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 been supported by the Sundance Institute, BAVC, ITVS, The Redford Center, the Ford Foundation and many other film and arts organizations. Brenda is an alumni of the Sundance Producers Lab Program, the Rockwood/Just Films Fellowship, Points North, and a DOC NYC “Documentary Industry New Leader." She is a board member of the Watsonville Film Festival and a professor at UCSC. Brenda recently produced Emergent City (Dir. Kelly Anderson/Jay Sterrenberg), which premiered at Tribeca with a national broadcast on POV/PBS, and How to Clean a House in 10 Easy Steps (Dir. Carolina Gonzalez), winner of the T/F True Life Fund Award and SFFILM's Kirby Walker Golden Gate Award.
Selina Lewis Davidson - Presenter, Mentor
Selina Lewis Davidson is an Emmy-nominated documentary producer and co-founder of GreenHouse Pictures. Over the past three decades, she has produced more than 15 nationally broadcast documentaries, including the Emmy-nominated Hard Road Home and Family Name, as well as the acclaimed feature documentaries Occupation: Dreamland and Hell House.
Most recently, Selina made her directorial debut as co-director and producer, with Macky Alston, of the award-winning feature documentary Acts of Reparation,which follows two friends—one Black and one white—as they journey through the American South to explore the meaning of reparations to them, their families and ancestral communities. The film became the catalyst for her next endeavor: preserving the historic Bright-Lamkin-Easterling House in Monroe, Louisiana. Inspired by her family's history and the legacy of her great-great-aunt Fannie Ford, who lived and worked as a domestic on the property for nearly 70 years, Selina purchased the house in 2025 after five years of negotiations. She is now leading its transformation into the Pink House Heritage Cultural Center, a place dedicated to preserving overlooked histories, advancing genealogy and storytelling, and creating spaces for learning, dialogue, and community across generations.
Jasmín Mara López - Presenter, Mentor
Jasmín Mara López is a film director, journalist, and audio producer whose work explores social change through deeply personal storytelling. Rooted in her family’s ties to México and her upbringing along the U.S.–México border, she founded Project Luz to empower Mexican youth to tell their own stories.
Her audio documentary Deadly Divide: Migrant Death on the Border received an Excellence in Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. Her debut feature documentary Silent Beauty premiered at Hot Docs and received multiple awards, with support from Sundance Institute, Firelight Media, Chicken & Egg Pictures, Creative Capital, The Gotham, ITVS, and others.
Through her work, López is committed to storytelling that bridges personal memory, collective history, and systems of power, often centering voices shaped by migration, trauma, and resilience.