Documentary Filmmaking: Prepping and Production (Level 1) (Nov. 2019)

Jennifer Maytorena Taylor makes colorful, character-based films about real people with extraordinary stories, often with Spanish-language content and frequently for PBS. Her features and shorts have shown at venues like the Sundance, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Locarno Film Festivals, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, New York Museum of Modern Art, Sundance Channel, Al Jazeera, and NHK-Japan. Feature documentary and short film credits include NEW MUSLIM COOL, DAISY AND MAX, PAULINA, MESSAGE TO ZAIRE/THE TALK, HOME FRONT, STREET KNOWLEDGE 2 COLLEGE, VISITING DAY, and REDNECK MUSLIM.

Based in San Francisco and born in Los Angeles of Mexican, Sicilian, Irish and English heritage, Jennifer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she is also the Director of Graduate Studies for the Social Documentation MFA program. She is a Sundance Documentary Institute fellow, and has held fellowships at the Banff Centre for the Arts, the USC Annenberg School for Journalism, and the MacDowell Colony. She is currently premiering her new verité feature FOR THE LOVE OF RUTLAND, about a small blue-collar town grappling with deep change in an era of refugee crises, the opioid epidemic, and extreme polarization. Supported by the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and the Sundance Film Music Program, For the Love of Rutland was recently named one of the “10 Most Exciting Films” at Hot Docs 2020 by Indiewire.

Maxine is a filmmaker and consultant. She has directed, developed and produced critically acclaimed feature documentaries and series in the UK, US and around the world. As a producer she enjoys enabling others to realise their goals and guiding them through production. For example, writing Dance with Dads' inaugural treatments for the director of Netflix's Daughters; or story consulting for Canada's Oscar nominee Eternal Spring. Whether she's finding great characters or directing jaw-dropping cinematic scenes, she loves bringing dramatic true stories to life. Her secret weapon is that she began her career working as a development executive for scripted comedy at the BBC, which helps bring emotion (and some humour) to everything she makes. 

Dawn Valadez, is a queer, Xicana, filmmaker, social worker, artist, youth development specialist, resource wrangler, and impact strategist. Raised by her Mexican American single mother, she never planned on being a filmmaker. Her award-winning, ITVS funded, feature documentary (with Kristy Guevara-Flanagan), GOING ON 13, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Dawn Produced/ Co-directed THE PUSHOUTS (with Katie Galloway). It is supported by numerous funders including, the Ford Foundation/Just Films, Sundance Doc Fund, CalHumanities, CPB, LPB, and others. She’s been awarded numerous honors, including the Al Bendich Berkeley Film Foundation Award (2017), and the Imagen Awards' Best Documentary Award (2018). She a producer on Vivien Hillgrove’s memoir film, VIVIEN’S WILD RIDE. Dawn advises on documentary films and public engagement campaigns and acts as a review panelist for a range of public documentary and other media funders. A proud graduate of UC Berkeley’s Master’s of Social Welfare program, she lives and works in Oakland, California.