About the team

Yvonne Russo (Director) an award-winning producer, director, and writer of film and television, is currently in post-production on her feature documentary, Viva Verdi!, which chronicles life inside Casa Di Riposo per Musicisti of Milan, the home that Giuseppe Verdi built-in 1896 for retired opera singers. She previously directed, wrote, and produced the animated short Minnie’s War Bonnet for PBS. She has produced over 75 Behind the Photo segments syndicated on the National Geographic International Channel. Other projects include 40 Under 40, for CBS/Smithsonian Network; Nat Geo’s Most Amazing Photos, All Roads Film Project andTop Ten Photos of 2010, as well as Capturing the Deep. Her feature film work includes the 2012 feature documentary The Rescuers: Heroes of the Holocaust, Naturally Native and True Whisperers: The Story of the Navajo Code Talkers, with Gale Anne Hurd’s Valhalla Motion Pictures. Russo is a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and of the Producers Guild of America, as well as a Board Member of New York Women in Film and Television. She’s a Sundance Institute Fellow, Tribeca All Access Fellow, and NALIP Artist Residency for Women. Yvonne is a member of the Sicangu Lakota Nation.

Amy Kaufman (Producer) left her position as an Executive VP of Production at Focus Features to establish her shingle Primary Productions under which she first produced Sin Nombre (2007). The film won numerous recognitions including the Best Directing and Best Cinematography prizes at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and the Jury Prize at the Deauville Film Festival. Amy, director Cary Fukunaga and cinematographer Adriano Goldman were also nominated by the 2009 Film Independent Spirit Awards for Best Feature, Best Director and Best Cinematography, respectively. In 2010 Amy produced the feature film The Whistleblower and in 2012 produced Ain’t Them Bodies Saints written and directed by David Lowery, starring Rooney Mara, Casey Affleck and Ben Foster. She next produced Beasts of No Nation staring Idris Elba. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival and won numerous recognitions, including the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Abraham Attah’s breakthrough performance, an Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead also for Abraham Attah’s performance, an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Independent Motion Picture, A Screen Actors Award for Idris Elba and a Peabody Award.

Caroline Waterlow (Producer) most recently produced OJ: Made in America, an ESPN Films documentary directed by Ezra Edelman and winner of the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature at the 89th Academy Awards. The film premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and was recognized by multiple organizations such as IFP, Film Independent, the International Documentary Association, the National Board of Review, the Producers Guild, the Columbia School of Journalism, the American Film Institute, and was recently awarded a Peabody. Caroline has produced and contributed to documentaries, docu-dramas & public affairs programming for a variety of studios and networks. Recent feature documentaries include Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon, the directorial debut of actor Mike Myers that premiered at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival; and the Academy Award-nominated documentary, Cutie and the Boxer, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2013 and won Best Director of a U.S. Documentary.

Iris Ng (Cinematographer) is recognized as a versatile cinematographer, who lends her patience, creativity, intuition and skill to bring a director’s vision to the screen. For over a decade Iris has collaborated with award-winning directors collaborated with award-winning directors Sarah Polley, Min Sook Lee, Fredrik Gertten, Vikram Jayanti, Agnad Bhalla, Liz Marshal and Rama Rau on a variety of documentaries while shooting a wide variety of films for artist such as Chris Curreri, Oliver Husain, Annie MacDonnell, Jean-Paul Kelly and Luis Jacob. After obtaining her BFA in Film Production from York University, she has honed her craft shooting over sixty projects in many facets of the industry, from narrative, art and documentary films to commercials, music videos and episodic television. In the process, she has had the opportunity to work in Asia, Africa, Europe and across North America. Among other projects, Iris shot Making of a Murderer and Stories We Tell.

Untitled Annie Mae Aquash Documentary is a Cinereach grantee.

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