DIRECTOR, PRODUCER, CINEMATOGRAPHER

Director Emily Thomas’ work is rooted in intimately documenting the human experience to bring light to pressing social justice and environmental issues with nuance, visual evidence, emotion and hope. Her award-winning films have been featured on PBS, the New Yorker, Vimeo Staff Picks and screened at SF Film Fest, Big Sky, Hot Springs, and D.C. Environmental Film Fest. Her work has been supported by the California Humanities, Berkeley Film Foundation and Saul Zaentz Film Fund. As a cinematographer, she has worked on films for Peacock TV, VICE, CBS, The Guardian, PBS, VOA, and Frontline. Prior to Lemon Tree she was a journalist reporting on crime, politics and breaking news, and was a human rights investigator. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and lives in Baltimore, MD.

PRODUCER

Nicole Docta (she/her) is an award-winning documentary filmmaker who has focused her career on producing socially provoking BIPOC stories and managing their impact campaigns. Nicole was part of the producing teams on Peabody Award-winning and Emmy-nominated THE JUDGE (TIFF 2017) and Emmy Award-winning BELLY OF THE BEAST (HRWFF 2020) with Director Erika Cohn, and duPont Award-winner THROUGH THE NIGHT (Tribeca 2020) with Director Loira Limbal. Nicole served as the Special Initiatives Producer at Firelight Media for three years co-curating the Beyond Resilience Series and helping to implement new artist programs to support BIPOC filmmakers. Nicole is also a USC CPD NextGen Creative Fellow, one of DOC NYC’s 40 Under 40, a Sundance Producer Fellow, and Impact Partners Producer Fellow.

EDITOR

Jason Pollard’s involvement in the film industry began as a young child when he accompanied his father, acclaimed film producer/editor Sam Pollard, to different edit rooms as Sam magically turned strips of celluloid into complex and wonderful stories. He has edited many acclaimed documentary films including SLAVERY BY ANOTHER NAME, which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and Netflix documentary GET ME ROGER STONE, which premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival. More recently, he edited THE BLACK CHURCH: THIS IS OUR STORY, THIS IS OUR SONG for PBS, WHO KILLED MALCOLM X? and RAPTURE for Netflix, Tina Charles’ GAME CHANGER, which premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival, and LOUIS ARMSTRONG’S BLACK AND BLUES which premiered at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival.

CO-PRODUCER

John is co-founder of Lemon Tree Productions and leads strategies to amplify impact through film and storytelling. He has led community-based innovations to address racial injustice through the United Nations and led homelessness and youth diversion efforts throughout the south. He has worked on films for Frontline and The New Yorker as a consulting producer and part of the development and production team. He taught equity-based policy design at NYU, is a Kentucky native and now lives in Baltimore. 

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

Carolyn Hepburn is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning producer whose recent films include American Pain (2022 Tribeca Festival, CNN Films); Unfinished Business (2022 Tribeca Festival); The Return of Tanya Tucker featuring Brandi Carlile (2022 SXSW Audience Winner, Sony Pictures Classics); In The Same Breath (HBO Docs, Oscar shortlisted); The Velvet Underground (Cannes Film Festival, Apple+, Oscar shortlisted); The Mole Agent (Oscar nominee); A Thousand Cuts (Emmy, Gotham and IDA winner); One Child Nation (Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner, Amazon Studios, Oscar-shortlisted); Life, Animated (Oscar nominee and winner of three Emmys); Weiner (IFC Films, Oscar shortlisted).