Production Team
BRETT KASHMERE
Co-Director
Brett Kashmere is a Canadian-born media artist, curator, and writer living in Oakland, California. Combining traditional research methods with materialist aesthetics and hybrid forms, Kashmere’s creative practice reframes dominant narratives about sports and illuminates new perspectives and histories. Previous film, new media, textile, installation, and writing projects explored the sociocultural history of basketball and its merger with hip hop; the spectacle of hockey violence and its disconnect with the Canadian self-image; traditions of athlete activism; counterhegemonic sports films and art; and American football as a media form. Kashmere's experimental documentaries explore issues of history and (counter-) memory, popular culture, and geographies of identity. Supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, The Heinz Endowments, Pittsburgh Foundation, National Film Board of Canada, and Saskatchewan Art Board, Kashmere’s films and videos have screened internationally at the BFI London Film Festival, Milano Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives, UnionDocs, Kassel Dokfest, British Film Institute, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Conversations at the Edge, Images Festival, Wexner Center, CROSSROADS, and elsewhere. Kashmere holds an MA in Film Studies and an MFA in Film Production from Concordia University. He is currently the Executive Director of Canyon Cinema Foundation.
SOLOMON TURNER
Co-Director / Producer
Solomon Turner is a filmmaker, cinematographer, producer, and co-founder of Hello Benjamin Films, an award-winning film production company. His work explores family history, identity, technology, the built world, architecture, systems and networks, Father-son relationships, and the nature of the mind. His approach to filmmaking is in the structuralist tradition studying under James Benning, but he also embraces the iterative nature of design and is happy to repeatedly rip everything up and start from scratch. His work is about trying to look at human life with fresh eyes, trying to reconcile his past with his present, and trying to understand who he is by looking back to his ancestors. As a curator, he co-founded the New Black Wave Screening Series which celebrates avant-garde voices in Black film. As a cinematographer, he worked with visionary multidisciplinary artist Edgar Arceneaux on Until, Until, Until which won the MacLaren Award at Performa15. Turner received his BA in Cinema Studies from Oberlin College and an MFA in Film/Video from CalArts. His work has screened at Slamdance, OutFest, Viennale, Prismatic Ground, and BlackStar, among others. He was invited to the Sundance Creative Producing Summit and received a Sundance Documentary Fund Grant.
MAGGIE CORONA-GOLDSTEIN
Producer
Maggie Corona-Goldstein is a Mexican-American producer and co-founder of Hello Benjamin Films. She was recently awarded the 2021 Sundance Institute Project Advancement Grant for a feature in production. Maggie is a Sundance Documentary Fund Grantee, and was named a Documentary Fellow for the 2021 Sundance Institute x Women In Film Financing Intensive. In 2020, she participated in the Visions du Réel Industry Rough Cut Lab with a feature in post production. Her work explores arts and activism, with a focus on social issues and community development. She has also served as a Program Coordinator in non-profit arts education for youth throughout Los Angeles. Maggie holds a BA in Theater and Creative Writing from the University of Oregon, and an MFA in Acting from the California Institute of the Arts.
DaMANUEL RICHARDSON
Producer
DaManuel Richardson is a writer, programmer, and creative producer with his award-winning partners at Hello Benjamin Films. His sub-rural upbringing and extensive family tree inspire stories exploring identity and healing generational trauma. Leaving the cow fields of Georgia behind, DaManuel journeyed to Los Angeles, where he attained his MFA from CalArts and landed a coveted gig as a showrunner's assistant. He currently programs shorts for the Sundance Film Festival and sits on the BIPOC selection committee for the Sundance Screenwriters Lab. His pilot, THE SQUIRE, was selected to participate in the Stowe Story Labs 2022 and is in the Top 1% on Coverfly's Red List. DaManuel is repped by Patrick Strapazon of Stellar Entertainment.
KATRINA DIXON
Researcher
Katrina Dixon is a media archivist and independent researcher based in Lexington, KY. She serves as Vice President of the board of the Center for Home Movies, and is the founder of the Kentucky Amateur Film Archives, a charitable organization that collects and provides access to amateur films and home movies relating to Kentucky and the surrounding regions. She has worked with Franklin Furnace Archive (Brooklyn, NY), James Madison’s Montpelier/The Montpelier Foundation (Orange, VA), The New York Transit Museum, Northeast Historic Film (Bucksport, ME), and managed the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. She also leads a teleconference workshop for homebound seniors through DOROT University Without Walls, utilizing group listening to sharpen minds, trigger memories, and create community.
Funding Support
The Pittsburgh Foundation and The Heinz Endowments
University of California, Santa Cruz
Grand Central Art Center, Santa Ana, California
FISCAL SPONSOR
Project Advisors
DR. TRAVIS VOGAN
Associate Professor of American Studies, University of Iowa
Travis Vogan’s research focuses on the intersections among sport, media, and U.S. culture. His particular expertise lies in television, media industries and institutions, documentary, and the relationship between commerce and cultural value. He is the author of Keepers of the Flame: NFL Films and the Rise of Sports Media (U of Illinois P, 2014) and ESPN: The Making of a Sports Media Empire (U of Illinois P, 2017). His current book project, ABC Sports: The Rise and Fall of Network Sports Television (U of California P, 2018) uses the American Broadcasting Company’s influential sports TV division to outline the development, politics, and transformation of sports television from the 1950s through the early-2000s. Some published articles have been featured in American Art, Television & New Media, Popular Communication, Communication & Sport, Journal of Sport History, International Journal of Sport Communication, Journal of Sports Media, The Moving Image, and various edited collections. Vogan has served as a contributor to and source for national and global media outlets that include the New York Times, NPR’s Marketplace, Washington Post, Wired, and Deadspin. He currently serves as associate editor of the Journal of Sport History and co-editor of the University of Illinois Press book series Studies in Sports Media.
DR. SAMANTHA N. SHEPPARD
Assistant Professor of Performing and Media Arts, Cornell University
Samantha N. Sheppard is the Mary Armstrong Meduski ’80 Assistant Professor of Cinema and Media Studies in the Department of Performing and Media Arts at Cornell University. Coeditor of From Madea to Media Mogul: Theorizing Tyler Perry (UP of Mississippi, 2016), her published essays appear in Film Quarterly, Cinema Journal, Journal of Sport History, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Black Camera: An International Journal and L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema (U of California P, 2015). She is currently working on three manuscripts: Sporting Blackness: Race, Embodiment, and Critical Muscle Memory on Screen, Screening Basketball (forthcoming from Rutgers UP), and Phantom Cinema: Black Feminist Film That Never Was.
DR. KRISTEN FUHS
Assistant Professor of Communication, Woodbury University
Kristen Fuhs’ research and teaching interests center on media and cultural studies, with particular specializations in documentary and film history. She received her PhD in Critical Studies from the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, and before joining Woodbury’s faculty taught at CSU-Fullerton and Loyola Marymount University. Her articles have appeared in journals such as Cultural Studies, Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies, and The Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television. She also has forthcoming work that will appear in The Journal of Sport and Social Issues and the anthology Vocal Projections: The Voice in Documentary Film. Fuhs is the co-founder of Docalogue, an online space for scholars and filmmakers to engage in conversations about contemporary documentary.
DR. JODI KASHMERE
Neurologist
Jodi Kashmere is a practicing neurologist and an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Division of Neurology in the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.
SARA KRUGMAN
Designer and Health Data Consultant
Sara Krugman is an Oakland-based designer working to change the way medical devices, data and health care services are delivered. She is particularly interested in how design for behavior can impact the relationships we have with technologies. She has moved through research, art and design to affect the experiences of diabetes care.
JOHN SPIAK
Director and Chief Curator, Grand Central Art Center
John D. Spiak was appointed Director/Chief Curator of California State University, Fullerton’s Grand Central Art Center (GCAC), Santa Ana in September of 2011. His curatorial emphasis is on contemporary art and society, with focus on works in socially engaged practices and video. Through the GCAC Artist-in-Residence initiative, GCAC hosts national and international artists as they develop projects. Prior to his appointment at GCAC, he was Curator at the Arizona State University Art Museum, joining that staff in 1994. He has curated over 100 solo and group exhibitions, working directly with artists including Pipilotti Rist, Shirin Neshat, Brent Green, Tony de los Reyes, Kenyatta A. C. Hinkle, and Adam Chodzko. His projects have received support from such prestigious organizations as The British Council, Metabolic Studio, Polish Cultural Institute, National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), CEC ArtsLink, Multi-Arts Production (MAP) Fund and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Spiak currently serves on the Editorial Board for the journal Museum and Social Issues, Advisory Board of SPArt (Social Practice Art - Los Angeles), and Board of Community Engagement.