2026 For Us, By Us Filmmaker Incubator Team

Kevin White - Program Director

Kevin White is an award-winning documentary filmmaker with a focus on environmental and social issues. He has more than a dozen films that are in distribution, including his most recent film, Wilder than Wild: Fire, Forests and the Future, which has had 450+ community screenings and more than 850 broadcasts on PBS, plus educational distribution with Video Project. Kevin is the Co-Founder and Executive Director for Filmmakers Collaborative SF, and frequently consults with filmmakers on story approach, fundraising, and distribution. He is also on the Board of several media nonprofits.

Jennifer Crystal Chien - Program Director

Jennifer Crystal Chien is a documentary filmmaker with a focus on personal storytelling from immigrants and people of color. In 2017, she co-founded Re-Present Media, a grassroots nonprofit that advocates for personal storytelling in documentary film and nonfiction media. In addition to presenting films with community dialogues by established filmmakers, Re-Present Media also offers professional development for emerging filmmakers and coordinates field-wide advocacy campaigns to support and elevate voices from communities not often seen in media. Jennifer was the Program Director for Re-Present Media’s Re-Take Oakland program, a two-year public education and filmmaker mentoring program that supported documentary filmmakers of color creating personal films featuring stories of Oakland communities. Jennifer was named a DOC NYC Documentary New Leader in 2022. Jennifer also serves as the Board President of Filmmakers Collaborative SF.

Brenda Ávila-Hanna - Presenter, Mentor

Brenda Ávila-Hanna is a Mexican filmmaker and educator whose work connects to the complexities within transnational identities and communities. Her work as a director and producer has screened at Tribeca, Lakino Berlin, PBS, Frameline, and multiple festivals and outlets around the world. Brenda's work has been funded by BAVC, ITVS, The Redford Center, Ford Foundation and other film and arts organizations. She is a 2024 Sundance Producers Lab Fellow, a recent Rockwood/Just Films Fellow and a DOC NYC “Documentary Industry New Leader." She is a board member of the Watsonville Film Festival and a professor at UCSC. Brenda is currently a producer for the ITVS supported film Emergent City and in post-production on her first documentary feature, Libertad.

Spencer Nakasako - Presenter, Mentor

Spencer Nakasako has four decades of experience as an independent filmmaker. He won a National Emmy Award for a.k.a. Don Bonus, the video diary of a Cambodian refugee teenager that aired on the PBS series P.O.V. and screened at the Berlin International Film Festival. His other works include Kelly Loves Tony, Refugee, and Life is Cheap…but Toilet Paper is Expensive. Nakasako is the founder of the Media Lab at the Vietnamese Youth Development Center in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District where he collaborated with youth on filmmaking for seventeen years. He has lectured in the Social Documentation graduate program at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley. Nakasako is a member of the Writers Guild of America and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.