About the team
Jeremy Xido (Director, Co-writer) Originally from Detroit, Jeremy graduated cum laude in Painting and Comparative Literature from Columbia University and trained at the Actor’s Studio. A Fulbright and Guggenheim recipient, he is artistic co-director of performance/film company CABULA6, voted “company of the year 2009” by Ballettanz, and was awarded “Outstanding Artist of the Year 2010” by the Austrian Ministry of the Arts. He’s known in Europe as a performance artist with a unique artistic voice and approach to stage and film, blending emotionally gripping personal stories with the larger social contexts within which they emerge – including the trilogy The Angola Project (premiere: Impulstanz, Vienna and PS122, NYC). Working as a dancer, actor and filmmaker, he has performed and presented work around the world on stage, TV and in Cinema. Jeremy’s film directing credits include the award-winning feature documentary Death Metal Angola, the six-part series Crime Europe, and the short documentaries Macondo, Dive, and Care, in addition to several other shorts. In addition to his work on Sons of Detroit, he is in development on a limited documentary series. He is also writing a narrative script set in Detroit amid the housing crisis of 2010, which was a finalist for the Sundance Screenwriters Lab and was workshopped at the 2019 Cine Qua Non Labs. xido.org
Amanda Burr (Producer) is a film producer and writer. In addition to her work on Sons of Detroit she is developing a narrative film set in Detroit with writer/director Jeremy Xido. Recent producing credits include the series Films ByKids for PBS, the documentaries Death Metal Angola, Man Shot Dead, and the short doc/fiction hybrid Solitary/Release. For several years, she was the creative director for the digital learning company Nomadic Learning, where she wrote, directed, and produced over 50 animated short films. She has also worked as an associate programmer for the Tribeca Film Festival, a consultant with the Screenwriters Colony, a programmer for the Chicago Humanities Festival, and as a theater director. She has a BS in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and an MFA in Writing from Spalding University, where she studied literary fiction and screenwriting.
Lori Cheatle (Producer) is a producer of over 20 award-winning films and the founder of Hard Working Movies, a director-driven production company with an appetite for bold, high-profile narratives, with films as unique and diverse as the filmmakers behind them. She is most recently producer on Us Kids, which has its world premiere at Sundance 2020, and the Executive Producer of Hail Satan? (2019), which had its world premiere at Sundance and is in release through Magnolia Pictures. Other award-winning feature documentaries include Matangi/Maya/M.I.A., directed by Steve Loveridge, which has screened on platforms around the world, including a theatrical release in over 30 countries; I Am Another You directed by Nanfu Wang, which was released by FilmRise and Independent Lens; Kiki directed by Sara Jordeno, which is distributed by IFC Films; Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart, directed by Jeremiah Zagar for HBO/Sky Atlantic, which has been released in over 80 countries; Amy Hardie’s The Edge of Dreaming and Seven Songs for a Long Life; This Land is Your Land, which was selected for the Whitney Biennial and many others. Lori produced three films by Doug Block, which all aired on HBO, including the audience favorite 112 Weddings, The Kids Grow Up and 51 Birch Street. She received the 2019 Sundance I Amazon Producers Award for her work in non-fiction film.
Sigrid Dyekjaer / Danish Documentary (Co-Producer) Sigrid Jonsson Dyekj√¶r has been working for nearly 20 years producing international documentary films. Most recent films include Nat Geo’s Academy-Award nominated film The Cave and Aquarella, for which she was a co-producer. Among the many films she has produced are The Monastery, Mechanical Love, Gambler, The Good Life, Love Addict, A Normal Life, Free the Mind, Ballroom Dancer, and the IDFA-nominated Ai Wei Wei – The Fake Case. Among her latest works are The Newsroom – Off the Record and the winner of a special jury award at IDFA 2014, Something Better To Come. Sigrid was awarded best Danish producer in 2015 by the Danish Film Academy and was a Producers Guild of America nominee in 2016. danishdocumentary.com
