Toni Acbebe Bell is the creator/host of the What’s Up with Docs Podcast. She is the impact producer for the award-winning film “A Woman on the Outside”, an impact consultant for RePresent Justice, and an upcoming documentary-building initiative on centering survivors of trauma from a human rights framework. She was the Impact Strategist for Odyssey Impact and Looky Looky Pictures, Abigal Disney’s The American Dream, and Other Fairy Tales. She has been a speaker, panelist, reviewer, mentor, and juror at documentary film festivals, labs, and funds such as the California Humanities, Dok Leipzig, EFM, and others. She holds an MA in Visual Anthropology (USC), an MFA in Creative Writing (Naropa University), and a certificate in professional screenwriting (UCLA.) 

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Themba is in charge of Diversity & Inclusion of the European Film Market (Berlinale) on a seasonal basis. This work includes inclusion-focused industry programming and co-managing the Doc&Fiction Toolbox Programmes as well as the EFM (Online) Market Badge Inclusion Initiative. Alongside Mitchell Harper and Tiny Mungwe, Themba is the co-founder of Engage, a series of curated think tank conversations on the pertinent, challenging and multi-faceted questions facing the African (diaspora) screen sector. Themba is also one of the founding members of the Programmers of Colour Collective (POC2).

Erika Dilday, producer, journalist and media executive, is the Executive Director of American Documentary and the Executive Producer of its award-winning documentary series POV on PBS and America ReFramed on WORLD. Previously, she was the CEO of Futuro Media Group, a multimedia organisation that gives a critical voice to the diversity of the American experience through award-winning journalistic content for and about BIPOC.

She is a graduate of Harvard College, the Columbia School of Journalism and Columbia Business School. In 2020 she was a Knight Nieman fellow at Harvard University where she authored a piece for the Nieman Reports on authentic journalism in communities of color. Her latest film projects include “Civil War” with Rachel Boynton and Meanwhile with Catherine Gund.

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Judy Kibinge began her career in advertising as Creative Director of a multinational agency leading Pan African campaigns for global brands such as Coca-Cola. She has written and directed several award winning fiction and documentary films.
In 2013, she founded DOCUBOX, Sub Saharan Africa’s first homegrown fund and hub for independent filmmakers. In 2021, she was named Most Influential Woman in Film at the Women in Film Awards (Kenya). She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture and Sciences and sat on the Documentary Branch Committee from 2018-2024. She’s building an exciting new real estate venture, KEJA designed to unlock East African Creative Economy.

Filmography:
“Dangerous Affair”, 2002, Writer and Director 
“Something Necessary”, 2016, Director, and Story Adaptation 
“The Letter”, 2019, Executive Producer 

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Mungai Kiroga is a Kenyan screenwriter, director, and editor. To date, he has written scripts for several TV shows. These include three soaps,  three dramas and one comedy. In 2013, Mungai wrote a feature film titled “Something Necessary” (produced by German director Tom Tykver).

Mungai has also worked as a content director for several Kenyan & East-African Reality shows, including Tusker Project Fame and Bongo Star Search, Tanzania.

He is currently the internal producer at DOCUBOX and has overseen the production of 30+ titles. Mungai is also the co-producer of a documentary that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2024.

He was also recently Production Manager for the Video Consortium, an NGO supporting documentary filmmakers worldwide. While at Video Consortium, he managed the production of 20 short documentaries filmed in multiple African countries.

Filmography: 
“Something Necessary”, 2013, Scriptwriter
“Searching for Amani”, 2024, Producer

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Co-director, writer and executive producer of VR “Nightsss” – a virtual erotic poem premiered at Sundance Film Festival and awarded for The Best Sound Design for VR & AR Reality at Cinequest in 2021. Coordinator of DOK Exchange XR (DOK Leipzig) since 2022. Expert of the Committee for Innovative Film Projects at the National Film Institute in Poland (2021). Spoken word poet, performer, digital storyteller, PhD in cultural studies, and independent curator of XR. Researcher and writer of XR climate change games for Guest XR – an international research project on an AI agent for harmony in social XR environments (at Warsaw University). She experiments with interdisciplinary forms of poetry. Her poems were published in Romania, Estonia, South Africa and Poland.

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XR-Projects:
“Nightsss” – VR 6DoF, 2021, Co-director/Writer/Executive producer

Exhibitions/Curations: 
“The Liberated Voice – Sound Poetry”, 2019, Palais de Tokyo in Paris
“The City of Dreams”, 2022, Bureau of Artistic Exhibitions in Krosno
“A polyphony of voices - Artist reflections”, 2017, PAO, ROM for kunst og arkitektur Oslo

Mudamba is an Arts & Film Administrator who is currently Docubox’s General Manager, after serving as its Programs Director for 10 years, since its inception. He is a trained accountant who followed his passion for the arts and film. He is a former Treasurer of the Kenya Film & Television Professionals Association-KFTPA and is currently a member of the Creative Economy Working Group-CEWG and the East African Screen Collective-EASC. Both these bodies advocate for better policies, funding and distribution of creative products.

Credited as Executive Producer on several finished DOCUBOX documentary films like “The Letter”, “New Moon”, and “I am Samuel”, and also on short films such as “The Morning After”, “Coachez”, “If Objects Could Speak” et al., Mudamba appreciates the Impact of Film. He has also been called upon as a juror and selector at International Film Festivals.

He believes that sector collaborations and co-productions are urgent to spur our Film Industry and enable the sharing of our authentic stories with the world.

Filmography: 
“The Letter”, 2019, Executive Producer
“New Moon”, 2018, Executive Producer
“I am Samuel”, 2020, Executive Producer
“The Morning After”, 2020, Executive Producer
“Coachez”, 2020, Executive Producer
“If Objects Could Speak”, 2021, Executive Producer

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Lucy Mukerjee is a queer non-binary British-Indian community builder and cultural worker dedicated to elevating the careers of underestimated storytellers, with 20+ years of experience producing films, programming festivals, and curating artist development programs. In 2023, Lucy became the Director of the Documentary Lab fellowship at Firelight Media, the premier destination for non-fiction cinema by and about communities of colour, founded in 1998 by Stanley Nelson and Marcia Smith.

In 2019, Lucy co-founded the Programmers Of Colour Collective, a global grassroots group of BIPOC film festival programmers calling for programming inclusion on-screen, on-stage and on-staff, at film festivals. Lucy is a vocal advocate for ethics and accountability across the film industry ecosystem, and believes in the power of storytelling to expand perspectives and change cultural narratives.

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Meena Nanji is an award-winning filmmaker who has produced, written and directed independent documentaries, experimental videos and short narratives that have screened at international film festivals and broadcast on global television. Her projects have been funded by the Sundance Documentary Fund, World Cinema Fund, IDFA Bertha, Just Films, HotDocs Blue Ice and others. She's also programmed film/video festivals, including Outfest in Los Angeles, She is a co-founder of GlobalGirl Media and has taught film workshops in India, Uganda and the US. Her most recent feature documentary “Our Land, Our Freedom” concerns the legacy of British colonialism in Kenya and an ongoing struggle for land by dispossessed Kenyans. The film premiered at IDFA in November 2023.

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Shakira is an educator from The Netherlands who joined the California Film Institute’s Education Department by way of the Sarasota Film Festival and Sundance Institute. With a deep passion for storytelling, Shakira attributes her drive for community, justice and common sense from the cultures of her Mother and Father hailing from Suriname and Trinidad respectively. Her career has been dedicated to empowering young independent thinkers through the exploration of art history and creative expression—prioritising equitable praxis through engagements with film as well as demystifying the path for BIPOC students to becoming film fest administrators and curators. You’ll often hear her shouting “WE NEED MORE BLACK PROGRAMMERS!!” from the rooftops of her current home and office in the Bay Area, CA to anyone who will listen… .

Emily Rogers is an Associate Programmer, Digital Strategy & Filmmaker Services curating nonfiction films with bold craft that spotlight the changing contours of an ever-evolving America. She is also a filmmaker and photographer based in Brooklyn, NY.  

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Sunil Sadarangani is a Mumbai-born, Los Angeles-based award-winning producer and writer with 15+ years of experience in international film and TV production and is passionate about creating and promoting diverse and inclusive stories for global audiences.

He is the co-founder and former director of programming of the Ojai Short Film Festival and showcased Academy Award-nominated and winning films and episodic series. As a producer, Sunil develops, produces, and executive produces English, Hindi, and Spanish language content, award-winning feature and short films, such as “The Answer”, “How Much Do You Want to Know”, “In Transit”, “Blind”, and “Nova”.
 Sunil is also a contributing writer for New York Amsterdam News, Deadline Hollywood, and American Kahani, covering filmmakers and artists of colour at major film festivals and industry award events.

The California State Senate has recognised him for his ongoing commitment to creativity and innovation in the Los Angeles community.

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