Shawn Antoine II is a filmmaker hailing from Harlem, NY, with an innate passion for storytelling. As a child, he began editing videos of his youth football games, demonstrating his early talent for the craft. After playing football and studying public relations at the University of Rhode Island, Shawn produced and directed his first short documentary, The Movement, which affirmed his calling in filmmaking. He is committed to creating content that informs and inspires audiences, and has since directed and produced several short films. His film Showtime received notable acclaim and was selected for 58 film festivals, including a Best New Director award from the Hip Hop Film Festival.

Shawn’s career extends beyond the film industry. In 2020, he was appointed Director of Admissions at Cardinal Hayes High School, his alma mater, making him one of the youngest directors of admissions in the country. Currently, he works as an assistant to Bill Carraro, a producer, on the highly anticipated HBO series The Penguin. As he begins his studies at NU, Shawn looks forward to collaborating with his peers and the greater Chicago community to produce inspiring stories.

Blair Barnes is a creative from South Central Los Angeles. He was formerly ¼ of the Staff Picks team at Vimeo, where he served as Curator. Prior to Vimeo, he contributed to the production and creative teams at Wieden+Kennedy and VIRTUE, the creative agency by VICE. He’s currently working on SHADOW BAN, an experimental verité regarding occupied Palestine, censorship, and the fidelity to capitalism in relation to the subject.

Seunghee Chang is a filmmaker and photographer from Seoul, South Korea. He recently graduated with a B.A. in film and English literature from Northwestern University. His work

examines stories of grief, faith, and obsession, and his films have been screened in festivals worldwide. An admirer of rivers and bridges, his latest film “The Beauty of Other Things” examines the Han river in Korea as a site of mourning through the perspective of a suicide survivor. At Northwestern, Seunghee aspires to create ethnographic films about those who deserve sympathy in our world. Seunghee is the 2019 recipient of the Kwanjeong Scholarship and the 2022 Burton and Karol Lefkowitz prize. He is also a violinist and an avid lover of Bach’s music.

Gríma Irmudóttir is a creative documentary director and producer from Iceland. She holds a BA from the University of Arts in London, where she wrote her thesis on the personal connection that individuals have with nature in Iceland and the various representations of grief and melancholia associated with the loss of natural phenomena to climate change and hydropower plants. For the past three years, Gríma has been working on various aspects of production for documentary features and series in Iceland. In November 2022, she premiered a series for Icelandic TV about home and belonging. Currently, Gríma is in post-production of two documentary features that she produced in collaboration with US directors. Gríma firmly believes in showing personal and intimate aspects of the issues she engages with. At Northwestern, she will be building a portfolio of work that aims to convey how individuals make sense of their world through reflections, identity-making, and contestation. Gríma looks forward to exploring diverse storytelling possibilities, adopting an approach that crosses and bridges various disciplines and methods.  

Blake Knecht is a filmmaker and photographer from Las Vegas, NV, specializing in analog and experimental processes. She recently graduated with a B.A. in Media Arts Studies and a minor in Environmental Science from Brigham Young University. Blake’s work notably engages with the female experience; her latest film as a cinematographer, “Our Mother,” is a nonfiction short regarding women’s relationships with the divine feminine, and has showcased at several international festivals. Her current project explores ethnographic and experimental techniques, using physiological data and documentary conventions to follow female Hmong shamans in the northeastern corner of Thailand. During her time at Northwestern, Blake seeks to use filmmaking to explore the intersection between climate change, environmental justice and women’s reproductive health.

Xiaolu Wang (b. 1991, Yinchuan) documents, curates, translates, maps interiority, mixes video, poetry, memory, and translations through a decolonial lens. They seek, feel, get lost, and fly kites. Suspended in between places and metaphorical landscapes, they search for a way of being that embodies vagueness and precision simultaneously.

Maya Castronovo is a filmmaker and documentarian from Wisconsin. Her work uses historical objects and archives in order to explore the connections between collective memory and environmental apocalypse. Her writing on documentary aesthetics has appeared in Bright Lights Film Journal and the Journal of Folklore and Education. She has a B.A. in Film and Media Studies from Columbia University.

Alan Medina is an artist, filmmaker & programmer interested in archival imaginaries, histories of labor, and alternative forms of self-organization within pedagogical frameworks. With a public practice of film programming and independent publishing, he has created autonomous learning and viewing spaces with an emphasis on community building. He is a co-founder of Inga Books and filmfront (Chicago, IL).

Victor Ramos is a documentary filmmaker from Chillicothe, IL by way of Northern California. Growing up in a town with a population under 7,000 has shaped his filmmaking focus to highlight underrepresented voices, and aim to foster empathy by showcasing triumphs, struggles, and commonalities between communities. While earning his BA at Northern Illinois University, Victor discovered his love for storytelling and produced the award-winning documentary, Already Home. Following his undergraduate studies, he self-produced a number of documentaries, leading to post-production contributions at VICE News and camera operation for CNN. At NU, Victor looks forward to exploring techniques that immerse the viewer through diegetic audio and learning new ways to approach filmmaking.

Fan Wang (fr. Yantai, China) is perhaps a human being living in this universe. She engages with the world through her filmmaking practice and the creation of insignificant poetry. She is drawn to the borderlands, philosophically as well as physically, and enjoys traversing the murky waters of pain and joy. Witnessing the manifestation and dissolution of politics in the everyday mundane, she trusts more than ever in the power of unhistorical acts and the human capability to appreciate the beauty in the brokenness and wholeness of their own being. She takes guidance from life only. She erases her past as she moves forward. She grew up by the sea and loves to hike deep into the anonymous mountains.