Introducing the 2025 MediaMaker Fellows

Published On: April 15, 2025 |

We’re excited to announce the latest cohort to take part in our longstanding documentary film fellowship program. Participants in the 2025 BAVC MediaMaker Fellowship will receive $10,000 in unrestricted funding, mentorship, industry access, feedback sessions, and workshops during an immersive 9-month experience. 

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).

Learn more about the fellows and each of their projects below.

Alex J. Bledsoe

Alex J. Bledsoe is a director, producer and multidisciplinary artist whose work illuminates daily life on the frontlines of racial capitalism, and the portals we create for our physical and psychospiritual liberation. Alex’s debut documentary feature, OAKLEAD (in post-production), investigates lead poisoning and environmental racism in the Bay Area, and follows nearly a decade of community organizing. OAKLEAD is supported by the Sundance Documentary Film Program, Berkeley Film Foundation, The Redford Center and the Fund for Investigative Journalism, and is the winner of the inaugural Jonathan Logan Family Foundation Elevate Award.

Alex is the co-founder of Breaktide, an all-women-of-color owned and operated film production company, which creates liberatory stories while practicing collaborative, decolonial filmmaking. Breaktide’s debut documentary feature, Standing Above the Clouds, directed by co-founder Jalena Keane-Lee, won the Hot Docs 2024 Bill Nemtin Award for Best Social Justice Documentary.

Alex produced the narrative feature, Residue, about gentrification in Washington, D.C., streaming on Netflix after premiering internationally at Venice International Film Festival. Alex has lived in and been deeply influenced by Black, Indigenous and Global Majority movements and communities from Rio de Janeiro to Oakland (Huichin) and London. Alex was born and raised in Minnesota (Mni Sóta Makoce), and earned her B.S. from Georgetown University with a degree in international politics, where she studied Portuguese, Spanish and Arabic.

Project: OAKLEAD

Synopsis: In Oakland, California, we fight to protect our children from lead poisoning in our own homes and schools – and confront over a century of environmental racism. OAKLEAD is a feature-length documentary, currently in post-production, about the longest, ongoing pediatric epidemic in U.S. history.

 

Luca Capponi

Luca Capponi is an Italian-Ecuadorian filmmaker from a small village in the Bergamo province, Italy. Growing up in a bicultural environment, he developed an early curiosity about identity, migration, and the experiences of marginalized communities. His films blend observational techniques with poetic imagery, striving to create an emotional and intellectual impact on audiences.

Luca is a graduate of the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (CSC), Italy’s National School of Cinema. During his final year at CSC, his short film Chronicles from Dusk, created in collaboration with Laura Poitras and Field of Vision, was selected for Critics’ Week at the 2018 Venice Biennale. 

Now based in Berkeley, California, Luca continues to develop his vision and passion for cinema. His recent projects have focused on themes of housing insecurity, aging, and the intersection of memory and identity. He is currently working on Like Heaven Without God, a documentary that follows the lives of unhoused individuals living in an RV community in Berkeley.

As he continues his journey as a filmmaker, Luca remains dedicated to exploring the stories of those living on the margins, using cinema to foster dialogue, challenge stereotypes, and inspire change.

Project: What Lies Over the Mountain

Synopsis: A deeply personal story of love, resilience, and belonging, this film chronicles an immigrant mother’s journey to a small conservative Italian village. It explores a family’s struggles with identity and acceptance, and their rediscovery of roots, offering a universal story of connection, the triumph of humanity over adversity.

 

Joua Lee Grande

Joua Lee Grande (she/they) is a filmmaker and community connector who tells compelling stories that highlight underheard perspectives and experiences. Her work has been seen on WORLD Channel and PBS. Her short film On All Fronts received an Honorable Mention for the Loni Ding Award for Social Justice Documentary and was the opening episode of a series nominated for a Daytime Emmy. Her previous fellowships include PBS Accelerator for Diverse Voices, True/False Confluence, Jerome, Kartemquin Diverse Voices and MediaJustice. She has previously worked as a Producer-Editor at Twin Cities PBS and an Editor at WCCO TV 4 News (CBS).

Joua has spent over a decade as a community worker and educator supporting youth, families and storytellers from historically marginalized communities. She has led and developed media education programs in the Twin Cities at institutions such as SPNN, the Walker Arts Center and Minneapolis Institute of Arts. She serves in various community groups including local grassroots initiatives and the Waterers. Joua’s work reflects her passion for storytelling and a strong commitment to social justice. Her experiences as a neurodivergent, queer Hmong American woman and rising cultural healer guide her work both in community and storytelling.

Project: Spirited

Synopsis: Under a backdrop of colliding belief systems, a skeptical Hmong-American filmmaker is told she has been chosen to become a shaman, setting her on a decade-long journey to understand her community’s ancestral spiritual traditions. Spirited is a poignant and introspective documentary following Joua over a decade of her life as she struggles to reconnect with her people’s belief system and grapples with the decision to accept or reject this calling.

 

Anna Clare Spelman

Anna Clare Spelman (she/her) is a filmmaker, cinematographer and editor who believes deeply in the power of stories to create social change. She is passionate about healthcare and human rights, particularly within the queer community. Through collaboration with participants in her films, she works towards a world where everyone’s rights are recognized and healthcare is accessible to all. Her work has been nominated for multiple News and Documentary Emmys, named a Vimeo Staff Pick and has been recognized by the GLAAD Media Awards, the Webby Awards, the Edward R. Murrow Awards, Pictures of the Year International, and NPPA Best of Photojournalism among others. MEANT TO BE MADDIE is in its tenth year of production and is her first feature film as a director. She graduated with an MA in Visual Communication from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where she was a Roy H. Park fellow..

Project: Meant to Be Maddie

Synopsis: Meant to Be Maddie chronicles a decade in the life of a North Carolina transgender teenager as she navigates her identity and adolescence with the unwavering support of her family. An intimate and funny coming-of-age story, Maddie’s journey unfolds against the backdrop of growing anti-trans rhetoric, legislation, and conservative backlash against the LGBTQ community.

Thanh Tran

Thanh Tran is an Amerasian-Vietnamese and Black filmmaker, music artist, and criminal justice organizer from Sacramento, California. While incarcerated, he co-founded Uncuffed, an award-winning podcast amplifying incarcerated voices; ForwardThis Productions, a pioneering film collective inside San Quentin; and the Inside/Outside Fellowship with the Ella Baker Center, supporting incarcerated organizers. Now the director of Finding Má, a feature-length documentary exploring identity and family history, Thanh also serves as a Policy Consultant at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, working on legislation to improve prison conditions and civic engagement. He is the Interim Executive Director of the Asian Prisoner Support Committee (APSC) and sits on advisory councils for New Breath Foundation, APSC, and Uncuffed. A Creative Capital grantee, Thanh merges art, activism, and storytelling to challenge injustice, build solidarity between Asian and Black communities, and transform public narratives on incarceration and race.

Project: Finding Má

Synopsis: After 20 years apart, an Amerasian – Vietnamese/Black family shattered by the foster care and prison systems reunites to heal old wounds and rebuild their family, starting with finding their unhoused mother in the streets of Sacramento.

 

Hao Zhou

Hao Zhou is a filmmaker from southwest China, currently based in Ohio. Zhou’s work explores queer and feminist themes through a range of nonfiction, narrative, and experimental forms. They wrote/directed a no-budget feature, “The Night” (2014), as well as several short films including “Correct Me If I’m Wrong” (2025), “Like What Would Sorrow Look” (2024), and “Wouldn’t Make It Any Other Way” (2024). An alum of Berlinale Talents, Zhou has screened at the Berlinale, Locarno, Rotterdam, and SXSW, and received support from ITVS, Firelight Media, IF/Then × Hulu, and other organizations.

Project: All Fixed Up

Synopsis: After attempting to change their wayward queer heir, a desperate family resorts to a masquerade that tests the limits of love, generational ties, and transnational understanding.

 

The MediaMaker Fellowship is devoted to supporting documentary filmmakers using bold cinematic language and innovative impact strategies to grapple with critical issues of our time. Our cohort is a collaborative, community-driven space that places diversity, representation, and ethical relationships with storytelling at the forefront of our practice.

Learn more about the MediaMaker Fellowship here.