ABDUL AZIZ, a freelance New Orleans-based photojournalist, brings a rich background of chronicling imagery of global communities, from the Middle East to Africa, Asia, and the United States to his work. He has worked in documentary filmmaking worldwide for over a decade chronicling social issues related to race, exploitation of indigenous cultures, and unfair labor practices. He also produced the award-winning documentary “Member of the Club” about Black debutante society and culture in New Orleans. He was named the 2021 Documentary Photographer of the Year by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.
​
​
Darcy McKinnon is a documentary filmmaker based in New Orleans. McKinnon’s recent work includes Under G-d (dir. Paula Eiselt, Sundance 2023), Look at Me! XXXTENTACION (dir. Sabaah Folayan, SXSW 2022, Hulu) and The Neutral Ground (dir. CJ Hunt, Tribeca 202, POV). McKinnon is currently in production on Nailah Jefferson’s Commuted, Katie Mathews’ Roleplay, and Jason Fitzroy Jeffers’ The First Plantation among others. Her prior work - A Fine Girl, Animals, Maquilapolis and Live Nude Girls, UNITE! - has screened and been broadcast internationally Darcy is an alum of the Impact Partners Producing Fellowship, the Sundance Institute Creative Producing Fellowship, and one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 2020 25 New Faces in Independent Film. She is the former Executive Director of NOVAC as well as a former public school teacher in New Orleans and Savannah; she’s a native Floridian, obsessed with storytelling about the Gulf South and the Caribbean.
JEREMY BLUM is a filmmaker based in his hometown of New Orleans, Louisiana. He is Co-Producer on the 2022 Emmy-nominated documentary The Neutral Ground, which received a Special Jury Mention at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival and premiered as the 2021 season-opener on POV Docs. He recently produced director Angela Tucker's Webby-award winning series The Trees Remember, director Garrett Bradley's 2022 film exhibition Safe, and director Zandashé Brown's upcoming film Benediction. He has also produced multiple commercials and music videos for artists such as Big Freedia and Tank & the Bangas.
MATT SAKAKEENY is an Associate Professor of Music at Tulane University. His research relates music and sound to structures of inequality, especially anti-Black racism in New Orleans. He’s published three books: Roll With It: Brass Bands in the Streets of New Orleans (2013), Keywords in Sound with David Novak (2015), and Remaking New Orleans: Beyond Exceptionalism and Authenticity with Thomas Adams (2018), and his articles have appeared in journals such as Souls, Southern Cultures, Ethnomusicology, and Black Music Research Journal. Matt has received grants from the Spencer Foundation and the National Humanities Center for an upcoming book about marching band education in the New Orleans school system. He is a board member for The Roots of Music afterschool program and the Dinerral Shavers Educational Fund. Matt is also a guitarist and bandleader, and served as location sound engineer for the pilot stage of Rudiments.
STEPHEN ROSE practices corporate law in New Orleans. He produced two documentary films with Lily Keber—Buckjumping, and Bayou Maharajah. He graduated from Brandeis University and Tulane University Law School.