In post-production: Maggie Mackay works relentlessly to resurrect Vidiots, a legendary and influential nonprofit video store—to preserve the 40-year legacy of its female founders Patty Pollinger and Cathy Tauber, and spotlight their impact on filmmaking and popular culture. In the process, she overcomes personal tragedy, and learns to recognize and accept her own power.

Production Company: Fact or Fiction
Director/DP: Erick Kwiecien
Producer: Erick Kwiecien, Lisa Yadao
Editors: Erick Kwiecien, Steven Dupre, Ivan Narez Assistant Editors: Irene Yadao, Michelle Sampior

In pre-production: Nestled in the heart of Marrakech’s medina is a family restaurant set in a 200-year-old multi-generational home inhabited by capricious yet powerful jinns. Restaurant owner Kenza must confront generational legacies, family conflicts, personal fears, and the resentment of the jinns as she navigates the difficult decision to sell. Dar Marjana offers an intimate and transcendent portrayal of what it means to let go.

Production Company: Caravan Features
Director/Producer: Lamia Lazrak
Producers: Lisa Yadao & Irene Yadao
Consulting Producer: Manette Pottle

Filmmaker Ian Cheney embarks on an experiment in which he brings a series of keen-eyed observers - scientists, artists, a hunter - to a range of locations around the world, often without telling them where they are going, and asks them simply to describe what they see.

What unfolds is a deep exploration and celebration of the power of observation: what happens when you find new ways to sense and perceive the world around you? With customary whimsy and a small painted red square that Cheney brings on every journey, the film is an invitation to viewers to find beauty and meaning in even the most quotidian of locales.

Production Company: Wicked Delicate Films
Director: Ian Cheney
Executive Producers: Sarah Goodwin, Elliot Kirschner, Katy Chevigny
Producers: Meredith Desalazar, Rebecca Taylor, Manette Pottle
Cinematographer: Ezra Wolfinger
Co-Producers: Brandon Yadegari-Moreno, Irene Yadao
Editors: Sam Peisner and Ian Cheney
Assistant Editor: Irene Yadao

THE ARC OF OBLIVION explores a quirk of humankind: in a universe that erases its tracks, we humans are hellbent on leaving a trace. Set against the backdrop of the filmmaker's quixotic quest to build an ark in a field in Maine, the film heads far afield – to salt mines in the Alps, fjords in the Arctic, and ancient libraries in the Sahara – to illuminate the strange world of archives, record-keeping, and memory. Playfully weaving stop-motion animation, spellbinding cinematography and fascinating interviews from the director's inner circle and experts in the fields of science, culture and art – including documentarians Werner Herzog and Kirsten Johnson – THE ARC OF OBLIVION reveals how nature inspires the human drive behind filmmaking.

Production Company: Wicked Delicate Films
Director: Ian Cheney
Executive Producers: Greg Boustead, Jessica Harrop, Robyn Metcalfe, Werner Herzog
Producers: Meredith Desalazar, Manette Pottle, Rebecca Taylor
Co-Producer: Julia deGuzman
Cinematographer: Ezra Wolfinger
Editor: Ian Cheney
Additional Editor: Natasha Bedu, Daniel Quintanilla, Rebecca Taylor, Irene Yadao

Roots & Wings is a documentary series featuring women-of-color chefs who use food as a conduit for cultural awareness and as a means of perpetuating their cultural traditions. Episode 1: Yana Gilbuena was officially selected for: CAAMFest, Silicon Valley Asian Pacific Film Fest, LAAPFF, Boston Women’s Film Festival, San Francisco International Festival of Short Films, Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival, Across the Globe, All Asian Independent Film Festival, Food Film Festival.

Episode 2 (Irene Yoo) and Episode 3 (Parisa Parnian) are currently screening at film festivals nationwide.

Production Company: Paper Tongue
Producer/Director: Lisa Yadao, Irene Yadao, and Michelle Sampior
Director of Photography: Rachel Styer, Christine Marie Kelly, Irene Yadao
Editors: Jocelyne Chaput, Michelle Sampior, Yuko Inatsuki Oberjat, Heather Daniels Pusey
Colorist: Ayumi Ashley
Sound Design & Mix: Puka Novero

PICTURE A SCIENTIST chronicles the groundswell of researchers who are writing a new chapter for women scientists. Biologist Nancy Hopkins, chemist Raychelle Burks, and geologist Jane Willenbring lead viewers on a journey deep into their own experiences in the sciences, ranging from brutal harassment to years of subtle slights. Along the way, from cramped laboratories to spectacular field stations, we encounter scientific luminaries - including social scientists, neuroscientists, and psychologists - who provide new perspectives on how to make science itself more diverse, equitable, and open to all.

Production Company: Wicked Delicate Films
Director: Ian Cheney, Sharon Shattuck
Producers: Ian Cheney, Sharon Shattuck & Manette Pottle
Co-Producers: Oluwaseun Babalola, Irene Yadao
Editor: Natasha Bedu

From the ReelEarth Collection

Located on Costa Rica’s Pacific Coast, the city of Puntarenas sits upon a peninsula in the Gulf of Nicoya. A popular seaside getaway and an important fishing port, well-known to locals and travelers alike, Puntarenas is also home to a century-old municipal market. Within the market’s labyrinth of humble stalls, 65-year-old Camacho runs a shrimp-peeling business. She has done this work almost her entire life, depending on the luck of the catch and her own work ethic to support her family. Unlucky in love, she hopes for good fortune as she plays the lottery. This moving portrait by filmmaker Álvaro Torres-Crespo is a reminder that sometimes “only the ladle knows the problems in the pot."

Director: Álvaro Torres Crespo
DP: Álvaro Torres Crespo
Producers: Eli Kao, Josh Povec
Co-Producers: Brooke Saias, Camille Gunderson
Editor: Irene Yadao
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We wanted to know how everyone was coping during the pandemic—a time defined not just by physical isolation and anxiety but also economic hardship, rampant racism, and the Black Lives Matter movement. We wanted to hear about the hardships they were enduring, the challenges and fears they were navigating, the joys they were discovering, and the ways they were trying to make sense of the world. We asked friends from all across the globe to send us a video check-in for this Pandemic Shorts series.

Production Company: Paper Tongue
Producer/Director: Yadao Twins and Michelle Sampior
Editor: Irene Yadao and Michelle Sampior