Announcing the 2025 BAVC MediaMaker Fellows

BAVC Media celebrates the latest cohort of participants in its longstanding MediaMaker Fellowship. Filmmakers in the annual documentary development program will receive $10,000 in unrestricted funding, mentorship, industry access, feedback sessions, and workshops during an immersive 9-month experience.

[The announcement was first made exclusively by Documentary Magazine on April 17th, 2025. Read their article here] 

This year’s fellows are: Alex J. Bledsoe (OAKLEAD), Luca Capponi (What Lies Over the Mountain), Joua Lee Grande (Spirited), Anna Clare Spelman (Meant to Be Maddie), Thanh Tran (Finding Má), and Hao Zhou (All Fixed Up).

The 2025 program will kick off with an in-person intensive convening in San Francisco in April and features all-access travel to the Camden International Film Festival in midcoast Maine in September 2025, before culminating in a final industry pitch event held in San Francisco at the end of the year. Fellows will also take part in monthly half-day virtual gatherings consisting of hands-on workshops, consultation with industry experts, and targeted mentorship.

“The process to select this year’s cohort was particularly difficult. We received many incredible projects but due to funding limitations, we could only select 6 projects. These films and their filmmakers demonstrated a high level of artistic and storytelling vision. Many of the stories are personal, demonstrating that personal stories have the ability to explore larger social issues.”

– Dawn Valadez, Co-Director of the BAVC MediaMaker Fellowship.

 

“This cohort dedicated years to their stories but are at a critical point in their production phase to receive the resources and mentorship the fellowship will provide. We are excited to see the synergy between each fellow and how they will build a meaningful relationship with each other that will undoubtedly carry them through their careers.”

– Jin Yoo-Kim, Co-Director of the BAVC MediaMaker Fellowship.

History

Founded in 1976, BAVC Media (Bay Area Video Coalition) is a community hub and resource for media makers in the Bay Area and across the country, serving several thousand freelancers, filmmakers, job-seekers, activists, and artists every year.

The BAVC MediaMaker Fellowship was established in 1991 through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA. The program is currently supported by grants from the NEA, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, the Perspective Fund, Film SF, SF Grants for the Arts, the California Arts Council, NBC Universal, and BAVC Media’s Artist Development Donor Circle Members.

The Fellowship invests in independent, emerging, and mid-career artists working on social-issue documentary projects. The program is known for betting on artists and projects as a “first-in” supporter.

Recent MediaMaker Fellows

Recent success stories from past fellows include Paige Bethmann, who premiered her debut feature film Remaining Native at the 2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival where it won the Documentary Feature Audience Award and Documentary Feature Special Jury Award. Additionally, Brittany Shyne won the U.S. Grand Jury prize for Documentary Feature at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival with her 2019 MediaMaker Fellowship film Seeds.

Other recent Fellows include Contessa Gayles (Songs From the Hole), Robie Flores (The In Between), Silvia Del Carmen Casaños (Hummingbirds), Lagueria Davis (Black Barbie), Kevin D. Wong (Home Is a Hotel), Hadley Austin (Demon Mineral), Denise Zmekhol (Skin of Glass), Taimi Arvidson (From This Small Place), Reid Davenport (I Didn’t See You There), Eugene Yi (Free Chol Soo Lee), Rodrigo Reyes (Sansón and Me), A. Madsen Minax (North By Current), Emily Cohen Ibañez (Fruits of Labor) and Maya Cueva (On the Divide).

BAVC MediaMaker Fellowship success stories

Films that were supported by the MediaMaker Fellowship have premiered at renowned international film festivals, been acquired for theatrical and streaming distribution, won prestigious awards, broadcast on public television, garnered acclaim from critics, and made a measurable impact in the world. Here are just a few success stories from the last year: 

 

• Remaining Native (Paige Bethmann, MMF 2023) recently had its world premiere at the 2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival where it won the Documentary Feature Audience Award and Documentary Feature Special Jury Award.
• Seeds (Brittany Shyne, MMF 2019) had its world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival where it won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize for Documentary Feature. It has gone on to screen at True/False Film Fest, Thessaloniki International Documentary Film Festival and CPH: DOX, among others.
• Light of the Setting Sun 回光返照 (Vicky Du MMF 2019) will premiere at Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham NC this April. Light of the Setting Sun is a poetic family portrait of what’s been left unsaid in which Vicky, a Taiwanese American filmmaker, questions her family’s silence around the cycles of violence that have persisted since the Chinese Communist Revolution of 1949. 
• Songs From the Hole (Contessa Gayles, MMF 2021) premiered at SXSW in March 2024. Contessa’s documentary visual album, Songs from the Hole, follows James “JJ’88” Jacobs through a musical opus of Hip-Hop and Soul, inspired by his innermost struggles as both a person who has committed and experienced violent harm, as he serves a double-life prison sentence. The film interweaves the collective storytelling of its non-fiction participants with imagined representations of memories, dreams and spiritual dialogues set to its protagonist/writer’s original music. You can read an interview between Robie and Contessa, who happen to be friends as well as program alum on BAVC Media’s blog. 
• The In Between (Robie Flores, MMF 2020) also premiered at SXSW in March 2024. Robie’s film follows the return to her hometown Eagle Pass on the Texas/Mexico border, wanting to turn back time. She collides with unruly experiences of adolescence – quinceañeras, Rio Grande river excursions, teen makeovers and beyond – that invite her to soak up the details of the home her brother adored and she ignored. What emerges is a playful dance between a personal and collective coming-of-age portrait of kids on the border and Robie herself as she rediscovers the possibilities of joy in the aftermath of grief, while offering a nuanced and unexpected portrait of the border. 
• Black Barbie (Lagueria Davis, MMF 2019) was acquired by Shondaland and Netflix! Look for a new cut of the film streaming soon. The film had its 2023 festival premiere at SXSW in the States, Hot Docs internationally, went on to screen at SF Doc Fest, Indie Memphis, and New Orleans Film Festival among others. 
• Demon Mineral (Hadley Austin, MMF 2021) premiered at DOKfest 2023 where it was nominated for the DOK.edit Award and went on to screen at International First Peoples’ Festival in Montreal, the Mill Valley Film Festival, Slamdance 2024, and other festivals around the world. Listen to an interview with Director Hadley Austin and Producer Dr. Tommy Rock on KALW.
• Home is a Hotel (Kevin Wong, MMF 2016) premiered at the 2023 SFFILM Festival, where it won both the Audience Award and McBaine Bay Area Documentary Award. Home is a Hotel continues to screen across the country. 
• Skin of Glass (Denise Zmekhol, MMF 2021) screened at esteemed architecture festivals in Venice, Barcelona, Prague, and Rotterdam and premiered in the U.S. at the Mill Valley Film Festival.
• Hummingbirds (Silvia Del-Carmen Castaños, MMF 2022) premiered at the 2023 Berlinale where it won the Grand Prix for Best Feature Film in Generation14plus and was nominated for the Teddy Award. Hummingbird’s U.S. premiere was at the True/False Film Festival where it was the opening night film. Jason Gordber at RogerEbert.com called Hummingbirds “a film of deep honesty that’s carefully crafted…one of the best films of this ilk I’ve seen,” and The Guardian listed it as one of their “Best of This Year’s True/False Documentary Festival.” You can see an impressive list of selections, awards, and praise for the film here.

The 2025 BAVC MediaMaker Fellowship Selection Committee was comprised of: