Documentary Storytelling with Care: Working with Vulnerable Protagonists & Sources with Robert Greene (PROCESSION), Daresha Kyi (MAMA BEARS), Daffodil Altan & Gisela Pérez de Acha (FRONTLINE)
About this Event Recording
From children to undocumented individuals to those who’ve experienced trauma, nonfiction storytellers often feature a range of vulnerable people in their films. In collaboration with the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, Sundance Collab brings this timely conversation with Robert Greene (Procession), Daresha Kyi (Mama Bears), Daffodil Altan of PBS Frontline, Gisela Pérez de Acha of Berkeley Law’s Human Rights Center Investigations Lab, and moderated by Carrie Lozano, Director of Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film and Artist Programs. Presenting varied perspectives and practices, this session explores specific considerations that independent artists and journalists take to protect the individuals whose stories and circumstances they aim to capture.
About the Sundance Documentary Film Program
The Sundance Documentary Film Program supports nonfiction filmmakers worldwide in the production of cinematic documentaries on contemporary themes. Established in 2002 with founding support from Open Society Foundations, the Program is a vibrant global resource for independent non-fiction storytelling. Recent projects include Nicole Newnham, Jim LeBrecht’s Crip Camp; Maite Alberdi’s The Mole Agent; Jacqueline Olive’s Always in Season; Julia Reichert, Steven Bognar’s American Factory; Petra Costa’s The Edge of Democracy; Talal Derki’s Of Fathers and Sons; RaMell Ross’s Hale County This Morning, This Evening; and Bing Lui’s Minding the Gap. Year-round support of filmmakers—including granting, creative labs, and strategic advice from development to distribution—amounts to a commitment to documentary as an increasingly important global art form and a critical cultural practice in the 21st century.
Event RecordingTeam
Carrie Lozano
Moderator
Carrie Lozano is the Director of the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film and Artist Programs, and is an award winning documentary filmmaker and journalist. Prior to Sundance, she was director of the International Documentary Association's Enterprise Documentary and Pare Lorentz funds, where she supported more than 60 diverse films and filmmakers at the intersection of documentary and journalism. She is on the advisory board of U.C. Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, where she is an alumnus and has been a lecturer and editor in its documentary film and investigative reporting programs. Lozano was previously an executive at Al Jazeera America and a senior producer of the network’s investigative series FAULT LINES. Her recent film credits include THE BALLAD OF FRED HERSCH and PROGNOSIS: NOTES ON LIVING.
Robert Greene
Panelist
Robert Greene’s latest film PROCESSION premiered at the 2021 Telluride Film Festival, is distributed by Netflix, was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary and shortlisted for an Academy Award. His previous film BISBEE ’17 (2018) premiered at Sundance, aired on PBS’s P.O.V. and was nominated for Best Documentary at the Gotham Awards. His films include the Sundance award winning KATE PLAYS CHRISTINE (2016) and the Gotham Awards nominated ACTRESS (2014). Robert was an inaugural Sundance Art of Nonfiction fellow in 2015 and served on the U.S. Documentary Jury for the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. He has edited many features, including HER SMELL (2018), GOLDEN EXITS (2017), QUEEN OF EARTH (2015) and LISTEN UP PHILIP (2014) by Alex Ross Perry. Robert has written for outlets such as Sight & Sound. He co-created the Murray Center for Documentary Journalism at the University of Missouri and serves as its Filmmaker-in-Chief.
Daresha Kyi
Panelist
Daresha Kyi writes, produces, and directs film and television in Spanish and English. A graduate of NYU Film School, she is currently in post-production on MAMA BEARS, her second feature documentary about how conservative, Christian mothers are transformed when they decide to accept their LGBTQ children. In 2017 she was commissioned by the ACLU to direct TRANS IN AMERICA: TEXAS STRONG, which garnered over 3 million views online, screened at SXSW, won two Webby Awards and an Emmy for “Outstanding Short Documentary.” TEXAS STRONG is a stand-alone short that also serves as a proof of concept for MAMA BEARS. Daresha has an extensive background in television and has produced programming for FX, WE, AMC, Telemundo, and FUSE, among other networks.
Daffodil Altan
Panelist
Journalist Daffodil Altan is an award-winning director, producer and correspondent for FRONTLINE, PBS's flagship investigative documentary series. Her most recently films are, COVID'S HIDDEN TOLL (2020 Peabody nominee), the Emmy-winning, KIDS CAUGHT IN THE CRACKDOWN (2019), TRAFFICKED IN AMERICA (2018), and the Emmy-nominated FRONTLINE/Univision documentary, RAPE ON THE NIGHT SHIFT (2015).
Previously she was a producer at Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting where she reported on juvenile solitary confinement, sexual assault in the workplace and labor trafficking. Altan was a 2018 International Documentary Association Enterprise Fund grantee, a 2016 MacArthur Foundation grantee, a 2013 John Jay/Langeloth Reporting Fellow, and a 2008 Latino Public Broadcasting grantee. She has a master’s degree from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, where she is also a lecturer.
Gisela Pérez de Acha
Panelist
Gisela Pérez de Acha is a supervising reporter and lecturer, who oversees teams of student investigators and journalists through Berkeley Law's Human Rights Center and Berkeley Journalism's Investigative Reporting Program. She is also a human rights lawyer and digital investigations trainer for the Human Rights Center and Amnesty International’s Digital Verification Corps, a global network of volunteers who fact-check social media posts about war crimes and human rights violations. She trains journalists and other professionals on methods for open source investigations, cybersecurity, and resiliency. Gisela is part of an Emmy award-winning team at the New York Times for her collaboration on the story about The Siege of Culiacán and a digital safety trainer with PEN America. She reported on extremism for "American Insurrection," a co-publication with ProPublica, Frontline, and the UC Berkeley Investigative Reporting Program, which won the George Polk Award in 2022. Born and raised in Mexico, Gisela speaks fluent Spanish, English, French, and Portuguese. She has a master’s degree from Berkeley Journalism.