Exclusive: PBS Indies Nominate Twelve 2024 Wyncote Fellows, Hosted by AmDoc at PBS Annual Meeting

American Documentary, the nonprofit organization behind POV, POV Shorts, and America ReFramed, announces the 12 selected Wyncote Fellows who will attend the PBS Annual Meeting in a curated program.

A unique opportunity that introduces filmmakers to the labyrinthian world of the PBS Annual Meeting, the seventh annual Wyncote Fellowship is coordinated by AmDoc in collaboration between PBS Indies partners POV, Firelight Media, ITVS, Reel South, America ReFramed, WORLD, and the five organizational members of the National Multicultural Alliance: Black Public Media, Center for Asian American Media, Latino Public Broadcasting, Pacific Islanders in Communications, and Vision Maker Media. 

The PBS Annual Meeting takes place May 13–15, 2024, and traditionally showcases upcoming shows and initiatives from PBS to staff from the 330 member stations and myriad nonprofits and service providers that integrate into U.S. public media. For the last decade, there has been a strong emphasis on multiplatform engagement and the future of public media. Filmmakers’ voices are often in short supply.

The Wyncote Fellows will attend curated events during the PBS Annual Meeting, including one-on-one meetings with station representatives and public media executives. 

According to a press release, Wyncote Foundation Vice Chair David Haas said, “Wyncote Foundation has been proud to support this valuable fellowship since its inception in 2017, and we are thrilled to convene a new cohort in Las Vegas this year. These innovative filmmakers truly exemplify the broad range of diverse and compelling voices that public media brings to local communities and national audiences.”

The shortened biographies of the selected 2024 Wyncote Fellows are republished below.

Elizabeth Ai is a documentary and fiction filmmaker, show creator, and alum of Sundance Institute, Berlinale Talents, Center for Asian American Media, Film Independent, and Firelight Media. She’s currently in post-production with her documentary feature New Wave and is simultaneously developing the dramatic series adaptation. 

Sisa Bueno is a filmmaker dedicated to exploring powerful ripple effects within humanity. Her work as a filmmaker has received support from the Ford Foundation, ITVS-PBS Open Call, Sundance Documentary Fund, International Documentary Association (IDA) Pare Lorentz grant, Firelight Media Lab Fellowship, and the Film Independent Documentary Lab Fellowship among others for her current work in progress, For Venida, For Kalief. She studied both film production and interactive technologies at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University (NYU).

Adamu Chan is a filmmaker, writer, and community organizer from the Bay Area who started filmmaking while he was incarcerated inside San Quentin State Prison. He produced numerous short films while incarcerated, using his vantage point and experience as an incarcerated person as a lens to focus the viewer’s gaze on issues related to social justice. In 2021, he was a recipient of the Docs in Action Film Fund through Working Films and was tapped to produce and direct his film What These Walls Won’t Hold, which won Best Documentary Mid-Length at the 2023 San Francisco international Film Festival and broadcast nationally on America ReFramed. 

Juan Carlos Dávila was born in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, and is a documentary filmmaker, journalist, and activist. He directed the feature-length documentary film, Simulacros de Liberación (2021). In 2023, he won two NY Emmys® for the TV series Puerto Rican Voices, where he worked as executive producer and directed one episode. Dávila is a former producer at When We Fight, We Win! The Podcast!, and news producer fellow for Democracy Now! where he continues to contribute as correspondent and producer. Beyond Democracy Now!, his journalistic work has been featured in TeleSur, The Washington Post, and The Indypendent. 

Amanda Erickson is born for the San Carlos Apache of the White Water Clan on her father’s side. Her journey of reconnection to culture and community would be the catalyst for her first feature documentary, She Cried That Day, which investigates the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives through the eyes of the Indigenous Women and Allies on the frontlines in New Mexico. Before making her directorial debut, Amanda worked as a non-fiction TV Producer for 16 years, where she created compelling programming for networks like the Travel Channel, National Geo WILD, Investigation Discovery, and CuriosityStream. She intends to continue her work in journalism bringing fresh perspectives and new voices to mainstream media. 

Gabrielle Alafagamalufilufi Faʻaiʻuaso loves the layers of storytelling, escaping into books and movie plots. Filmmaking combined her love of visuals and stories, and went on to study film at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa to the Academy for Creative Media where she received her Bachelor of Art in the Digital Film Track. During her time there, she mentored and taught at the Hawaiʻi Women in Filmmaking non-profit to girls (grade 8—high school). Gabby has participated in several film festivals including the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival 2015, Shanghai International Film Festival 2014 and prior to COVID, participated in Māoriland's 72 Hour Native Film Festival 2020. She returned home to continue her love of film to share the stories of her Sāmoan people through her creative media businesses, Alafaga and Fale Film LLC. 

Matthew Hashiguchi is a documentary filmmaker and Associate Professor in Multimedia & Film Production at Georgia Southern University. His most recent documentary, The Only Doctor, had its world premiere at the 2023 Hot Docs Documentary Film Festival and was broadcast nationally on PBS Reel South. His previous documentary feature, Good Luck Soup, had a national broadcast on WORLD’s America ReFramed, and received a 2016 Documentary Fund Award from the Center for Asian American Media and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He is a recipient of a 2019 Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund Award, a 2021 American Stories Documentary Fund from Points North Institute and CNN Films, and successfully installed an irrigation system in his backyard. 

Eric D. Seals is a seasoned cinematographer and film director with 10+ years of experience creating and managing feature films, television, and digital content series. Most recently, he was a Director of Photography on The History Channel’s Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Massacre and ESPN’s Omitted: The Black Cowboy. He graduated from Murray State University in Kentucky with a degree in Electronic Media and is an adjunct Professor at DePaul University, teaching a Sports Documentary class. Eric is also the founder and creative director of Digife, a documentary production company based in Chicago. 

Erica Tanamachi's first documentary feature, Home Court (2024) received the 2023 ITVS Open Call award and will broadcast on Independent Lens in 2025. Her previous film, WINN, premiered at the 2022 Atlanta Film Festival and won a Reel South Shorts Award and Best Short Award from the PBS Short Film Festival and Justice on Trial Festival. WINN is distributed on PBS Reel South. Erica was Creative Producer for the feature documentary Motherload (2019) which garnered the HERO award from Better Cities Film Festival and Best International Documentary from the Hollywood North Film Awards. Tanamachi also won Best Documentary from The Sonoma Film Festival, Silverlake Film Festival, and The Documentary Foundation for her short documentary, Living Poets. 

Alfredo Torres is a documentary filmmaker from Costa Rica. With a strong focus on themes of migration, LGBTQIA+ rights, and the environment, his work often explores contemporary aspects of creativity, culture, and identity. Alfredo's debut short documentary Jardines premiered at the esteemed Telluride Film Festival in 2023. Alfredo holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from UC Berkeley, where he was awarded the special Marlon T. Riggs Fellowship Award. His work has appeared in outlets for the United Nations and Mongabay. His pursuits in non-fiction work have also been supported by renowned institutions like the Berkeley Film Foundation. 

Jane M. Wagner is a documentary filmmaker and television producer based in Los Angeles. Her debut feature documentary Break The Game had its world premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival, where it won a Special Jury Mention for Best New Documentary Director. On the television side, Jane was a supervising producer on the National Geographic science series When Sharks Attack… and Why and an associate producer on the Emmy-award-winning series Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown. In 2023, Jane was featured in Filmmaker Magazine as one of the “25 New Faces of Film.” Her work has been supported by the Sundance Institute, Film Independent, the IDA, the Logan Nonfiction Program, DOCNYC, and the True/False Rough Cut retreat. Jane is currently in production on her second feature documentary *holds you tight*. 

Stevie Walker-Webb is a Tony Award-nominated, Obie Award-winning director, playwright, and cultural worker who believes in the transformational power of art. He is the Artistic Director of Baltimore Center Stage and his work has been produced on and off-Broadway, including Aint’ (The Public Theatre/Broadway), One in Two (The New Group), Black Odyssey (Classic Stage), Fairview (Woolly Mammoth), and Our Town (Baltimore Center Stage). He is founder of HUNDREDSofTHOUSANDS, an arts and advocacy organization that makes visual the suffering and inhumane treatment of incarcerated mentally ill people. He has received the Princess Grace Award for Theatre, the Lily Award from the Dramatists Guild of America, and is a 2050 Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop.