Our Team

DIRECTOR / PRODUCER

André is a transgender Latinx educator, filmmaker, and community organizer who founded the Transgender Oral History Project in 2007. He recorded 600 interviews with StoryCorps, including 50 segments on NPR and WBEZ. He helped build the Trans Lifeline from a budget of 80K to 500K in under a year. He’s currently Creative Producing, A Run for More, a feature-length documentary about Frankie Gonzalez in her fight to become the first openly trans elected official in Texas as well as Desire lines, a hybrid film exploring trans masculine people in gay sexual culture historically and contemporarily.

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PRODUCER

Lawson is a writer, producer, and community organizer with special focus on youth experiences and LGBTQ identities. Lexington has served as Booking Manager for America in Transition, co-host of the online radio program The Life Lab on E3Radio, and writer and line producer for the animated web series, McTucky Fried High. The thread of all his work is to create opportunities for people to know their own truth, be the best version of themselves and have the courage to make their dreams a reality.

DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Christopher is a black genderqueer transmasculine boi raised in the lily-white suburban hills of New Jersey. He holds a BS in Management and Business from Skidmore College of New York. After they began to decolonize their mind in college, they fled to Chicago to continue playing the saxophone and pursue an arts-focused event programming career, which they began as an engagement assistant at the Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore. In Chicago, they’ve coordinated events and programming for the Chicago International Film Festival, the Chicago International Music and Movies Festival, Corks and Brushes, The Smart Chicago Collaborative, Bartend Chicago, Open TV – beta, #PrEP4Love, and People Who Care.

EDITOR (EP 2-4)

Deborah’s films include The Healing Song (2014), a documentary about gong sound healing, has screened at festivals worldwide, including the Boise Film Festival and Clean Shorts Festival where it was nominated for Best Student Short and Best Short Documentary as well as Wise Medicine (2015), a short documentary about the global spread of indigenous plant medicine shamanism. Deborah is a 2015 recipient of the Festival Inventive Grant Award for her narrative/doc hybrid short Surrender, and a nominee for the 2015 Princess Grace Foundation Award. She served as assistant editor on the Emmy-nominated PBS series Notes From the Field, and second camera on the narrative feature The Year That Changed Us.

EDITOR (EP 1)

Chithra Jeyaram makes films about identity, relationships, and health. Her first exposure to filmmaking began with a failed attempt to fund a film. Deeply affected by that experience, she quit a decade-long career as a Physical Therapist and got an MFA. Her short MIJO aired on KLRU TV and played in 50 film festivals globally. Currently, she is making OUR DAUGHTERS, a documentary about adoption in America through an immigrant lens. Her work is supported by Chicken and Egg pictures, BGDM, Jerome Foundation, CAAM, NYSCA, New York Women's Fund, Gotham, Sheffield Meet Market, DOC NYC, and BFI Production Finance Market.

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DIRECTOR OF CINEMATOGRAPHY

Having spent most summers as a child in rural Mexico, Christian’s aunts and uncles inadvertently imbued a certain style in him of interpreting and retelling events that inspired wonder and excitement in their listeners. As a cinematographer, Christian hopes to use that influence to create striking images that invoke emotion in his viewers. Hailing from the windy city, he earned his Bachelor’s of Arts in Film & Video at Columbia College Chicago. There, he adopted a school of thought that emphasizes story-driven cinematography that is based on emotive lighting and deliberate camera movement.

CO-PRODUCER

Karari Olvera is the genderqueer first born of Mexican immigrant parents. An activist, writer, and makeup afficionado, Karari is the co-founder and former editor-in-chief of xQsí Magazine, an online LGBTQ Latin@ multimedia publication based out of Los Angeles. Under their leadership, xQsí Magazine coordinated with a diverse team of writers and media producers from all across the United States and included correspondents in Mexico and Uruguay. They current serve on the board of United Latin@ Pride, organizing the Midwest’s first and only week-long celebration of LGBTQ Latin@ Pride which sees an average of 300 people throughout the week’s diverse and free community programming that includes film screenings, panel discussions, workshops, and community gatherings.

CO-EDITOR

Tylyn Anson is a queer, trans filmmaker from the south, and MFA graduate in Film Production from the University of New Orleans. She has extensive experience both on set and in post-production, having worked on over 20 films. Tylyn released several short films that she wrote, directed, and edited, including: 7 Stages of the Closet (2013), Enough for Love (2014), and If Not Now. Her work focuses on queer characters experiences, and stories. When not working, Tylyn lives in Logan Square in Chicago where she reads and calculates just how much coffee is safe to drink per day.

COMPOSER (EP 1-4)

Nationally recognized composer, producer & arranger Allie Stephens has scored over 500 national TV commercials and 100 feature length documentaries and independent films. They spent 12 years handling blue-chip commercial accounts such as American Airlines, Budweiser, State Farm & McDonalds, and have created themes and underscores for networks such as A&E, PBS, The Biography Network, The History Channel, WTTW and NPR.

MUSICIAN (DIGITAL SERIES)

Lucas is a Black trans Hip Hop Artist, Music Producer, and Model based in Quebec Canada. He is the founder of Trans Tranderz, a record label and production house aiming to uplift and empower trans musicians of all genders, genres and backgrounds.

CONSULTING PRODUCER

Lesley was a 2016 Kartemquin Diverse Voices in Docs Fellow, and Invest Chicago Fellowship recipient. Her Producing credits include: Market Value, a feature film (Best of Fest, Cinema Diverse 2017); The Great Melting Pot, a pilot series; Associate Producer of Genius of a Different Hue: the Story of Black Advertising, a documentary. Lesley is the Founder and ED of #CNTCTR Digital, a nonprofit committed to providing digital technology and media production resources for community empowerment.

CONSULTING PRODUCER

MARKETING CONSULTANT

Gavriel is the CEO of Visioneer IT, a company that offers reputation management, email marketing services, content marketing services, and display advertising services.

BRAND MANAGER

Rusty C. Cook is a human of the queer feminist transmasculine variety with a penchant for art, design, illustration, writing and performance. Rusty holds a BA in Art + Design from DePaul University and is an alum of the School of Visual Art’s Impact! Design for Social Change residency. They live in Chicago between a cemetery and a nursery with their basset hound Henry.

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