young survivor of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo; Summer Pasture  (PBS/Independent Lens 2012, Peabody Award), which follows a family of nomads in the mountains of eastern Tibet; and In Transit (Special Jury Prize, Tribeca Film Festival 2015), an observational portrait of America as seen through the stories of passengers aboard the country’s busiest long distance train route. Lynn graduated from Brown University with a joint degree in Urban Studies and Architecture. She lives in New York with her husband and filmmaking partner, Nelson Walker, and their two young sons.

Beatrice Bosco, Consulting Producer (she/her) worked for 20 years in higher education teaching theatre, in the education department at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, and for over 10 years at WBEZ/Chicago Public Media as Director of Special Projects. She has directed numerous plays in Chicago’s Off-Loop Theatres. Recent creative projects include producing the podcast This Is My Family and directing Dear Steve…, Allie n Steve Mullen’s theatrical autobiography told with songs and stories. She is currently working on Arm and a Leg, a podcast about the cost of healthcare; DisFest, a disability arts festival; and producing Amber Hawk Swanson’s The Harmony Show. She is Interim Director of Shambhala Chicago, where she co-leads the Collective Liberation discussion group. She holds a PhD in Theatre and Drama from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and a BA in English and Theatre from the University of Notre Dame.

Nico Opper, Consulting Producer (they/them) is an Emmy-nominated director and producer who has been featured in Filmmaker Magazine’s annual “25 New Faces of Independent Film”, Indiewire Magazine’s “25 LGBT Filmmakers on the Rise”, and DOC NYC’s “40 Under 40” list of documentary talents. Their directorial debut, Off and Running (Tribeca Film Festival Audience Favorite, POV broadcast), received the Best Documentary Award at Outfest. The WGA Award for Best Documentary Screenplay and a national Emmy nomination. Their episodic series The F Word (Los Angeles Film Festival, PBS Digital Studios, SoulPancake) was nominated for a Gotham Award for Breakthrough Series, an IDA Award for Best Short Form Series, and was named a top series of the year by Indiewire. Most recently they produced the ITVS feature documentary Try Harder! which premiered in the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. 

Erica Ginsberg, Editorial Consultant (she/her) has more than 20 years of experience helping documentary filmmakers as a story consultant, artist services provider, cheerleader, and champion. She co-founded the Washington, DC-area documentary film organization Docs In Progress where she also served as its Founding Executive Director for more than a decade. There she piloted fellowship, residency, and work-in-progress programs that helped hundreds of documentary filmmakers move forward with their projects, including Robert Rooy’s prior film, Deej.  She is a Co-Host of The D-Word, an online community for documentary film professionals with more than 20,000 members around the world. Her work there has included co-facilitating weekly virtual filmmaker gatherings and work-in-progress programs. She is also a documentary filmmaker and the author of the Creative Resilience blog and forthcoming book that helps artists across disciplines better navigate the emotional ups-and-downs of the creative process and creative careers.