Shalon Buskirk is a community leader who has dedicated her life to protecting, helping, and saving young adults from violence within her community. She was born and raised in Allentown, PA. After the tragic death of her firstborn son, Parris, she started to work towards a nonprofit for young adults that engages them with the resources they need for success. Buskirk was a driving force behind the first major funding in the city for youth violence prevention. She is a storyteller, a mother of eight children, and the CEO/Founder of the Parris J. Lane Memorial Foundation. She was a Film Independent Documentary Lab Fellow in 2022, a Visiting Fellow at MDOCS Storytellers’ Institute in 2020 and 2022, Cucalorus Works-in-Progress Lab Filmmaker in 2023, and the co-author of United Hearts for Autism: Stories from Caregivers and Self-Advocates. She is a board member for Community Bike Works, and on the advisory council for Allentown’s Salvation Army and Youth Teen Renovations. 

Drew Swedberg is a documentary filmmaker, cinematographer, educator, and film programmer. Through a relational process and poetic approach, his filmmaking orbits around the everyday dreams, rituals, and forces that shape the places he calls home. As a teaching artist residing in Eastern Pennsylvania, he designs spaces for aspiring filmmakers to create media-based stories. Drew has led an array of film classes from elementary to college classrooms, most recently as a program facilitator for PBS39’s Production U and a visiting instructor in Lafayette College’s Film & Media Studies program and Documentary Storymaking program. He is currently teaching as an adjunct professor across colleges in the Lehigh Valley. He was a Film Independent Documentary Lab Fellow in 2022, Visiting Fellow at Skidmore College’s MDOCS Storytellers’ Institute in 2020 and 2022, and an Artist-in-Residence for the Cultural Coalition of Allentown in 2019 and 2021.

Imprinted in New Delhi, Nandini Sikand (they/she) is a filmmaker, educator, choreographer-dancer. Their award-winning films about the prison industrial complex, immigration, nationalism, sex work, breast cancer, and counter- culture music have screened worldwide and have been supported by the Guggenheim Foundation (2018), New York State Council on the Arts (2010 and 2001) grant and The Jerome Foundation (1998). They are the author of Languid Bodies, Grounded Stances: The Curving Pathway of Neoclassical Odissi Dance (Berghahn Books, 2017). Sikand is currently working on a monograph titled Visualizing the Thuggee: Colonial Lithographs to Carceral Screens, a collection of essays about parenting while brown and choreographing and co-directing a poetic, multi-channel, 16mm film performance about the fragility of the dancing body. A professor of film and media studies at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, Sikand is also a certified yoga instructor (Vinyasa and Kundalini) and teaches at Northampton County Prison where they offer college-level courses.

Dr. Tiffany E. Barber is an award-winning scholar, curator, and critic whose work reshapes how we understand race, gender, and representation. A sought-after voice in contemporary art, culture, and fashion, her expert commentary spans academic journals, museum exhibitions, acclaimed documentaries, and major media outlets like The Nation, Huffington Post, Frieze, and Tate Etc. Currently Assistant Professor of African American Art at UCLA, Dr. Barber’s unique blend of art history, performance theory, and Black feminist thought inspires diverse audiences and institutions to advance new cultural futures. Her accolades include the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery Director’s Essay Prize; leadership roles at the International Journal of Surrealism, the Delaware Contemporary, the College Board, and the Black Speculative Arts Movement; and numerous fellowships. Her path-breaking exhibitions have been featured in Essence, The Brooklyn Rail, Surface Magazine, and Google Arts and Culture. Her debut monograph, Undesirability and Her Sisters: Black Women’s Visual Work and the Ethics of Representation (NYU Press, 2025), cements her reputation as a leading tastemaker and thinker of this generation.

Jessica Beshir is a Mexican-Ethiopian writer, director, producer and cinematographer based in Brooklyn. Her feature debut, FAYA DAYI, premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival and won the Grand Jury Prize & Fipresci Award at Visions du Reel, the Audience Award at Hot Docs, the Grand Jury Award and the emerging artist award at the Full Frame Film Festival among others. Her short films, HAIRAT/Criterion, HE WHO DANCES ON WOOD/PBS and HEROIN/Topic have played in festivals and museums around the world including at IFFR, IDFA and the Eye Film Museum. Beshir has been honored with grant support from the Sundance Film Institute, the Doha Film Institute, NYSCA and the Jerome Foundation.

Ahya Simone is an eclectically elusive siren and multidisciplinary artist from Detroit. As a harpist, composer, and filmmaker, she traverses through the world of sound, moving image, and performance. Ever since she began singing in a church choir as a child, her passion for music has only grown when she was introduced to the harp as a teen. Drawing inspiration from her favorite contemporary artists, she began to mix R&B/soul, jazz, and experimental elements into her works and performances. Additionally, Ahya’s music caught the eye of acclaimed filmmaker, dream hampton, where she co- composed music for “Treasure: From Tragedy To Trans Justice Mapping A Detroit Story ” (2015)- sparking her interest in exploring sound and image. With the support of Detroit Narrative Agency, in 2018 Ahya directed and her first short film, “Femme Queen Chronicles” (co-created with Paige Wood and Brè Rivera) about three Black trans women living in Detroit which was lauded at several film festivals for its exploration of identity through visuals and sound.

Ash Goh Hua is a Singapore born and raised, New York based filmmaker. Utilizing both documentary and narrative forms, Ash laces personal stories with quotidian magic to reveal the politics embedded within society, relation and culture. Named one of the 25 New Faces of Film by Filmmaker Magazine in 2022, Ash is a 2024 Berlinale Talent and a 2025 Creative Capital Award recipient. Ash began her career in non-fiction with I’M FREE NOW, YOU ARE FREE (2020, distributed by PBS POV Shorts) and the Oscar®-qualifying THE FEELING OF BEING CLOSE TO YOU (2022, distributed by The New Yorker, Best Documentary Short Award at the New Orleans Film Festival). Ash ventured into the fiction space with her first narrative short FULL MONTH (2025 Sundance Film Festival, supported by Berlinale Talents’ Short Form Station, distributed by NOWNESS). Ash is currently in post-production for the fiction short SUBTERRANEA; working on the short doc UNTITLED DURIAN FILM (2026 Cannes SFC The Lab: Editing Room); and developing her first feature.

Haley Hnatuk is an award-winning film editor from Pennsylvania, who is dedicated to working on projects that drive tangible change. A 2020 Visiting Fellow at Skidmore’s Storytellers’ Institute and a graduate of Muhlenberg College in Media & Communications and Film Studies, her editing credits include Dos Hermanxs: The Blood of the California Fields and Como Vivimos, which is distributed by the PBS WORLD Channel as part of the America ReFramed series. Committed to centering community in her work, Hnatuk also serves on the Board of Directors at CinéSPEAK, a Philadelphia-based film nonprofit.