Chicago native Erika Valenciana is a Chicana filmmaker with a Film & Video degree from Columbia College Chicago. Her award-winning work has been supported by Tribeca Film Institute, Kartemquin Films, Stowe Story Labs, Cine Qua Non Lab, Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs, Illinois Arts Council, Puffin Foundation, Allied Media Conference, DC Environmental Film Festival, and Chicago International Film Festival, where she won The Pitch for Industry Days. Valenciana amplifies her local community of women and non-binary filmmakers of color as Mezcla Media Collective’s Programming Coordinator. She shares underrepresented stories building towards a media landscape where diverse experiences are visible and celebrated.

Mitchell Wenkus is a documentary Director / DP whose love of the outdoors has shown up in his work. For 5 years, he was a Video Producer at Greenpeace USA where he created numerous advocacy videos and directed the short documentary Fracking in the Land of Lincoln. A film about a small towns’ contaminated water and the potential new oil boom in Mitchell’s home state of Illinois. His short documentary Judy’s Rock is about a woman refusing to sell her land to the world’s largest coal mining company. Mitchell graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a BA in Film and Video.