Filmmakers

Ecko (stage name SacRED) is an award winning Nlaka’pamux artist, founder and CEO, raised

with the shishalh Nation and currently living on Pentlatch (Qualicum) Nation lands on

Vancouver Island. Ecko is a modern day shape-shifter with digital arts, storyteller through

movement and medicine woman of the heart, on a mission to support all people and the

planet to return to a natural rhythm of well-being. On her journey to self-determination from freelance artist to CEO, Ecko has gathered a tool-kit of knowledge that she now carries forward into the ever evolving transformation of her own healing journey and her business, Sacred Matriarch Creative. She weaves together ancestral guidance, circle teachings, sacred space facilitation, medicine, tools, technology, land-based ways of knowing and a vision of New Earth. Since the launch of Sacred Matriarch Creative in 2019, Ecko has won multiple awards and pitch competitions in the practice of speaking dreams into existence. She envisions a world where Indigenous peoples lead the way through ancient knowing and the next generations are empowered to thrive in their own unique gifts and voices.

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Sami Bass is a filmmaker and ancestral medicine worker focused on bringing the ancient ceremonial elements of storytelling into the future of filmmaking. She's traveled the globe to study with elders from traditions far and wide, bringing these practices to her work as a writer, producer, performer, and healer, bridging the gap between regenerative healing practices and modern media. She has been an influential voice in groundbreaking films and advocacy for years including MoviesByHer and The Redeemer. In 2020 Sami created the docu-series Disrupting the Silence in which she facilitated conversations between non-actors, encouraging them to explore challenging conversations from race to gender identity, in front of the camera to promote a culture that tackles difficulty rather than ignoring it. Sami has also worked alongside such organizations as LevelForward (Slave Play, Jagged Little Pill) and The Red Sands Project on advocacy and impact, creating awareness while carving space for lesser known voices in the industry. On one of her most recent films, We Ride for Her, Sami created safe interview spaces for human-trafficking survivors and their family members by integrating her healing and trauma-informed practices to her capabilities as a producer. In 2021 Sami worked alongside Golden Globe winner, Irene Bedard, and The Sundance Institute Fellowship recipients to explore parity in indigenous storytelling. Sami uses her skills as a healer, Black and indigenous woman, queer person, and filmmaker to weave safer spaces for the previously-voiceless while digging deep into the shadows of society, creating equality and healing for all.

Catherine Eaton is a director, actor, writer, and believes in storytelling as a powerful agent for change. She was selected as a Shadowing-Director for Ryan Murphy's Half Program and for Tribeca Film Festival's "Through Her Lens" Director’s Lab and Grant. Catherine directed/co-wrote the feature THE SOUNDING - starring Harris Yulin (OZARK) and Frankie Faison (THE WIRE) – which won over two-dozen awards on the festival circuit including four Festival Grand Prizes, sold to HBO for international broadcast, myCinema for North American theatrical, and was nominated for the SAMHSA Voice Awards for activism. She is currently at work on her next feature film, THE CONTROL ROOM, co-written by Naomi McDougall-Jones and Christian Coulson. Catherine’s pilot script FREE RADICAL – based on her experience working with freelance news crews in conflict zones – was selected for The Gotham/IFP's Project Forum. Catherine is a Statera Mentee under Showrunner Kit Steinkellner, and an inaugural Avalon: Story Fellow. She is a Director/Writer at Next Chapter Podcasts where she has directed seven fiction episodes and written/adapted 55 plus episodes in collaboration with Marcus Gardley (THE CHI), Oscar-winner Jeffrey Witty and others. She has created content for MSG's Garden of Dreams Foundation and shares an Emmy with the production team on "The Human Toll of Ethanol" (Bloomberg TV). As an award-winning actor, Catherine has performed on Broadway, in regional theaters across the country, on TV and film, and toured internationally. She was recently nominated for a Helen Hayes Award. Catherine teaches Screen Directing at Harvard, and is the founder of the Empathy|Genius Lab. She is Paraguayan and French-American.

Naomi McDougall Jones is a storyteller and changemaker. She has written, acted in, and produced two award-winning feature films. The first, Imagine I’m Beautiful (2014), collected 12 awards on the film festival circuit before receiving a theatrical and digital distribution deal and is now available on AmazonPrime. Her second feature, Bite Me (2019), was released via a paradigm-shifting 3 month, 51 screening, 40 city Joyful Vampire Tour of America that took the country by storm, and is now available on iTunes, GooglePlay, and Amazon. She is currently at work on her next two feature films: Hammond Castle, an adult fairytale for which she received the honor of being the first artist in residence at the final home of Ernest Hemingway in Sun Valley, Idaho, and The Control Room, a psycho-sexual thriller co-written with Christian Coulson. Naomi is an advocate and thought leader for bringing gender parity to cinema. Her writing on this has appeared in The Atlantic, Ms. Magazine, and Salon.com, and she gave a virally sensational TEDTalk, What it’s Like to Be a Woman in Hollywood, which has now been viewed over 1 million times and can be seen on TED.com. Naomi’s first book, The Wrong Kind of Women: Inside Our Revolution to Dismantle the Gods of Hollywood, debuted as a #1 Amazon bestseller and received an electric critical response, with The Christian Science Monitor calling it, “...an outpouring of passion that will change the ways in which movies are seen,” and is now available wherever books are sold. Naomi has been a guest speaker at NYU, Columbia, Harvard, and Cambridge Universities and her book is on the curriculum at colleges and universities around the globe. Naomi is currently at work on her second book, American Selkie. She is a Founder of The 51 Fund, a private equity fund dedicated to financing films by women. Their films Cusp and Shayda both premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won a Special Jury Prize and the Audience Award respectively. Shayda is Australia’s official entry for the 2024 Best International Feature Film Academy Award. Naomi is now the Head of reGEN films, which develops, incubates, and grows regenerative business models for the funding, creation, distribution, and marketing/impact of independent films in service of an emerging ecosystem through which the full range of available voices can transform audiences.

Charlene SanJenko is an Indigenous Storyteller, Impact Producer, and Media Visionary. Born in the Splatsin Band of the Shuswap Nation, Charlene believes inclusive innovation by creating from a place of collective genius and celebrating cohesive partnerships that bring stories of hope and possibility alive. Charlene is a veteran in the social impact and women’s leadership space, former municipal politician, and rural community economic development enthusiast. She is a former corporate executive in investment services, marketing & communications, and impact production through a digital publication, experiential events, a speaker series, and community television. As a newly emerging filmmaker, Charlene holds unbridled optimism for the power of regenerative media and relational filmmaking as our generation’s most powerful lever for intergenerational healing and transformative change - for our families and our future.

Sarah is an Emmy-nominated producer, documentary filmmaker, and creative working
in unscripted and scripted development for production companies and labs. She started
her career at CNN where she reported and wrote stories about race and identity for
Soledad O’Brien’s In America series, then later worked as a producer for ABC's Good
Morning America, Nike, CBS News/60 Minutes, BET, and VICE Media. She began
working in immersive storytelling at RYOT Media where she oversaw creative direction
and production for immersive, branded, and linear series before becoming an
independent consultant, producer and director. Sarah was voted one of the top 28 most powerful Black people in media by Blavity, was recently nominated for a Clio Award, and is the Co-creator of STILL HERE, an immersive experience that premiered at the 2020 Sundance Festival created in partnership with Al Jazeera Contrast. She recently produced Love, Lizzo for HBO Max and continues to work as a Professor of Journalism at USC and the CEO of TISSUE LLC and co-founder of Advocates for Inclusion in Media, an organization dedicated to supporting Black creatives in the industry.