Meet The FACTory Assessment Committee & Mentors

With submissions officially open for The FACTory, the time has come to introduce this year’s panel of experts, tasked with narrowing a wide field of worthy projects to a final selection.

FACTory Assessment Committee

Maria Santos (USA)
IDA Funds Officer, International Documentary Association

Maria Santos joined the International Documentary Association as the Funds Program Officer in September 2022. She oversees all of the funding grants and provides year-round creative and strategic support to all IDA grantees. Previously, she was the Manager of Labs and Artist Support at the Sundance Documentary Film Program, since September 2020. During her time there, she was the lead on working with International Artists, primarily in Central and South America. Originally from Peru, Maria is an independent film producer who has worked in distribution as well as artist development at organizations including ARRAY and Cinereach.  In 2018, she was selected as a Film Society Industry Academy member and became a Third World Newsreel Production fellow.

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Yukari Misaizu (JPN)
Senior Producer, NHK Enterprises

With over 20 years of experience as a director and producer in the documentary field, Yukari is currently working as a producer at NHK Enterprises on NHK Specials and NHK documentary programs. Yukari’s main field is in international affairs and current affairs, and international directors documentaries, as well as developing NHK’s digital investigative programs.

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Jim Kolmar (USA)
Film Curator, SXSW

Based in Texas, born and raised in Wales, Jim is an independent film curator, primarily for South by Southwest Film & TV Festival (SXSW), where he has programmed international and documentary features since 2009. Other curatorial work includes Curaçao International Film Festival, Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival, consulting for Adelaide Film Festival, and custom film packages for KINO! Germany Now (Goethe Institute/German Film Office), and PANORAMICA for PLAY Acción Cultural in Spain. Every month Jim curates and hosts the public-facing KINO! Film Salon in partnership with Telescope Film. Jim has consulted and participated on numerous international festival juries, panels and committees including Cannes Docs, EFM, FICCALI, Locarno Industry Academy (Bogotá), REC Festival, and Sarajevo Film Festival. He has also mentored Latin American students for London Film School, and guest lectured for University of Texas Department of Radio, Television and Film. 

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Marissa McDowell (AUS)
Producer, Black & White Films

Marissa McDowell is a Wiradjuri woman, born in Cowra, NSW, Australia. She has over 20 years’ experience working in the First Nations multi-media storytelling space and is passionate about working with the film industry to share creatively ambitious and diverse stories that have global appeal. Throughout her career, she has worked with First Nations communities to share stories with a wider audience across commissioning, producing, photography and writing. At National Indigenous Television (NITV), she has overseen the commissioning of original First Nations content, including feature documentaries Skin in the Game, Keeping Hope and the award-winning Rebel with a Cause, as well as documentary series Our Law, and children’s animated series Eddie’s Lil’ Homies. As a producer, she has also had documentaries screened on SBS/NITV. She has had poetry published through Us Mob Writing, and photographs displayed at PhotoAccess and the Sydney Living Museum.

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Theresa Navarro
Co-Director & COO, Catapult Film Fund (US)

Theresa Navarro is Co-Director and COO at Catapult Film Fund, a San Francisco-based nonprofit providing early-stage support for independent documentaries.

Theresa is a Pinay cultural worker and working mama whose career spans two decades. Previously, Theresa was vice president of external affairs at American Documentary, the producer of iconic PBS series POV. An Independent Spirit Award-nominated producer, her credits include Peabody Award-winning anthology series America Reframed and sci-fi feature Advantageous, winner of the special jury prize at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

 

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Imogen Sutton
Acquisitions & Festivals Manager, Autlook Filmsales

Imogen runs the Festival Department at Autlook, one of the leading sales agents for feature documentaries, hybrids and doc series. As well as managing international premiere strategy, she oversees educational sales and acquisitions. Autlook offers a full spectrum of customized festival, sales and distribution strategies maximizing audience engagement and revenue as well as fostering filmmakers’ careers. We have an endless passion for the art of documentaries. Currently representing: No Other Land (Berlinale awarded 2024) by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Ibelin (Sundance 2024) by Benjamin Ree, Smoke Sauna Sisterhood (Sundance awarded) by Anna Hints, The Mother of All Lies (Cannes awarded) by Asmae El Moudir, The Corridors of Power by Dror Moreh, Three Minutes – A Lengthening (Giornate degli Autori, Telluride, TIFF, Sundance) by Bianca Stigter, A Compsssionate Spy by Steve James, Belushi by R.J. Cutler, Writing With Fire by Rintu Thomas & Sushmit Ghosh (94th Oscars® nominee), For Sama by Waad Al Kateab & Edward Watts (Emmy® Awarded, 92nd OSCARS® nominee) and Of Fathers & Sons by Talal Derki (91st Oscars® nominee).

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Krishan Arora
International Consultant, SBS (UK/AU)

Krishan Arora is an experienced producer and television executive who is currently the International Content Consultant for Australian public channel SBS. As a producer he has developed, produced and directed documentaries in the areas of history, culture, and international affairs. He began his television career at the BBC, and was one of the first programmers at Arte in Strasbourg when the channel launched in 1992. Krishan rejoined the BBC in 2001 as commissioning executive in Specialist Factual, commissioning and executive producing documentaries in the areas of Science, History and Arts for all BBC channels. He’s based in London and Copenhagen.

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