Dawn Mikkelson

Dawn Mikkelson (Co-Director, Producer, Editor) Emmy Award winning producer and McKnight Filmmaking Fellow, whose work has broadcast, streamed and screened internationally. Festival screenings of her feature documentaries include: the Galway Film Fleadh, Cinequest, Mill Valley Film Festival, Heartland Film Festival, DOC NYC, Frameline Film Festival, and American Indian Film Festival. Broadcast and streaming include: APT (American Public Television), PBS, CBC (Canadian Broadcast Corporation), Yes-Docu (Israel), Duetsche Welle (Germany), iTunes, and Amazon Prime. In addition to FINDING HER BEAT, Mikkelson has completed six award-winning independent feature documentaries, RISKING LIGHT, THE RED TAIL, GREEN GREEN WATER, THIS OBEDIENCE, and TREADING WATER: A DOCUMENTARY, character-driven films highlighting power and joy in the margins, her sixth of which MINNESOTA MEAN, within the world of women’s flat track roller derby, premiered Spring 2023.

Keri Pickett

Keri Pickett (Co-Director, Director of Photography, Editor) Pickett is a producer, director and photographer. She is the Co-Director of FINDING HER BEAT (88 minutes, 2022) which premieres in the fall of 2022.

FIRST DAUGHTER AND THE BLACK SNAKE, (94 minutes, 2017) was selected by the Marfa Film Festival, the Native Women in Film and Red Nation Film Festival, and the Portland Eco Film Festival winning "Best MN Made Documentary Feature" from the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, a Red Nation Film Festival Courage Award, the Portland EcoFilm Festival Best Feature Film Award and the Frozen River Film Festival Minnesota Documentary Award. It is distributed by Virgil Films & Entertainment.
Her first documentary feature film THE FABULOUS ICE AGE, (2013, 72 minutes), also distributed by Virgil Films & Entertainment, is the winner of multiple awards and a "Netflix Original" distributed in ten languages for five years. Pickett also directs short films and music videos including NO MORE PIPELINE BLUES (ON THIS LAND WHERE WE BELONG.) Pickett is a member of Film Fatales.

Pickett is also a photographer whose work is in museum collections such as the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Art,

Pickett is the author of the award winning books LOVE IN THE 90s, (Warner Books, 1995) won the Best Photo Book award from American Photography and it had a first printing of 150,000 copies and was also published in Japanese. FAERIES (Aperture, 2000) was awarded the Lambda Literary Award, Best Art Book, 2000) and SAVING BODY & SOUL (Shaw Books, 2004) and started producing documentary feature films at age 50.

Jennifer Weir

Jennifer Weir (Executive and Producer) has been passionately studying, performing, teaching, and composing Taiko for the past two decades. Ms. Weir is the founding Executive Director of TaikoArts Midwest, Artistic Director of Ensō Daiko (formerly Mu Daiko), and a performing member of ensemble-MA, led by Iris Shiraishi. Ms. Weir is also a theater director and dramaturg with Theater Mu, and a past recipient of grants from Live Music for Dance MN, MN State Arts Board, MN Regional Arts Board, Arts International, American Composers Forum, and a Jerome MN Travel Grant. By day, Ms. Weir is a Financial Analyst and uses her business acumen to manage and keep her artistic projects on budget.

Caroline Mariko Stucky

Caroline Mariko Stucky (Field Producer / Cinematographer) is an award-winning Swiss-Japanese independent filmmaker with a fierce passion for American culture. For Caroline, film, the world of the image, is the ultimate language that trumps the whirling kaleidoscope of spoken languages of her childhood. Her work includes fiction, documentary, commercial, live performance videos, and music videos. With an unusually technical background, Stucky is active as both a cinematographer and director. She has been a member of the International Collective of Female Cinematographers since 2018.

Shiho Fukada

Shiho Fukada (Field Producer / Cinematographer) is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker, cinematographer , and photojournalist based in Tokyo. She started her career as a news photographer in New York and has a decade of experience shooting and producing stories nationally and internationally. She currently pursues underreported stories both in video and photography.

She has a degree in English literature from Sophia University in Japan and received a diploma in Multimedia Journalism from Ateno de Manila University in the Philippines. 

Her work has been featured in numerous publications including The New York Times, Time, Stern, New Yorker, Le Monde, CNN, and MSNBC, among others.

Me-Lee Hay

Me-Lee Hay (Original Score) composes for film, TV, dance and theatre. A Malaysian born Chinese-Australian, Hay has had works shown across many platforms including Netflix, Australian commercial TV channels to international platforms such as UKTV distribution and 360 degree dome planetariums. Off screen Hay has been commissioned by leading arts companies of Australia such as Sydney Dance Company's PPY & Sydney Theatre Company.

Me-Lee is a graduate of the Australian Film Television & Radio School (AFTRS), is an Associate Composer Representative of the Australian Music Centre and the Vice President of the Australian Guild of Screen Composers. She is published by Gaga music.

Carrie Shanahan

Carrie Shanahan (Editor) is a creative commercial editor, known for cutting award-winning national broadcast and web work, in additionto films and music videos, in Chicago, New York, andMinneapolis. 

Oscar Oboza

Oscar Oboza (Color Grading) has worked as a colorist since 1992, collaborating with directors and creatives across advertising, independent films, music videos, and short films. He has been influential in the marketing of many major NorthAmerican brands, crafting bold, eye-catching looks that draw the attention of broadcast audiences. As a feature colorist, Oscar has worked more subtly, supplying looks that support the stories of films such as Hoop Dreams, Fritz: The Walter Mondale Story, Memorial Day, Older Than America, Time For Ilhan, and most recently, Raise Your Voice.

Sam Keiser

Sam Keiser (Editor) has edited content for Rolling Stone Magazine,Food Network, Nature Valley, Polaris and many more. He most recently edited Breaking Trail, a documentary directed by Jesse Roesler about Emily Forde’s through-hike of the Ice Age Trail that premiered at Banff Film Festival in 2021.

Carly Zuckweiler

Carly Zuckweiler (Re-Recording Mixer and Field Sound) Zuckweiler (they/them) is an audio engineer based in Minneapolis, MN and has worked on a wide variety of projects ranging from music to independent films to post-production. They have worked with Target, Xcel Energy, Toro, Subaru, Best Buy, The Staves, Bon Iver, Mouse on Mars, Hiss Golden Messenger, Tom Hunter, Cap Alan, Cadence & The Wolf, and more.