About the team
Brittany Shyne (Director/Producer) is an independent filmmaker based in Dayton, Ohio. Working in the narrative and non-fiction artform her work seeks to depict the complexity of everyday life by examining themes such as personal histories, alienation, and cultural modernization. By utilizing observational techniques and poetic language her films lyrically weaves together frameworks of race, class, culture, identity and family lineage. Shyne is currently working on Seeds, her first feature documentary, which centers on generational black farmers in the south. The film has received institutional support from The Puffin Foundation, The Points North Residency, Sundance Institute’s Documentary Fund, The Flies Collective, BAVC, ICA London, Cineteca Madrid, Black Public Media, Cinereach and ITVS. The film also participated in the inaugural True/False PRISM program. Shyne received her MFA in Documentary Media from Northwestern University and a BFA in Motion Pictures from Wright State University
Danielle Varga (Producer) is a nonfiction producer who has been working in documentary film for the past decade. She most recently produced Bulletproof, selected to premiere at SXSW and Hot Docs 2020 in the documentary competition and whose director, Todd Chandler, won the Hot Docs Award for Best Emerging International Filmmaker. She produced Brett Story’s critically acclaimed documentary The Hottest August (True/False 2019), heralded as one of the top films of 2019 by Rolling Stone, Slate, and Vanity Fair, among others, and is distributed by Grasshopper Film and PBS Independent Lens. She co-produced Kirsten Johnson’s award-winning and Oscar shortlisted film Cameraperson (Sundance 2016), produced the short documentary Watched (Tribeca 2017). She has worked as consulting producer, archival producer, field producer and researcher on a number of award-winning documentary films and television programs. She is interested in producing work that pushes boundaries in form and takes artistic risk.
Sabrina Schmidt Gordon (Executive Producer) is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and impact strategist from NYC with a distinguished career as a producer, editor, and director. Sabrina was selected for the prestigious Women at Sundance Fellowship, and is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Her latest film, QUEST, is an award-winning documentary, recently nominated for a Peabody, two Emmys, an Independent Spirit Award, and is a New York Times Critic’s Pick. Sabrina also co-directed, produced and edited the Emmy-nominated BaddDDD Sonia Sanchez, for which she won Best Film Directed by a Woman of Color at the African Diaspora Film Festival. She produced and edited DOCUMENTED, which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Best Documentary. Her feature debut as a producer and editor, Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, also premiered at Sundance and was one of the Chicago Tribune‘s Best Documentaries of 2007.