Catherine Gund, Director/Producer

Catherine Gund, the Founder and Director of Aubin Pictures, is an Emmy-nominated producer, director, writer, and activist. Her media work focuses on strategic and sustainable social transformation, arts and culture, HIV/AIDS and reproductive health, and the environment. Her films - which include Chavela, Dispatches from Cleveland, American Rhapsody (in progress), Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity, What’s On Your Plate?, A Touch of Greatness, Motherland Afghanistan, Making Grace, On Hostile Ground, and Hallelujah! Ron Athey: A Story of Deliverance - have screened around the world in festivals, theaters, museums, and schools; on PBS, the Discovery Channel, and the Sundance Channel.

Gund’s most recent projects include: Dispatches from Cleveland (CIFF, MSPIFF), a five chapter documentary that looks at the police murder of 12-year-old Tamir Rice and shows how people joined together to vote out the prosecutor who didn’t have their backs; Chavela (Berlinale, Hot Docs, Ambulante) a documentary about the life of the iconic Latin-American gender-bending diva, Chavela Vargas; and Born to Fly (SXSW, Full Frame, PBS), a documentary that pushes the boundaries between action and art, daring us to join choreographer Elizabeth Streb and her dancers in pursuit of human flight.

Gund currently serves on several boards including Art For Justice, Art Matters, and The George Gund Foundation. She co-founded the Third Wave Foundation which supports young women and transgender youth, and DIVA TV, an affinity group of ACT UP/NY. She was the founding director of BENT TV, the video workshop for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth. She was on the founding boards of Bard Early Colleges, Iris House, Working Films, Reality Dance Company and The Sister Fund and has also served for MediaRights.org, The Robeson Fund of the Funding Exchange, The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School, and the Astraea Foundation. An alumnus of Brown University and the Whitney Independent Study Program, she lives in NYC with her four children.

Daresha Kyi, Director/Producer

Daresha Kyi is an award-winning filmmaker and television producer with over 25 years in the business. After working in the New York City independent film community, she decided to attend film school and became a member of the scholars program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts where she graduated with a degree in Film & TV. She also won a full fellowship from TriStar Pictures to attend the Directors Program at The American Film Institute (AFI) based on her multiple award-winning short film. She wrote, produced, directed and co-starred in Land Where My Fathers Died with Isaiah Washington. She also served as executive producer of the award-winning short, Thugs, The Musical! starring David Alan Grier and Margaret Cho. Most recently she was a field producer on Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell, story producer on La Voz Kids (Telemundo's The Voice for children), and the writer for the weekend morning talk show Arise & Shine, hosted by Richard Pryor's daughter, Rain.

A natural born story teller, Daresha has produced television for WE, AMC, OXYGEN, E!, BRAVO, and FUSE among many others. As comfortable in front of as behind the camera, she started acting in junior high and went on to study the art at Sarah Lawrence College, HB Studios, and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She has acted in numerous short films and TV programs and has served as a reporter, correspondent, and host of numerous film, fashion, and music programs.

Her love of music goes back to numerous childhood musical theater productions. Daresha has also performed with and recorded an album with Chilum, a popular Hawaii based reggae band, was a member of the LA based Angel City Chorale, and was the lead singer in a rock and R&B cover band called Reciprocity. She is also currently co-directing Aubin Pictures' Dispatches from Cleveland.

Carla Gutierrez, Editor

Carla Gutierrez is a documentary editor based in New York City. She edited the Oscar nominated film La Corona for HBO and the Emmy nominated documentary Reportero, which broadcast on POV. Carla also edited Kingdom of Shadows which premiered at SXSW, opened theatrically in Mexico, and it is slated to broadcast on POV in 2016. Her latest work, When Two Worlds Collide premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival where it won the World Documentary Special Jury Award for Debut Feature. Screen International Magazine described When Two Worlds Collide as a, “deftly edited, heart-on-sleeve social documentary.” And Variety Magazine observed, “Carla Gutierrez is key in shaping a coherent narrative from what was doubtless a daunting mountain of material on a complicated subject.” Carla’s work has screened at Sundance, IDFA, SXSW, Full Frame, AFI, Los Angeles Film Festival, HotDocs, Ambulante, among other festivals. Her films have broadcast on HBO, BBC’s Storyville, POV, Independent Lens, the Sundance Chanel, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. She has been a creative adviser for the Sundance Edit Lab, and a mentor for Firelight Producers’ Lab. Carla received a Masters in Documentary Film from Stanford University.

Gil Talmi, Composer

Gil Talmi is a world-renowned Emmy-nominated composer, producer and recording artist with a passion for socially conscious projects. Blending his traditional orchestral background with eclectic world music sensibilities and tasteful analog electronics, Talmi has created a signature sound that can be heard in many award winning productions worldwide. Some of Gil's most recent work includes Desert Migration (Best Revenge Productions), Remittance (Greenmachine Films) and The Memory of Fish (Reelblue), narrated by Lili Taylor, which had its world premiere at SIFF 2016. Three documentaries which Gil scored premiered simultaneously at Doc NYC 2015: All Rise, The Lost Arcade (26 Aries) and Love Between The Covers (Blueberry Hill Productions). Gil has scored the Peabody Award winning documentaries Between The Folds (PBS Independent Lens), Who Killed Chea Vichea? (PBS) and New Year Baby (PBS Independent Lens), winner of the Amnesty International 'Movies That Matter' Award. Other work includes music for Food Chains (Illumine Films), directed by Sanjay Rawal, narrated by Forest Whitaker, featuring Eva Longoria and Eric Schlosser, Entre Nos (IndiePix), winner Best Film at the Traverse City film festival, Bill W. (Page 124 Productions), Forgotten Ellis Island (PBS) and Daisy Bates: First Lady Of Little Rock (PBS). Gil was nominated for a National News and Documentary Emmy Award for his work on CBS Evening News and recently won Best Documentary for his score for Tales Of The Waria (PBS).

Natalia Cuevas, Cinematographer, Mexico

Natalia Cuevas is a Mexico City–based cinematographer whose body of work includes the feature lms Elvira and Ricochet. Her television credits include work for HBO Latino and the USA Network, as well as extensive commercial work.

Paula Gutiérrez Orío, Cinematographer, Spain

Paula Gutiérrez Orío is a documentary cinematographer based in Madrid. The majority of her work has been developed for Spanish television and other international networks and has covered a wide variety of topics from the famous reality game show Pekín Express to documentary programs Con Una Sonrisa for RTVE and 24 Horas Con Los Nuestros and El Xef for Mediaset-Spain. She also shot the docu-reality series Quiero Ser Monja, an adaptation of The Sisterhood: Becoming Nuns for Mediaset-Spain.

Laura Tatham, Associate Producer

Laura Tatham hails from the world of book publishing, having spent five years working in both the corporate (Simon & Schuster) and non-profit (Feminist Press) sector. In that time, she worked on multiple New York Times bestsellers, as well as Lambda Literary and Pulitzer Prize winning works. She has experience in marketing, publishing, as well as film and book production. She has a background in literature, having earned a Master’s degree in American Literature from Drew University in 2009. Laura is also associate producing Aubin's Dispatches from Cleveland. Laura resides in Jersey City with her loving partner and cat.

Laura Pilloni, Associate Producer

Laura Pilloni has been working on feature-length and short form documentary and narrative film projects such as Front Cover (2015) and Kingdom Of Shadows (2015) since 2013. Most recently she was an associate producer for the upcoming women and human rights documentary, Home Truth. Keeping in line with her work on these impactful films, she was very excited to become part of such an innovative and socially conscious production company when she joined the Aubin Pictures team.

Laura graduated summa cum laude from the City College of New York (CCNY) where she received a BFA in Film and Video Production. She worked as a tutor and administrative assistant at the CNNY Writing Center for four years. She was also a mentor and videographer at Hofstra University's Documenting Diversity program. In her spare time, Laura enjoys working as an assistant director on short films, reading, and watching films.

Hajer Salem, Assistant Editor

Hajer Salem graduated with degrees in both Sociology and Biology from Louisiana State University. She forwent graduate studies in medicine to pursue a career in storytelling. Post-graduation, Hajer spent time traveling throughout American, Europe, and North Africa. She also spent two years working with at-risk girls through Americorps and Girls, Inc. She has worked as an assistant editor for films that have screened at Sundance, SXSW, and Tribeca As an editor, she has worked for Complex, Vice, Mssng Peces and BBDO. Alongside her editing work, she currently works as a creative for Laundry Service's new media startup Cycle.

Adrián Gutiérrez, Archival Producer

Adrián Gutiérrez is a Mexican filmmaker and archival researcher extraordinaire. He has been in the film industry for over twelve years working on a variety of filmmaking endeavors, from commercials to documentary films to educational videos. In 2011, he co-founded his own production company, NOMAD Media Group, which has more than 100 film and video projects to date, including “Cielos Despejados”, an educational YouTube channel about science and astronomy in Spanish. In 2015, he was a Field Associate Producer on the documentary, Kingdom of Shadows (2015), directed by the Emmy-nominated Bernando Ruiz and distributed by Participant Media. Adrián received a degree in Filmmaking and TV Production from Transforming Arts Institute (previously known as Escuela TAI) in Madrid, Spain. He is currently in NYC as a fellow of the UnionDocs Collaborative Studio 2017 and loving meeting all sorts of people, especially if it involves traveling or scuba diving!

Tanya Selvaratnam, Production Consultant

Tanya Selvaratnam is an Emmy-nominated and Webby-winning producer, artist, and activist. She is the Senior Producer for Art Not War and co-founder of Humanity for Progress. Tanya is the author of The Big Lie; and her writing has appeared in Vogue, CNN News, Bust, The Stranger, Art Basel Magazine, Paper, Women’s eNews, and xoJane. With Catherine Gund, she produced Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity and What’s on Your Plate?. She has also produced projects by Gabri Christa, Chiara Clemente, Laura Dawn, Mickalene Thomas, Carrie Mae Weems, Jed Weintrob, and more; and has created branded content for clients like Mercedes-Benz and Baccarat.

As an activist, she has worked with the Ms. Foundation, Third Wave Fund, World Health Organization, Groundswell Community Mural Project, Gays Against Guns, The DO School, and the NGO Forum on Women/UN World Conference on Women. Selvaratnam received her B.A. and M.A. in Chinese language and history from Harvard University. http://www.tanyaturnsup.com/

Lourdes Portillo, Consulting Producer

Portillo is an Oscar-nominated writer, director, and producer of films focused on the search for Latino identity. She has worked in a richly varied range of forms, from television documentary to satirical video-film collage. Her films include Al Más Allá , El diablo nunca duerme: The Devil Never Sleeps, La Ofrenda: The Days of the Dead, Las madres de la Plaza de Mayo: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, and Después del terremoto: After the Earthquake.

Juan Mandelbaum, Consulting Producer

Based in the Boston area, Juan Mandelbaum runs Geovision, a multicultural communications agency. His television work has been broadcast on a variety of venues, from Independent Lens to Sesame Street and has won multiple awards, including Emmy awards and nominations. Juan was a producer/director at WGBH on the PBS series Americas, and senior producer on Ice Warriors, about the US Paralympic sled hockey team. His most recent film, Our Disappeared/Nuestros Desaparecidos, was supported by the Sundance Institute, Latino Public Broadcasting and ITVS. It played in over thirty festivals worldwide and aired on the PBS series Independent Lens and Global Voices.