About

LANA WILSON is an Emmy-winning and two-time Spirit Award-nominated director and writer. Her most recent film, the two-part documentary Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, premiered at Sundance 2023, was a New York Times “Critics’ Pick,” and broke viewership records when it launched globally on Hulu and Disney+. Pretty Baby was nominated for a Critic’s Choice Award, two Cinema Eye Honors, and two Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Directing for a Documentary/Nonfiction Program.

Wilson’s previous film, the Taylor Swift documentary Miss Americana, was the opening night film of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and a Netflix Original. Miss Americana was a New York Times Critics’ Pick, an IndieWire Critics’ Pick, and named one of the five best documentaries of the year by the National Board of Review.

In 2017, Wilson’s film The Departure was called “a work of art” by the San Francisco Chronicle and a “genuinely spiritual experience” by the Washington Post. The Departure premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2017, played at festivals around the world, and was nominated for the 2018 Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary. Wilson’s first film, After Tiller (2013), which goes inside the lives of the four most-targeted abortion providers in the country, premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and went on to win an Emmy Award for Best Documentary. It was also nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary, four Cinema Eye Honors, a Satellite Award, and the Ridenhour Prize.

Wilson created and directed A Cure for Fear, a four-episode series for Topic, which played SXSW and was nominated for the 2019 International Documentary Association Award for Best Short-Form Series. Wilson is currently in pre-production on her first fiction feature, Back Seat, for which she won the SFFILM Westridge Screenwriting Grant and the Melissa Mathison Fund Award at the Hamptons Film Screenwriters Lab.

Wilson has been awarded artist fellowships from the Sundance Institute, MacDowell, Yaddo, and Film Independent, and has taught at Pratt Institute. She was named to DOC NYC’s inaugural “40 Under 40” list and is a recipient of the 2019 Chicken & Egg Award. Wilson is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Creative producer and showrunner, CHRISTINE O’MALLEY has a body of work that includes over two dozen documentaries. For her latest project, O’Malley reteamed with director Lana Wilson to produce Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields. After a world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, the two-part documentary will debut on Hulu. Previously, O’Malley collaborated with Wilson on Taylor Swift: Miss Americana. In addition to being a NY Times Critic’s Pick, it was the opening night film at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival prior to its global premiere on Netflix.

O’Malley has produced several films through her company O’Malley Creadon Productions, with her longtime partner, Patrick Creadon. Wordplay, the first film she produced through her company, was nominated for both a Critics’ Choice Award and a National Board of Review Award. O’Malley and Creadon’s follow up film I.O.U.S.A., premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and was shortlisted for the Oscars. Other projects include If You Build It, Ski Bum: The Warren Miller Story, Hesburgh and most recently, The Loyola Project. Her work has screened at film festivals around the world and has been distributed by IFC Films, Roadside Attractions, HBO, ESPN, Netflix, Nat Geo and Hulu among others.

In addition to serving on panels and juries in the independent film community, O’Malley served as Festival Director for AFI DOCS during its transitional year in 2014. Currently, O’Malley is developing several projects both fiction and documentary and she is in post-production on a documentary series. She is a proud member of the Producer’s Guild of America and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

She is married to and collaborates with director, Patrick Creadon. Besides making films, they are raising 3 daughters in Los Angeles.

DAVID TEAGUE is an Emmy-winning documentary film editor and writer. His work as a writer includes the HBO special Between The World And Me, which he adapted for the screen based on the book by Ta-Nehisi Coates. He wrote the forthcoming feature film Cassandro with director Roger Ross Williams and Julián Herbert, starring Gael García Bernal. His work as a documentary editor includes the Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning Life Animated, the Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning Cutie And The Boxer, and The Departure, nominated for the 2018 Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary. Most recently he edited Spaceship Earth, nominated for two Critics Choice Awards and The Cage Fighter, also nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. Other editing work includes the Oscar-winning short documentary Freeheld. He was the story consultant for the NY Times Critic’s Pick Miss Americana and he was the supervising editor for the Emmy-nominated Becoming, based on Michelle Obama’s memoir.

KYLE MARTIN is the founder of the independent film label Electric Chinoland. His most recent project, Dash Shaw’s animated feature “Cryptozoo,” won the Jury Prize in the 2021 Next section of the Sundance Film Festival and is currently in release by Magnolia Pictures. His latest documentary feature “Jagged” about Alanis Morissette premieres on HBO on November 18th. He’s currently in production on a two-part HBO doc about Paul Reubens with Director Matt Wolf and Executive Produced by the Safdie Brothers; a feature doc with Director Margaret Brown and Participant Media; a feature documentary about psychics with Director Lana Wilson; and a short doc with ESPN’s 30 for 30 and Director Lance Edmands.

His recent credits include the HBO Documentary series “The Vow,” and “RECORDER: The Marion Stokes Project.” His previous projects include the Independent Spirit Award nominee Donald Cried; the GKids 2017 release My Entire High School Sinking Into The Sea; and Lena Dunham’s Tiny Furniture (Independent Spirit Award Winner 2011). He is a recipient of the Sundance Institute’s Mark Silverman Producing Fellowship, the San Francisco Film Society’s Kenneth Rainin Foundation Fellowship, the IFP/Cannes Marche Du Film Producer’s Network Fellowship, the Sundance Institute/Rotterdam Cinemart Producing Fellowship, and was named one of Variety magazine’s “Ten Producers to Watch.”

SHRIHARI SATHE is a New York based director and producer. Sathe most recently won the 2019 Film Independent Spirit Award – Producers Award. His credits as producer/co-producer include Jaron Henrie McCrea’s PERVERTIGO, Eliza Hittman’s IT FELT LIKE LOVE and BEACH RATS, Partho Sen-gupta’s SUNRISE (ARUNODAY), Afia Nathaniel’s DUKHTAR, Bassam Jarbawi’s SCREWDRIVER, Ritu Sarin & Tenzing Sonam’s THE SWEET REQUIEM amongst others. Sathe’s feature directorial debut –1000 RUPEE NOTE has received over 30 awards.

His latest production Paul Felten & Joe DeNardo’s SLOW MACHINE premiered at 2020 International Film Festival Rotterdam and was a selection of the 2020 New York Film Festival. He has received fellowships from the HFPA, PGA, Trans Atlantic Partners, IFP, Film Independent and The Sundance Institute to name a few. In 2016, Sathe received the Cinereach Producer Award. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor and Senior Production Advisor at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Sathe is a member of the PGA, IMPPA, SWA-India, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

ÁINE PENNELLO is a documentary producer based in Brooklyn. She has worked on series and films for ABC, Hulu, Disney+, National Geographic and HBO. She has a background in news with an MA in international reporting from the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Her reporting on LGBTQ issues was nominated for a GLAAD Media award in 2014. In 2016, she received a grant from the International Center for Journalists to report in the Golan Heights. She enjoys bird watching and hula hooping.

HANNAH BUCK is a film editor with a focus on creative non-fiction and experimental forms. Her background in visual arts largely informs her approach to editing. Her films have screened at festivals all over the world, including Sundance, Berlinale, CPHdox and many others. Recent editing credits include Searchers (Sundance 2021) directed by Pacho Velez, Vision Portraits (SXSW 2019) directed by Rodney Evans, The Proposal (Tribeca 2018) directed by Jill Magid and executive produced by Laura Poitras, Chef Flynn (Sundance 2018) directed by Cameron Yates, and Chico Colvard’s Black Memorabilia (MoMA Doc Fortnight 2018). Earlier credits include Memories of a Penitent Heart (POV, 2017), directed by Cecilia Aldarondo, Terence Nance’s documentary series Triptych (PBS, 2015), and Nance’s acclaimed debut feature, An Oversimplification of Her Beauty (Sundance, 2012).

DAVID OSIT is an Emmy Award-winning documentary film director, editor and composer. His most recent film Mayor (2020) was released in over 80 cinemas across the US, was a New York Times Critic’s Pick, played at hundreds of film festivals worldwide, broadcast on POV, and is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel and MUBI. His film Thank You For Playing (2015) premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, also broadcast on POV, and was nominated for three Emmys, winning for Outstanding Arts + Culture Documentary. His first film, Building Babel (2012), premiered at the True/False Film Festival and aired on PBS America Reframed.

Osit’s work as an editor includes feature films such as Off Frame (Toronto/Berlinale 2016), No Man’s Land (Tribeca 2017), Live From New York (Tribeca Opening Night 2015) and non-fiction television series such as The Vow (2020) and A Cure for Fear (IDA Best Series Award Nominee). His work as a consulting editor includes Procession (Netflix), Crime + Punishment (Hulu), and United Skates (HBO).

EMILY TOPPER is a cinematographer. She earned a Bachelors from Swarthmore College in Literature in 1999 and a Masters of Fine Arts from University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts in 2004. Her most recent films include “Miss Americana: Taylor Swift” (2020), “Rebel Hearts” (Sundance 2021), “Framing Britney Spears” (2021), and “Bulletproof” (2021). Emily lives in Los Angeles.

STEPHEN MAING is an Emmy-award winning filmmaker based in New York City. He is the director of photography for Drifting Cloud Productions’ forthcoming untitled psychics project. Stephen’s filmmaking merges an interest in underrepresented individuals and communities confronting complex power structures, and the nuanced storytelling of observational and visually-driven narratives. His 2018 film Crime + Punishment, filmed over four years, is a highly cinematic and systemic look at police corruption and criminal justice dysfunction through unprecedented access to a group of minority whistleblower cops, a rogue private investigator and wrongfully imprisoned youth. Crime + Punishment received a Special Jury Award at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, a 2019 Emmy Award for Outstanding Social Issue Film and was shortlisted for the Oscar for Best Documentary.

Stephen’s previous feature documentary, High Tech, Low Life chronicled the gripping story of China’s first dissident citizen-journalists fighting state-monitored censorship and was broadcast nationally on the award winning series P.O.V. His short film, The Surrender, produced with Academy Award winner Laura Poitras, received a 2016 World Press Photo Award for Best Documentary and was nominated for a 2016 Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Documentary. Stephen has also made numerous short films published on Time Magazine, PBS, The Nation, New York Times, The Intercept and Field of Vision. Most recently he directed the 2020 film Dirty Gold, part of the second season of Alex Gibney’s Dirty Money series on Netflix.

FRANCES DEWEY joined Drifting Cloud Productions in 2022 and assists Lana Wilson. Frances holds a B.A. in Classics from Georgetown University with a minor in Film and Media Studies. She has also completed production coursework at USC School of Cinematic Arts. Frances previously worked as the Festival Manager at Double Exposure, a film festival and symposium that explores the intersection of documentary filmmaking and investigative journalism. She has also interned at television network Showtime and independent documentary production company 50 Eggs Films (A Most Beautiful Thing, I Am Jane Doe).

A fan of music, dance and cats, TRACY E. HOPKINS is an experienced lifestyle and entertainment writer who has written and reported for numerous print and digital publications, including Essence, Woman’s Day, Prevention, Fodor’s, People Magazine, Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly. The Baltimore native and longtime Brooklyn resident is also a documentary film and television producer who enjoys storytelling that uplifts, inspires and entertains. Tracy was a producer and writer on the award-winning documentary, “Maurice Hines: Bring Them Back,” a poignant portrait of the trailblazing tap dance and Broadway star. For Drifting Cloud Productions, Tracy is an Associate Producer-Researcher on projects that combine her interests in spirituality and pop culture.

JULIA LAWRENCE joined Drifting Cloud Productions as a researcher in 2020, when she began work on documentary series and features in development. She has a B.A. in Sociology from Emory University, and her curiosity about the intersection between sociological research and storytelling is what drew her to the world of documentary film. Most recently, Julia worked at Jigsaw Productions as a junior researcher on Generation Hustle, an HBO Max 10-part anthology series about the lengths young people will go to for fame and fortune. Previously she has harnessed her research skills to assist in developing human rights awareness campaigns and social impact resources at production companies such as Small World Films and Upstander Project.

SARAH FINEMAN (she/her) was a Story Associate Producer on the Drifting Cloud Productions’ psychics project, helping seek out and build relationships with psychics around the city to participate in the film. Previously, she was an assistant editor on the ACLU multimedia team and worked on projects for directors Anna Barsan and Shalini Kantayya. She is currently working as a Production Assistant at Multitude Films. Sarah graduated from the University of Chicago where she studied anthropology and neuroscience. In a past life, according to one of the readings she received, Sarah was an 18th-century Spanish woman living in the Netherlands who was extremely afraid of water.