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SUMMARY:UNDO Spotlight: A Showcase of Supported Projects — Day 2
DESCRIPTION:[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text css=””]Doors 7:00p\nShow 7:30p[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]UnionDocs\n352 Onderdonk Ave\nRidgewood\, NY[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_btn title=”FREE RSVP” style=”outline-custom” outline_custom_color=”#ffffff” outline_custom_hover_background=”#adadcc” outline_custom_hover_text=”#0000cd” shape=”round” align=”left” css_animation=”bounceIn” css=”” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fluma.com%2Fm9j9o3h3″][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column offset=”vc_hidden-lg vc_hidden-md vc_hidden-sm vc_hidden-xs”][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_video link=”https://vimeo.com/851422192″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_column_text css=””]UnionDocs is thrilled to invite you to a night celebrating the incredible artists supported by our Fiscal Sponsorship program! Come through and tune into a special showcase of work with the following artists in attendance: Elise Ahrens\, Will Coley\, Katie Halper\, Kalli Anderson\, Brent Chesanek\, Emma Francis Snyder\, Nathan Fitch\, Sarah Friedland\, Alice Arnold\, Danya Abt\, Francesca Trianni\, Armand Yervant Tufenkian and Tamer Hassan\, Jennie Butler\, Akeema-Zane Anthony\, Crystal Kayiza\, Jessica Bardsley\, Shabtai Pinchevsky\, Claudia Zamora-Valencia\, Felix Endara and John Hulsey! \nTheir work traverses extraordinary terrain — Their work traverses extraordinary terrain — from the lives of queer men exiled under Italian Fascism to the legacy of a pioneering transmasculine photographer\, and the intimate negotiations of bodily autonomy\, identity\, and belonging. These projects follow Holocaust survivors protesting the genocide in Gaza\, investigate the expanding machinery of digital surveillance\, and question how a self-driving car might navigate the segregated roads of Palestine. They move through the sonic imagination of an experimental composer\, the landscapes of Washington Irving\, and the shifting streets of SoHo\, while uncovering the strange economies of American antiques and the quiet labor of rug restoration between Queens and Armenia. Elsewhere\, they trace the enduring spirit of Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago\, the guardians of a historic Black cemetery in Mississippi\, and the changing relationship between conservation\, tourism\, and livelihood on the coast of Oaxaca. They reckon with dementia\, terminal illness\, and the mysteries of mortality\, explore the unexpected bonds of family and the pressures of reproduction\, and find connections between personal loss and ecological crisis. From the looming promises of technological salvation to the intimate act of posing for a figure drawing class\, these projects invite us to reconsider how we inhabit our bodies\, care for one another\, and imagine our collective futures. \nThis is a free community event. Come through and toast these pioneering artists and their budding projects! \nAll of the presenting artists in this program received a 2026 Support for Artists grant\, administered through UnionDocs’ fiscal sponsorship program and made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with support from the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_separator][vc_column_text] \nProgram \n[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_column_text css=””] \nEmbodied by Elise Ahrens\n[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]Embodied is a short documentary about a model in figure drawing classes and her path to reconciling a contentious relationship with her body through her participation in the arts.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_column_text css=””] \nIsland of Exiles by Will Coley\n[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]Nearly a century ago\, Benito Mussolini set out to create Fascism’s “New Man:” a warrior\, a husband and a father reproducing for the state. Those who failed this test of manhood could be imprisoned\, committed to asylums or banished to remote corners of Italy. Among them was a gay man known as Maruska\, exiled to Ustica\, a tiny island in the Mediterranean. The regime intended his exile to erase him. Instead\, Maruska built a life. Older residents still remember him with affection and point to the house where he lived. Yet much of his story – and the history of the other men banished alongside him – has nearly disappeared. Producer Will Coley travels to Italy to recover this lost world. Through the memories of islanders and emigrants\, historians\, official records and the writings of the exiles themselves\, he reconstructs Maruska’s life and uncovers the machinery used by Fascism to police masculinity.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_column_text css=””] \nNever Again by Katie Halper\n[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]As Holocaust survivors protest Israel’s assault on Gaza\, Jewish American journalist Katie Halper marches alongside them\, documenting their effort to reclaim the meaning of “Never Again” in the face of virulent opposition to their courage\, experience\, and Jewish values before it’s too late.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_column_text css=””] \nThe Most Alive Sounds  by Kalli Anderson\n[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]Annea Lockwood has spent a lifetime listening very closely to sounds that for most of us\, slip by unnoticed. The New Zealand-born composer and sound artist is deeply attuned to the sound of her environment: the trickle of a stream flowing under a bridge\, the resonance of a pane of glass\, the rhythm of her wife’s breath. A contemporary of Pauline Oliveros and other avant-garde composers of the 1960s and 70s\, Annea turned 87 this year and is still making new work\, often collaborating with artists half her age. Sound artist and documentarian spent the past year following Annea down slippery river banks\, into concert rehearsals in Glasgow\, ..and to her home in rural New York state. Along the way\, she opened a portal to a new way of being in the world. The Most Alive Sounds invites you to step through it too.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_column_text css=””] \nRip Current by Brent Chesanek\n[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]In New York and Florida\, a builder explores landscapes as imagined by early American writer Washington Irving.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_column_text css=””] \nAnatomy of a Life by Emma Francis Snyder\n[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]When her father is diagnosed with dementia\, filmmaker Emma Francis Snyder turns the camera on their shared caregiving journey through America’s flawed eldercare system. Through humor\, heartbreak\, and imagination\, ANATOMY OF A LIFE is a tender portrait of love and loss\, and a timely call to rethink about how we provide care.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_column_text css=””] \nIakwe: Hello\, Goodbye by Nathan Fitch\n[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]Based upon real events\, Iakwe: Hello\, Goodbye is the story of Jacob Aija Aini Hawkes\, a young traveling salesman who after being adopted at birth\, meets his blood relatives for the first time by chance while knocking doors in Northwest Arkansas. The film explores the power and complexity of family bonds from a Pacific Islander/Marshallese perspective.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_column_text css=””] \nThe Chickening by Sarah Friedland\n[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]The Chickening is a feature-length\, hybrid documentary about my decision not to have children and the familial\, religious\, and societal pressures to reproduce. Through interviews\, archival footage\, animation\, and mythical re-enactments\, THE CHICKENING lays bare the roots and resurgence of reproductive nationalism in the United States.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_column_text css=””] \nSoHo in Flux: Art\, Real Estate and the Housing Crisis by Alice Arnold and Sharon Zukin\n[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]In the 1970s\, a gritty factory district in Lower Manhattan was rezoned for artists’ lofts and became the center of New York’s avant-garde cultural innovation. Five decades later\, SoHo is a center of shopping\, tourism and gentrification—and the target of another rezoning that connects it to the city’s housing crisis. SOHO IN FLUX is the first documentary film to tell the in-depth story of this unexpected transformation through intimate conversations with artists and art dealers who created the fabled neighborhood and urban planners and activists who want to reshape it. As the ideals of the Jane Jacobs generation are challenged by the demands of a new\, pro-growth coalition\, SOHO IN FLUX asks what price the city will pay for change. Can rezoning an historic district in today’s Gilded Age really solve the housing crisis?[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_column_text css=””] \nAntique Antique Road Show Show by Danya Abt\n[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]Fingers are pointed and fortunes are made in this reframing of a legacy PBS program that inspects and evaluates American’s antiques.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_column_text css=””] \nThe Predator Project by Francesca Trianni\n[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]A secretive global industry has built its business on a single promise: it can crack any smartphone. As the Trump administration trades restrictions for expanded surveillance budgets\, this project investigates how these powerful tools are acquired and deployed against people inside the United States.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_column_text css=””] \nԿապ Կար (Knot’s Keep) by Armand Yervant Tufenkian and Tamer Hassan\n[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]Between two workshops — in Queens\, New York and Yerevan\, Armenia — artisans repair a variety of rugs from Western Asia and beyond\, creating a space for the maintenance of both material objects and cultural sensibility. The film uses extended observational sequences that linger on the meticulous processes of rug repair. These long takes allow viewers to become immersed in the textures of ornamentation and the labor of attention\, where the act of mending becomes a quiet form of cultural transmission. The images in the rugs register particular worldviews that emerge from place\, showing how the cultures that produced them sustain a mode of attention attuned to complex ecological cycles. In the film’s final section\, what we learn from the rugs begins to shape our approach to filming beyond the shop—we leave Yerevan for a wildlife refuge where conservationists work on the reforestation and rehabilitation of endangered native species.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_column_text css=””] \nThe Last Trip by Jennie Butler\n[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]A suburban mom with terminal cancer turns to psilocybin therapy to confront her fear of mortality.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_column_text css=””] \nCarnival Baby\, De Fever Forever In My Soul by Akeema-Zane Anthony\n[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]Carnival Baby\, De Fever Forever In My Soul is an experimental documentary which surveys the landscape of Carnival Culture in Trinidad and Tobago while invoking the story of her maternal family’s migration and labor histories as the catalyst for (re)birthing a new generation of Carnival practices and practitioners.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_column_text css=””] \nThe Gardeners by Crystal Kayiza\n[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]As keepers of one of the oldest Black cemeteries in Mississippi\, The Worthy Women of Watkins Street nurture the liminal space between past\, present and future. The labor of these aging worldbuilders becomes a blueprint to navigate memory\, legacy and mortality\, revealing the divine spirit residing in their daily lives.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_column_text css=””] \nAnother Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jessica Bardsley\n[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]Part art history\, part memoir\, part environmental lament\, this essay film/experimental lecture weaves together the personal and the ecological through the story of my aunt’s sudden passing. The mantra that everything is connected guides a fluid journey from my own family history to the climate crisis\, from punk rock to green burials\, and from the limits of eco-art to the science fiction of Jules Verne.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_column_text css=””] \nCan a Self-Driving Car Navigate an Apartheid Road? by Shabtai Pinchevsky\n[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]Can a Self-Driving Car Navigate an Apartheid Road? is a multi-channel video essay that stages a collision between navigation as an algorithmic problem and navigation as an embodied practice shaped by identity\, restriction\, and survival. In the Israeli apartheid road system in Palestine\, even an autonomous vehicle must self-identify before it is able to make a single move. As people’s own movement through physical space is being delegated to automation\, the project asks how algorithmic processes represent or complicate human navigation as a mode of expression\, and of survival. By disassembling the algorithmic stack of autonomous driving\, the work investigates what identity a self-driving car will embody when navigating segregated territories\, whose position the system treats as normative\, and how it will model the nuanced strategies of movement tied to its adopted identity.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_column_text css=””] \nThe Lure by Claudia Zamora-Valencia\n[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]THE LURE is a 60-minute essay film that explores the transformation of a region on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca\, Mexico\, and how narratives of development intertwine with memory. Shot over the course of twenty years\, this longitudinal portrait begins when the government banned sea turtle fishing in the 1990s\, forcing a slaughterhouse to close and leaving fishers and their families searching for alternative livelihoods. New notions of conservation merged with an expanding market for tourism\, shifting relationships among residents\, capital\, and nature. Narrated by me\, an Oaxacan director and anthropologist\, the film draws on my ethnographic research and a personal archive. Field notes\, photos\, manuscripts\, observational footage\, and recordings with locals\, scientists\, entrepreneurs\, expats\, and tourists serve as registers for my intimate and evolving connections with people and the environment\, as well as the dispossession of land disguised as progress.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_column_text css=””] \nBody Alchemy by Felix Endara and Tony Zosherafatain\n[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]BODY ALCHEMY explores the legacy of transmasculine trailblazer Loren Cameron\, a visionary photographer\, bodybuilder\, and activist who sparked the imaginations of generations of trans men\, propelling them on their own radical journeys.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_column_text css=””] \nFutureproof by John Hulsey\n[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]In trying to protect ourselves from our darkest fantasies\, are we inadvertently bringing them to life? FUTUREPROOF follows the would-be technological visionaries and rogue pioneers who are working to outmaneuver climate catastrophe – even as their advances take us closer to the point of no return.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column offset=”vc_hidden-lg vc_hidden-md vc_hidden-sm vc_hidden-xs”][vc_empty_space height=”40px”][vc_single_image image=”147742″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text] \nWatch the conversation between Presenter1\, Presenter2 and Presenter 3 on the UnionDocs’ Membership hub. \n[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_separator][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_column_text css=””]All of the presenting artists in this program received a 2026 Support for Artists grant\, administered through UnionDocs’ fiscal sponsorship program and made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with support from the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_separator][vc_column_text] \nBios \n[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”166462″ img_size=”full” css=””][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text css=””]Elise Ahrens is a Hudson Valley based\, Emmy-Nominated filmmaker. As a documentary editor\, her work has premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2025 and Woodstock Film Festival in 2026\, winning the audience award for best documentary with Sydney Cash Makes Too Much Art. She is also a former Karen Schmeer Fellow and recipient of a New York Council of the Arts grant. Elise completed her directorial debut Embodied in 2026\, a short documentary about figure model Jenna Krasowski. The film explores how participation in the arts created a healing environment for Jenna to navigate a contentious relationship with her body\, told through the lens of a female gaze.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”166464″ img_size=”full” css=””][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text css=””]Will Coley is an independent audio documentary producer based in Lenapehoking (Harlem\, NY) with more than 15 years of experience. For many years\, I coordinated programs to support people in immigration detention centers. For this work\, I received the Reebok Human Rights Award. To help refugees and immigrants share their stories\, I then created digital storytelling and narrative change projects for nonprofit organizations and philanthropic organizations. Since attending the Transom Story Workshop\, I have produced audio stories for NPR News\, 99% Invisible\, and the BBC World Service\, among others. As a producer at Condé Nast\, I worked on podcasts for The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. The Ecco selected my short “Savor” for its 2024 summer edition. My Audio Flux documentary short\, “A-Z Luggage Repair” recently premiered at the Smithsonian’s Hirschhorn Museum. I am currently serving as a board member of the Association of Independents in Radio.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”166467″ img_size=”full” css=””][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text css=””]Jewish American journalist Katie Halper\, who was fired for calling Israel an apartheid state\, travels from Detroit and Washington to Vancouver\, London\, Brussels and Vienna to meet people Israel would rather you didn’t know about: Holocaust survivors who oppose its war on Gaza and refuse to let one genocide justify another. \nAt the heart of the film are survivors Marione Ingram\, René Lichtman\, Stephen Kapos and Dr. Gabor Maté\, and historian Haim Bresheeth\, the son of survivors. The film also features Rep. Rashida Tlaib\, Jeremy Corbyn and historians Ilan Pappé and Avi Shlaim\, along with Katie’s own confrontations with Alan Dershowitz and IDF spokespeople. \nBlending intimate interviews\, archival footage and frontline protest\, including the arrest of one of its subjects\, Never Again Is Now reclaims Holocaust memory as a call for solidarity and insists that “never again” means never again for anyone\, not just Jews. The film is in post-production.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”166469″ img_size=”full” css=””][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text css=””]Kalli Anderson is a Canadian sound artist\, documentarian\, writer and educator based in Brooklyn\, NY. She is an associate professor and director of audio journalism at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. She is also the founding editor of Sound Fields\, a journal and event series about the art of audio documentary. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”166472″ img_size=”full” css=””][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text css=””]Brent Chesanek is a New York based filmmaker raised in Florida. His work involves narrative\, documentary and experimental practices. He has screened his films at CPH:DOX\, FIDMarseille\, DOXA\, Singapore IFF\, Big Sky\, NovosCinemas\, RIDM\, Visions.MTL\, and more.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”166475″ img_size=”full” css=””][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text css=””]Emma Francis-Snyder (she/her) is a New York-based activist turned award-winning documentary filmmaker. Her directorial debut\, TAKEOVER\, was nominated for a News and Documentary Emmy® and shortlisted for an Academy® Award. TAKEOVER was part of the New York Times OpDoc series and shortlisted for the IDA and Cinema Eye Awards. Emma was chosen as one of Vimeo’s Best New Creators. Emma was the Movement Speaker at the 2023 Alzheimer’s Association Imagine Gala. TAKEOVER is part of Connecticut’s State Education Resource Center Curriculum for African American/Black Puerto Rican/Latino Studies. She has been invited to screen and speak at Georgetown University\, Princeton University\, and the NYC Department of Education.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”166479″ img_size=”full” css=””][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text css=””]Nathan Fitch is a filmmaker and Assistant Professor at The New School University. A member of the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective\, Nathan’s award winning films have been published by The New York Times Op Docs\, TIME\, The New Yorker\, PBS/America ReFramed\, and NPR\, to name a few. Nathan’s feature length directorial debut\, Island Soldier\, won a number of film festival awards\, and was broadcast on PBS in 2018. Nathan’s latest short film\, IN EXILE\, won the Reel South Award at it’s world premiere at the Hot Spring Documentary Film Festival in 2023\, and was broadcast on PBS in 2024. Nathan holds an MFA from the Integrated Media Arts program at Hunter college\, where he was the recipient of the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism\, and a Picture of the Year International award. Nathan served in the Peace Corps in Micronesia\, and has an enduring fondness for Breadfruit.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”166480″ img_size=”full” css=””][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text css=””]Sarah Ema Friedland is a filmmaker\, artist\, and educator whose work is rooted in non-fiction\, often drawing on the vocabularies of speculative fiction and fantasy to re-imagine reality. Her films have screened at Lincoln Center\, Anthology Film Archives\, Hot Docs Cinema\, The Cannes Film Festival Doc Corner Pitch\, and PBS\, and have been supported by fellowships from Jerome\, Ford\, NYSCA\, the MacDowell\, New Jewish Culture\, the Palestine American Research Seminar\, and others. Her recent feature documentary LYD\, co-directed with Rami Younis\, premiered at the 2023 Amman International Film Festival\, where it won the Jury Prize for Best Documentary and the FIPRESCI Prize. She was the founding Director of the MDOCS Storytellers’ Institute at Skidmore College and currently serves as Director of the Liberal Studies Global Media Lab at NYU. Friedland is also an active member of the Meerkat Media Collective and is on the board of the Flaherty Film Seminar.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”166483″ img_size=”full” css=””][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text css=””]Alice Arnold is a documentary media maker and educator. Her film and photography projects explore the urban environment and visual culture\, from street art to advertising and from sidewalks to electric signs. Her films are in the collections of university libraries and have screened at The Museum of Modern Art and other festivals. Her photographs of nightlife and hip hop culture have been widely exhibited and published in books and magazines. She is a NYSCA Grantee (2026)\, a New York Foundation for the Arts Photography Fellow (2003); a Fulbright Fellow (Film\, Hong Kong\, 2007); and an adjunct professor at the City University of New York. \nSharon Zukin is professor emerita of sociology and of earth and environmental sciences at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center\, and writes about art\, architecture\, and real estate in New York City. Her books include Loft Living\, The Cultures of Cities\, Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places\, and The Innovation Complex.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”166488″ img_size=”full” css=””][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text css=””]Danya Abt is a Brooklyn-based film director and editor. She keeps one foot planted in the documentary art world and one in more broadly distributed documentary forms. Her films have played at MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight and the True/False and Camden film festivals among others.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”166491″ img_size=”full” css=””][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text css=””]Francesca Trianni is an investigative journalist and filmmaker with the New York Times Opinion section. Her work has been shown at film festivals\, galleries and institutions worldwide\, including DOC NYC\, the Fotografiska Museum in New York and the Taormina Film Festival in Italy. She recently received a Chicken & Egg development grant for her reporting on the rise of cybermercenaries. As a senior editorial producer at Vice News\, she spent nearly a year investigating an automotive supplier that knowingly released PFAS\, or forever chemicals\, into the environment. The reporting became “Toxic Farmland\,” a one-hour VICE Special Report nominated for a news Emmy. Francesca previously spent nearly a decade at TIME\, where she directed and filmed “Paradise Without People\,” a feature-length documentary about two pregnant Syrian refugees in a Greek refugee camp. It won Best Documentary at the Taormina and AmDocs festivals. In 2018\, she filmed and produced “Finding Home\,” an interactive project that won more than a dozen awards\, including a World Press Photo Award and an Emmy nomination.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”166494″ img_size=”full” css=””][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text css=””]Armand Yervant Tufenkian is an artist\, filmmaker\, and writer based in New York. His moving-image work has been presented internationally at venues including Jeu de Paume\, Film at Lincoln Center\, the Thailand Biennale\, IDFA\, Open City\, the Viennale and Courtisane. Tufenkian’s debut feature In the Manner of Smoke received the International Award at Cinéma du Réel in 2025. \nTamer Hassan has screened his films at festivals and venues including Viennale\, Cinéma du Réel\, Lincoln Center’s Art of the Real\, Courtisane\, and Punto de Vista\, and galleries including Lithium (Chicago)\, Mana Contemporary (Chicago)\, and Articule (Montréal). He has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Parsons School of Design and was Artist in Residence at the Critical Media Lab in the Department of Anthropology at McGill University. He also works regularly as an editor on short and feature films.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”166497″ img_size=”full” css=””][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text css=””]Jennie Butler is a documentary filmmaker who has worked with companies like Condé Nast\, Radical Media\, Amazon Studios\, Topic Studios\, and Hearst Television. Her award-winning documentary short Georgie screened at festivals around the world\, including DOC NYC\, Rooftop Films\, Palm Springs Shortfest\, Aspen Shortsfest\, and was selected for Vimeo Staff Picks and American Airlines flights. Jennie was an Associate Producer on the feature documentary Tell Them You Love Me\, which premiered at #1 on NETFLIX in 2024. She recently completed her second documentary short\, The Last Trip\, collaborating with the production company Voyager\, and is a Story Producer on a NETFLIX doc series premiering in 2027.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”166498″ img_size=”full” css=””][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text css=””]Akeema-Zane is an artist\, strategic arts administrator\, advocate\, and educator whose work spans literature\, film\, performance\, movement and music. Her practice explores narrative\, ritual\, and collective memory through embodied forms as well as moves between artistic\, educational\, historical\, and social forms of inquiry\, with an enduring interest in the systems and relationships that organize collective life.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”166499″ img_size=”full” css=””][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text css=””]Crystal Kayiza is a Ugandan-American filmmaker raised in Tulsa\, Oklahoma. A member of the New Negress Film Society\, she is a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship\, Creative Capital Award\, Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship\, Film Independent Amplifier Fellowship\, and Sundance Ignite Fellowship. Her most recent film\, Rest Stop\, won the 2023 Jury Prize for Best US Short Film at the Sundance Film Festival. Her previous shorts have screened at BlackStar Film Festival\, MoMA and Toronto International Film Festival and appeared on The New Yorker\, NOWNESS and PBS. Named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film\,” Crystal is currently in post-production on her first feature film.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”166501″ img_size=”full” css=””][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text css=””]Jessica Bardsley is a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow in Film-Video. Her films have screened across the world at venues like Sundance\, CPH:DOX\, Visions du Réel\, RIDM\, True/False\, and on the Criterion Channel. She is the recipient of various awards\, including a Princess Grace Award\, Grand Prize at 25FPS\, the Eileen Maitland Award at the Ann Arbor Film Festival\, Best Short Film at Punto de Vista\, and more. Her films have received support from NYSCA\, If/Then Shorts\, the LEF Foundation\, the Points North Institute\, the Harvard Film Study Center\, and the Mellon Foundation. Her research and writing have been supported by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study\, the Terra Foundation for American Art\, and the Henry Luce Foundation/American Council of Learned Societies. Her book Fluid Materiality: A Media Theory of Water in Contemporary Art is forthcoming from MIT Press in Fall 2027. She is Assistant Professor of Experimental Film and Media at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”166504″ img_size=”full” css=””][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text css=””]Shabtai Pinchevsky is a photographer and digital media artist whose research-driven work examines the relationship between photographic technologies\, contested landscapes\, and political power. Working with 3D modeling\, mapping\, aerial photography\, archival materials\, and computational tools\, he reconstructs sites and images to investigate histories of colonialism and displacement\, particularly in Israel/Palestine. Pinchevsky’s work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including the Tel Aviv Museum of Art\, the Israel Museum\, Jerusalem\, Singapore Art Museum\, Open Eye Gallery\, Liverpool\, and Hyde Park Art Center\, Chicago. His work is held in the collections of the Centre Pompidou\, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art\, and the Block Museum. He is a recipient of The Gérard Lévy Prize for a Young Photographer from the Israel Museum. He holds an MFA from Northwestern University and a BFA from Bezalel Academy. Pinchevsky is an Assistant Professor of Photography at Parsons School of Design\, The New School\, NY.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”166506″ img_size=”full” css=””][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text css=””]Claudia Zamora-Valencia uses ethnography and visual arts to examine social and historical processes. Her work focuses on the relationships among development and nature\, infrastructure and the Mexican state\, and migration and labor markets in the U.S. She has presented her research and films at international conferences and festivals\, including the American Anthropological Association\, Latin American Studies Association\, Society for Visual Anthropology\, Camden Film Festival\, Ambulante Film Festival\, DOC NYC\, UnionDocs\, and PBS. Institutions such as the New York State Council on the Arts\, Temple University\, the Robert Lemelson Foundation\, the Flaherty Film Seminar\, and Latino Public Broadcasting have recognized her work with fellowships and grants. Claudia earned an MFA from Hunter College (CUNY) and is a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at Temple University. She is a member of Meerkat Media Collective and an Assistant Professor at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Old Westbury.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”166731″ img_size=”full” css=””][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text css=””]Félix Endara\, (co-director and NYSCA individual artist grant recipient) an Ecuadorian-born trans immigrant and independent documentary filmmaker\, is dedicated to authentic storytelling. His short films have graced prestigious festivals including Berlinale\, DOC NYC\, NewFest\, and Mill Valley. He produced “NORTH BY CURRENT” (2021\, Dir: Angelo Madsen Minax)\, which premiered at Berlinale and aired on POV in November 2021\, earning acclaim from Rolling Stone and Filmmaker; and “UNSEEN” (2023\, Dir: Set Hernandez)\, which was featured at the 2022 Gotham Documentary Feature Lab\, premiered at HotDocs in May 2023\, and aired on POV in March 2024. Félix advocates for trans filmmakers\, advising the 2023 Sundance Institute’s Trans Possibilities Intensive\, founding the Trans Affinity Group within the Documentary Producers Alliance\, and promoting authentic queer and trans storytelling in outlets like the Hollywood Reporter. He chairs the Board of Working Films and serves on the Board of Chicken & Egg Films. \nTony Zosherafatain (co-director) Tony Zosherafatain is an award-winning director\, producer\, and writer. He most recently produced “AFFIRMATION\,” which was an official selection at several film festivals\, including NewFest\, Out on Film\, and the New York Short Film Festival. He also directed “TRANS IN TRUMPLAND\,” which was Emmy-shortlisted and nominated for a GLAAD Media Award and is streaming on Prime Video\, Apple TV\, and Tubi. His films have screened at domestic and international film festivals\, including Nashville Film Festival\, Richmond International Film Festival\, OutFest\, Inside Out\, and NewFest.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”166509″ img_size=”full” css=””][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text css=””]John Hulsey is an artist and filmmaker. He has screened and exhibited his work internationally\, at venues such as The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts\, the U.S. Pavilion of the Venice Architecture Biennial\, Los Angeles Contemporary Archive. His first film\, This Side of History\, premiered at Cinéma du Réel in 2019\, where it received the Prix International de la Scam. His work has been supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation\, the Foundation for Contemporary Art\, Points North Institute\, the Film Study Center at Harvard University\, and LEF.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column offset=”vc_hidden-lg vc_hidden-md vc_hidden-sm vc_hidden-xs”][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][vc_separator][vc_column_text] \nFrom the Event \n[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row]
URL:https://uniondocs.org/event/undo-spotlight-a-showcase-of-supported-projects-2026-11-21/
LOCATION:UnionDocs\, 352 Onderdonk Avenue\, 352 Onderdonk Avenue\, Ridgewood\, NY\, 11385\, United States
CATEGORIES:Screenings & Events
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/gif:https://uniondocs.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/gif-18.gif
GEO:40.7099952;-73.9507576
X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=UnionDocs 352 Onderdonk Avenue 352 Onderdonk Avenue Ridgewood NY 11385 United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=500;X-TITLE=352 Onderdonk Avenue:geo:-73.9507576,40.7099952
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR