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THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH is a thrilling, nine-year journey into the heart of Sumatra’s Leuser Ecosystem—a 2.6-million-hectare rainforest where tigers, elephants, rhinos, and orangutans still roam free. Filmed by a dedicated mostly Indonesian crew, this investigative documentary follows a group of extraordinary wildlife activists as they risk everything to save one of Earth’s last untouched wildernesses from the devastation of the illegal palm oil industry. From dramatic animal rescues and high-stakes arrests of poachers to the reforestation of thousands of hectares, each victory underscores the power of human determination in the face of overwhelming odds. “The Last Place on Earth” reveals the urgent need to protect our planet’s most irreplaceable treasures before it’s too late. Director David Booth Gardner joins us in conversation. About the filmmaker - A visionary entrepreneur, David Booth Gardner possesses a diverse professional background in sports PR/management and as a writer, director and producer. Having produced hundreds of hours of programming for leading networks and Fortune 500 companies, Gardner knows exactly what it takes to successfully execute media projects for brands of all sizes. CEO & CO-FOUNDER, LIKUID ART

In 1977, PK, a 23-year-old street artist from a marginalized “untouchable” family in Delhi, set out on an extraordinary 6,000-mile journey across continents with little more than a handful of paintbrushes and a secondhand bicycle. Driven by an unwavering desire to reunite with Lotta, the Swedish woman who had captured his heart, he travels through unfamiliar landscapes, navigating borders, language barriers, and the limits imposed by class and circumstance. What begins as a deeply personal quest unfolds into a remarkable story of resilience, chance, and human connection. Along the way, PK encounters strangers who offer kindness, skepticism, and support, revealing the unpredictable ways in which lives intersect across cultures. Director Director Orlando von Einsiedel joins us for a spirited conversation on his own journey and what the story of P.K. and Lotta taught him about the power of love. About the filmmaker - The Cycle of Love Director Orlando von Einsiedel is an Academy Award–winning director and founder of the UK-based creative studio Grain Media. His work includes the Academy Award–winning THE WHITE HELMETS and the Academy Award–nominated VIRUNGA, as well as the BIFA-winning EVELYN, the Emmy-nominated LOST AND FOUND and CONVERGENCE: COURAGE IN A CRISIS, the Platino-nominated THE LOST CHILDREN, and the critically acclaimed Netflix series HEART OF INVICTUS. His latest project, THE CYCLE OF LOVE, is forthcoming. As an executive producer, his credits include the Academy Award–winning LEARNING TO SKATEBOARD IN A WAR ZONE (IF YOU’RE A GIRL), the Emmy-nominated SCOUTS HONOR, and the Emmy Award–winning BUY NOW!.

From Alison Reid, the director of the critically acclaimed documentary about the late and beloved zoologist Anne Innis Dagg, The Woman Who Loves Giraffes, comes her latest feature documentary, THE ART OF ADVENTURE. An exhilarating road-trip film and a heartfelt love letter to the natural world, The Art of Adventure is an inspiring and deeply human documentary about the extraordinary lifelong friendship between world renowned wildlife artist Robert Bateman and fearless biologist Bristol Foster. Now in their 90’s, they still find sanctuary in nature. Their story is a moving reflection on legacy, mortality and the wisdom of our elders, and a reminder that humanity and nature are inseparable. About the filmmaker - Director and Producer Alison Reid is an award-winning Canadian filmmaker known for stories of adventure and exploration of the human spirit. After a groundbreaking career as a stunt performer and one of North America’s first female stunt coordinators, she founded Free Spirit Films to pursue bold, character-driven storytelling. Her debut feature, the LGBTQ2+ comedy The Baby Formula, opened the Mannheim Heidelberg Film Festival in 2008 and screened world-wide. She went on to direct and produce the critically acclaimed feature documentary The Woman Who Loves Giraffes, which won multiple Best Film and Audience Awards and enjoyed a wide theatrical release across Canada and the United States. With positive reviews by The New York Times, The Washington Post, LA Times, Variety and The Wrap, the film holds a 100% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and continues to resonate with audiences worldwide. Continuing her work spotlighting iconic, inspirational people, Alison’s new feature documentary The Art of Adventure celebrates a transformative 1957 journey by wildlife artist Robert Bateman and biologist Bristol Foster. Early on the festival circuit, the film won multiple awards, finding enthusiastic audiences. When not making films, Alison enjoys directing television.

Over a decade after Miss Representation exposed the media's contribution to the under- representation of women in leadership, Miss Representation: Rise Up dives deep into the cultural backlash against women's agency and power. With the proliferation of AI and deepfakes, this new era of tech-facilitated violence is exacerbating sexism and misogyny towards women and girls, in an attempt to control and silence them. With inspiring young women at its core, Miss Representation: Rise Up interweaves young women’s personal journeys alongside powerful voices in media, culture, leadership, and academia to reimagine a future that finally uplifts women and girls. We are joined by the Director and Producer of Miss Representation and Miss Representation: Rise Up! Jennifer Siebel Newsom. About the filmmaker -Jennifer Siebel Newsom is an award-winning filmmaker, influential thought leader on gender equality, and the First Partner of California. After graduating with honors from Stanford University and Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, she wrote, directed, and produced the award-winning documentary Miss Representation (2011), which explores the media's misrepresentation of women and girls and theresulting underrepresentation of women in positions of power and influence in America. As a result of Miss Representation's impact, she launched The Representation Project, a nonprofit organization that uses film, media, and education as catalysts for cultural transformation. Her subsequent films — The Mask You Live In (2015), The Great American Lie (2019), and Fair Play (2022) — further explored masculinity, systemic inequality, and domestic inequity. Jennifer also executive- produced the Emmy Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated The Invisible War (2012), and the Emmy Award-winning documentaries The Hunting Ground (2015) and On the Record (2020).

Following the Yellow Vest protests of Paris in 2018, internal affairs officer Stéphanie Bertrand must investigate the conduct of her fellow police officers during the demonstrations. Though striving to remain objective, Stéphanie’s position leaves her at stark odds with the rest of the police force. When she scrutinizes the near-fatal assault of a teenage protester from her hometown, Stéphanie is met with growing institutional pressure to drop the case and move on. The further her investigation develops, the more Stéphanie’s faith in the system she belongs to is tested. From Dominik Moll, the award-winning French director of The Night of the 12th, comes his latest procedural -- “a piercing slow-burn examination of police brutality” (The Hollywood Reporter) led by the “marvelous” (Screen Daily) Léa Drucker in a César-winning role for Best Actress. Timely and socially resonant, CASE 137 is a tautly constructed study of institutional violence which asks charged questions about corruption and accountability in the criminal justice system. About the filmmaker - After considering a career as a wildlife filmmaker, Dominik Moll discovered the films of Alfred Hitchcock and decided to switch to fiction. He studied film at the City College of New York and at the IDHEC in Paris, where he met his long-time collaborator Gilles Marchand. Together they have written the screenplays for most of their individual films. In the 1990s, Moll worked as an editor and an assistant director (notably with Laurent Cantet and Marcel Ophuls) and directed his first feature, Intimité (1994). His second film, With a Friend like Harry, was screened in competition in Cannes in 2000 and was a hit with critics and audiences, winning 4 Césars. In his following films, Moll continued to explore genre movies, while integrating more and more social themes. In 2023, The Night of the 12th won 7 Césars after being praised by both critics and audiences. Dominik Moll has also worked on two international series, including Eden (for Arte) on the intersecting destinies of migrants throughout Europe. His latest film, Case 137, is being presented in competition at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. Its French release is scheduled for November 19th.

Directed by Susanne Rostock (Sing Your Song), FOLLOWING HARRY joins legendary artist and civil rights leader Harry Belafonte as he embarks on a deeply personal and reflective journey, inspiring the next generation of entertainers and activists to disrupt injustice across the globe, striving for impactful change. FOLLOWING HARRY is an intimate documentary that chronicles the last twelve years of legendary Harry Belafonte’s life, highlighting the artist-activist's enduring commitment to social justice. Fueled by his tremendous sense of urgency to inspire the next generation of entertainers and activists to stand for justice, the film provides a window into both his public endeavors and private moments, capturing his journey from the aftermath of the death of Trayvon Martin, to his engagements in the protests in Ferguson, the Women’s March (which was created in his office), to the deeply and profound conversations in his home. The film ultimately amplifies Harry’s belief that “each generation must be responsible for itself. All I can do is leave behind the crumbs of my experience. I have a trail that you can follow, if you find value in it, pick it up and if you don’t, bring something better.” In addition to Harry Belafonte, Following Harry features; Aja Monet, Angela Davis, Aloe Blacc, Carmen Perez, Chuck D, Gina Belafonte, Jamie Foxx, Jesse Williams, Kerry Kennedy, Matt Post, Phillip Agnew, Rod Starz, Rosario Dawson, Sean Pica, & Talib Kweli and many more. About the filmmaker - Long esteemed as "an aural and visual poet", Susanne Rostock's filmmaking is a stunning 40 years of some of the most compelling documentaries of each decade. Her most recent film as director/editor, FOLLOWING HARRY, is a sequel to her film, Sing Your Song , about Harry Belafonte's earlier life as an artist and activist and was chosen to open the U.S. Documentary Competition section of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Sing Your Song received top honors in festivals around the world, was shortlisted for an Oscar, and garnered the NAACP Image Award and a Gracie for Outstanding Director. An EMMY NOMINATED editor and director, she has achieved recognition on a myriad of films that continue to endure and resonate. Her 20-year multi-award-winning collaboration as editor with director Michael Apted has produced such richly provocative films as: The Long Way Home ; Incident At Oglala ; Me & Isaac Newton ; Inspirations; The Power of The Game; Moving The Mountain . Rostock is presently engaged in producing, directing, editing the documentary Between Starshine and Clay: The Hidden Diary of Diahann Carroll , co-directed by Suzanne Kay and Executive Produced by Serena and Venus Williams. Susanne studied anthropology and ethnographic filmmaking with Margaret Mead at Columbia University and received an MFA in Filmmaking from New York University. She resides in New York City.

Inspired by Roscher’s own biracial experience, BIRD IN HAND follows the newly engaged Bird Rowe (Alisha Wainwright) as she returns to her rural hometown to plan the wedding with her narcissistic hippie mother Carlotta (Christine Lahti). Bird also has a hidden agenda, one that leads her to her mother's new neighbors, a misguided couple on a mission to 'rebrand' a plantation. Truth, lies, and fantasy collide against that backdrop, leading to a surprising climax as tender as it is funny. Roscher's bitingly comic feature film debut weaves themes of race, belonging, and family into Bird’s mercurial journey back to herself. James LeGros, Jeffrey Nordling, and Annabelle Dexter-Jones co-star in this A Future of Film is Female Release. We are joined by the director and co-writer Melody Roscher. About the filmmaker - Melody Roscher debut feature film as a writer and director, Bird In Hand premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival in the US Competition category. The film is preceded by a companion short film she wrote and directed, White Wedding, that premiered at 2021’s Sundance Film Festival, and played in dozens of festivals around the world. Her directing and writing work comes off years of Producing film, television and commercial work. Some notable works include Borderline Films Antonio Campos, Sean Durkin, and Josh Mond’s works Christine; James White, Simon Killer, and Martha Marcy May Marlene. For these works she was nominated for two Independent Spirit awards including best first feature for James White, and Piaget Producer’s Award for Christine. Other cult favorites include Dean Fleischer-Camp’s Catherine, starring Jenny Slate, and Robin Comisar’s Great Choice. Melody hails from both New York City, and Richmond, Virginia where she now resides. She’s a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

In The Last Message, Kelsie Kimberlin travels to Ukraine to uncover why her 21-year-old cousin Andrii Rachok was killed by Russian forces during their full-scale invasion. Kelsie, a popular American-Ukrainian singer, struggles to record her song Star in his memory, realizing she must first seek absolution and witness Ukraine’s fight herself. Along the Ukrainian frontline, she meets soldiers, commanders, luminaries, and ordinary citizens enduring Russia’s unjust war, and visits Andrii’s gravesite amid drone and missile attacks. Through her journey, she discovers that Andrii has forgiven her and that every Ukrainian is a star and hero, defending their country with courage and resilience. We are joined my the subject of The Last Message Kelsie Kimberlin. About the subject - Kelsie Kimberlin is a 27-year old singer-songwriter who has been involved with music her entire life, starting with children’s and church choirs and then recording her first song at age eight for Yoko Ono’s Peace Project, which won first prize and a $5000 award. She spent all of that money on music lessons and started recording her own music in the studio at age 12. Over the past several years, she has recorded more than 100 original songs. About the filmmaker - Oleksii Mykhailovych Liebidiev is a Kyiv-based director, cinematographer, editor, and producer, and a graduate of the I. K. Karpenko-Karyi Kyiv National University of Theatre, Cinema and Television. Over more than a decade, he has built a body of work spanning documentary and narrative film, working alternately as director, cinematographer, or both. His documentary credits include Alchemy of the Word (2012), which he directed and shot, Krasna Malanka (2014), and Naive Painting of M. Onatsko (2017), both as director of photography. In fiction, he shot the shorts Cold Rain of Solitude (2018) and Stronger Than an Angel (2018), and the feature The Address on the Wall (2021). More recently, Liebidiev directed and served as director of photography on the documentary series Extraordinary Fascism (2022) and the feature documentary The Last Message (2025). About the filmmaker - Andrii Voloshyn is a Ukrainian film director, producer and editor. He was born on July 27, 1980, in Chernivtsi, Ukraine. He began his professional career in audiovisual production as a production organizer and producer. A major stage in his professional development was his long-term collaboration with director and producer Serge Krutsenko. Working on concert, television, theatre and film projects, Voloshyn gradually moved from production into editing and directing. As an executive and line producer, he participated in cultural and film projects including the multimedia show The Little Prince for the ROSHEN fountain, projects of the Watch Ukrainian! initiative, the film anthology Everything Begins in Kyiv, the screen version of Yevhen Stankovych’s folk-opera When the Fern Blooms, the concert project Insha Rika by the band Druha Rika with NAONI, and the documentary film The Address on the Wall. He studied directing at the National Academy of Culture and Arts Management. At the beginning of 2022, Voloshyn joined the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation’s expert council in the field of audiovisual arts. After the beginning of Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine, he focused on documentary filmmaking. In 2022–2023, together with Oleksii Liebiediev, he worked on the documentary trilogy Extraordinary Fascism, examining contemporary Russian fascism, state propaganda and the ideological causes of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. In 2023, as director and executive producer, he created the music videos Armageddon, Another Chance To Live Again and Turn Back with American singer Kelsie Kimberlin, focusing on Russia’s war against Ukraine. In May 2024, shortly after moving to the United States, Voloshyn proposed developing Kimberlin’s story as a feature-length documentary. This became The Last Message, on which Voloshyn served as co-director, co-author of the concept and screenplay, and editor.

STALIN BOYS follows four Mexican American middle school boys in a tiny Texas border town who have developed an unusual obsession with Joseph Stalin. When their teacher tells them about the Texas State History Fair, they decide to write and perform a play about the Soviet dictator and his efforts to destroy all who opposed him. Armed with cardboard props and fur hats purchased on the internet, the boys enter the competition as underdogs and leave home for the very first time. What begins as an eccentric school project develops into a funny, surprising and deeply engaging exploration of power, tyranny, bullying, history, friendship, and the ways young people grapple with ideas much larger than themselves. Joining us on Cinemafile are the co-directors of Stalin Boys Bianca Giaever and Ora DeKornfeld. *SXSW Audience Award Winner & SXSW Special Jury Award About the filmmaker - Filmmaker and radio producer Bianca Inga is the creator and host of the podcast Constellation Prize, distributed by The Believer Magazine. She has also worked as a producer on The New York Times audio team, hosting episodes of The Daily that include Delilah, An Obituary for the Land, and Cosmic Questions. Her film, radio, and print stories have appeared on This American Life, Radiolab, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Believer Magazine, and the TED conference. In 2013, her college short film the Scared is scared was named “Web Video of the Year” by USA Today. Her awards include a Daytime Emmy and a Webby Award and she is represented by m ssng p eces for commercial directing. Her latest project and upcoming film, Free Help, was profiled in The New York Times. She is currently a fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University and an Associate Fellow at the Film Study Center at Harvard University. You can follow her latest on Instagram. Originally from Seattle, she is currently based in Cambridge, Massachusetts after having spent many years between Vermont and New York City. About the filmmaker - Ora DeKornfeld is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker who began her career as a video journalist at The New York Times. She now directs, shoots, and edits documentary films that resist easy answers — morally complicated, human-scaled, and often funny in the places you don't expect. DeKornfeld directed the Emmy-nominated short USA v SCOTT (Tribeca 2020, The New Yorker); STALIN BOYS (SXSW 2024), winner of both the Audience Award and Special Jury Prize; and THE GRANDFATHER PUZZLE (Full Frame 2026), winner of the Audience Award. She shot and edited Isabel Castro's MIJA (Sundance 2022) and was a co-editor on Elizabeth Lo's MISTRESS DISPELLER. She has directed multiple episodes of the Netflix Original Explained and is currently in production on her first feature film following journalistic fixers in Mexico.

When lightning ignites a firestorm in their redwood forest sanctuary in Northern California, longtime lovers and artists Beth Stephens & Annie Sprinkle are forced to evacuate. Their lives are forever changed as they blend loss and grief into ecosexual art by fusing humor, community care, and environmental awareness into a lush and fiery journey of transformation. Humorously narrated by a mythical white peacock, PLAYING WITH FIRE: AN ECOSEXUAL EMERGENCY documents their adventures in the wake of disaster, while also honoring the broader communities impacted by ecological and social fires. Said Stephens and Sprinkle, "Fire is one of our greatest teachers. It can destroy, but it can also illuminate a path forward. In these turbulent times, PLAYING WITH FIRE offers a sense of hope, eco-sensual pleasures and connection.” ABout the filmmakers - PLAYING WITH FIRE is the third and final film in their trilogy of groundbreaking queer environmental documentaries. It started with Goodbye Gauley Mountain–An Ecosexual Love Story (2013), which critically investigated mountaintop removal coal mining (MTR) in West Virginia, focusing on the people and communities affected and the corporations employing this extraction technique. Their second film, Water Makes Us Wet-An Ecosexual Adventure (2017) - screening at MoMa in NYC this summer - explores the pleasures and politics of water, and its conservation, commodification, and sustainability.

Joining us on this edition of Cinemafile is Antoinetta Stallings, the Head of the MAXSCENE Division at Tyler Perry Studios, a new specialty division dedicated to expanding theatrical opportunities for filmmakers with distinctive voices. This new arm of Tyler Perry Studios will focus on creator-first and audience-focused projects that are unbound to any blueprint. Maxscene will develop, produce, and distribute films across various genres — giving storytellers the opportunity to build upon an established audience while forging one of their own. The division is named in honor of Tyler Perry's mother, Maxine Perry, whose belief in her son shaped the studio he would go on to build, and now, the storytellers it intends to champion. Antoinetta Stallings, Head of Development & Acquisitions at Tyler Perry Studios, will oversee the Maxscene division. A studio veteran, Stallings previously served as VP of Unscripted Programming, where she launched and led the studio's joint venture with Pantheon Media Group — making Maxscene the second creative arm she has built at TPS from the ground up. About the filmmaker - Antoinette (Hairston) Stallings - Antoinetta Stallings is an Emmy nominated producer and creative executive, currently serving as the Vice President of Development and Acquisitions at Tyler Perry Studios. Previously she held roles as producer and post producer on acclaimed projects with networks such as PBS, BET, Centric TV, ITV America, and A. Smith & Co. Productions. Stallings has built an impressive portfolio, starting as a producer for the Black Girls Rock Award show for BET. She went on to co-produce Crank That Vote, a project highlighting youth civic engagement, and served as supervising producer on the docu-series BEING on Centric. Notably, her short documentary The ATL Waterboyz received the Best Society Film award at the July 2023 Toronto Documentary Festival. She also served as Vice President of Unscripted at Tyler Perry Studios where she oversaw the end-to-end development and production of unscripted content. Other credits include Associate producer on TV series such as All the Queen’s Men, House of Payne, and Tyler Perry’s Assisted Living. Stallings was an Executive Producer on Sincerely, Love, a romantic dramedy, and a Creative Executive at Tyler Perry Studios for the film The Six Triple Eight, starring Kerry Washington.

As a brutal winter grips the Canadian wilderness and the fur trade begins its collapse, the isolated inhabitants of a remote trading outpost enlist Cole Franklin, an American mercenary haunted by his past, to investigate the silence that has fallen over a nearby Indigenous settlement. What he discovers is a scene of unimaginable terror and an overwhelming sense that something ancient and unnatural still lingers in the wilderness. As fear spreads back to Fort William, an unseen presence begins to take hold. Paranoia, hunger and violence consume the isolated community, driving neighbor against neighbor as reason gives way to madness. A haunting tale of isolation, folklore and psychological dread, Ithaqua, a gripping survival horror from director Casey Walker (The Void, In a Violent Nature), whose remarkable twelve-year journey to bring the film to the screen has become as compelling as the story itself. Starring Luke Hemsworth (Westworld, Land of Bad), Kevin Durand (The Naked Gun, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come), Craig Lauzon (Trickster, Beyblade), Leenah Robinson (Revival, 1923) and Michael Pitt (Day of the Fight, Ghost in the Shell). About the filmmaker - As a novice director whose only prior credit was the short film The Morning After, Director, Producer and screenwriter Casey Walker initially had difficulty securing funding to make A Little Bit Zombie, and launched his own independent crowdfunding platform, My Million Dollar Movie, in 2006. The site attracted more than 200,000 hits and secured $20,000 in donations on its first day alone, and was ultimately successful in raising almost $2 million by the time the film entered production in 2011. The film subsequently won several awards from Canadian and international film festivals, most notably Best Feature Film at the 2012 Canadian Filmmakers Festival Both before and after making A Little Bit Zombie, he also worked in television directing episodes of Fool Canada, The Hardy Boys and Overlord and the Underwoods. He has also been a producer or executive producer of films such as The Void, Pyewacket, Die in a Gunfight and In a Violent Nature. His second and third feature films were both released in 2026, with Home Bodies premiering at the 30th Fantasia International Film Festival and Ithaqua, slated for FrightFest London.

SONGS OF SLOW BURNING EARTH was filmed during the first two years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, documenting the lives of civilians, children and aid workers as war becomes part of everyday life. It’s an intimate and deeply human film about what it means to continue living, working and raising families amid circumstances that have changed the country forever. It captures a collective portrait of Ukrainians fleeing the grindstones of war, and those who stayed and are forced to adapt to life under constant shelling. Songs of Slow Burning Earth premiered at the Venice Film Festival and has since received awards in Latvia, Italy, Hungary, Germany, the Czech Republic and the United States. It was also nominated for Best European Documentary and Best European Film at the European Film Awards, as well as Best Director and Best Feature Documentary at the IDA Documentary Awards. Songs of Slow Burning Earth is distributed by EPF Media. About the filmmaker -Olha Zhurba (she/her) is a Ukrainian filmmaker who studied at the Ukranian Film School. She has more than 10 years of experience in the audiovisual sector, first working as a director and an editor of commercials, music videos, and film trailers before moving to filmmaking. Her first short fiction film Dad’s Sneakers (2021) premiered in the shorts competition at Locarno Film Festival and shortly after won the Best Ukrainian Short and FIPRESCI awards at Odesa International Film Festival. It was also awarded the National Film Critics Award Kinokolo, Best European Film at Leuven Film Festival, and was a candidate for a nomination at the European Film Awards 2022. Outside (2022) is Olha’s first feature-length documentary which premiered at CPH:DOX and Hot Docs. She is also an editor of festival hits, such as award-winning documentary films This Rain Will Never Stop (2021) by Alina Gorlova and Home Games (2018) by Alisa Kovalenko. About the filmmaker - In 2011, Darya Bassel (she/her) joined the team of Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Kyiv where she still works as a programmer and head of industry. Parallel to her work at the festival, she also works in film production. The first film she worked on as associate producer and festival agent was My Father is my Mother’s Brother, directed by Vadym Ilkov, which was coined the most innovative film in the International Competition at the 2018 Visions du Réel Awards. In 2019, she and Vika Khomenko launched the film production company, Moon Man. The company focuses on creative documentary and fiction films with a strong authorial director’s approach. In 2022, Moon Man’s first production, the documentary Outside, had its world premiere at CPH:DOX. Darya was also co-producer of the award-winning documentary A House Made of Splinters, directed by Simon Lereng Wilmont. She has served on juries at numerous festivals, including IDFA, Visions du Réel, Krakow IFF, One World. She was also invited by the Ukrainian film production company, TABOR, to co-produce Maksym Nakonechnyi’s debut feature, Butterfly Vision, which premiered in Cannes 2022, in the Un Certain Regard.

This Is Buzz is experimental and music-driven documentary, illustrating the tale of the seismically influential, yet somehow forgotten, MTV slice of life docuseries BUZZ, which only ran for 13 episodes in 1990. The show took an experimental approach to uncovering often undiscussed corners of global life. With fast-paced edits giving the show an avant-garde feel, the series would tackle specific subjects with each entry. This dream-like almost subliminal feel pre-dated the media oversaturation we feel today as we are drawn to a constant conveyor belt of content on platforms like TikTok and Instagram which act to familiarize us with cultures around the world. And on top of it all, RuPaul was the show’s host. From Mark Pellington (The Mothman Prophecies, I Melt With You).

Sofia works as a location scout for a TV pilot filming in New York City. It’s her job to find the homes, businesses, and exteriors where the show will be filmed. Driving around the city's different neighborhoods, she enters the private spaces of strangers to photograph their cozy apartments and eclectic shops, stepping into the fabric of their lives while trying to satisfy the demands of her erratic employers. Over a day filled with these encounters, Sofia witnesses moments of curiosity, vulnerability, and quiet tension until her work takes a sudden, personal turn. Drawing from her own experience as a location scout, writer-director Paula González-Nasser captures the poetry and costs of being a young creative. Her celebrated directorial debut The Scout crafts a contemplative exploration of urban disconnection, following one woman's journey through other people's worlds as she struggles to find her own. About the filmmaker - Director & Writer Paula González-Nasser (she/her) is a Colombian filmmaker currently residing in Brooklyn, New York. In 2016, she and Ryan Martin Brown co-founded 5th Floor as a film collective after graduating together from the film program at Florida State University. Paula's feature directorial debut, THE SCOUT, had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. In 2025, Paula was named one of 25 new faces in independent film by Filmmaker Magazine. She has also produced films like Melina Valdez’s WEAPONS AND THEIR NAMES, which premiered at Sundance 2023, and Ryan Martin Brown’s FREE TIME, which received three nominations at the inaugural Slamdance Indie Awards. She is a two-time Gotham Film Week participant and a 2023 Sundance Producers Intensive Fellow. Previously, Paula worked as a location scout on many New York films and TV shows such as HIGH MAINTENANCE, RUSSIAN DOLL, SEARCH PARTY, NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS, and more.