TEAM
Emily Strong
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, DIRECTOR
EMILY STRONG is an award-winning filmmaker and location sound mixer. Her directing work celebrates heritage through the lens of food, culture, and immigration history and patterns.
Emily produced KEEP MOVING FORWARD (Big Sky Documentary Film Festival Official Selection) and A LETTER FOR SANG-AH (CAAMFest Loni Ding Award for Social Justice). She was selected as a DOC NYC, HBO Documentary Films, and Topic Studio’s 40 Under 40 honoree in 2020, and received a NYC Artist Corps Grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) in 2021 for her documentary, COMING OF HERITAGE, and was one of the 2022 recipients of Kartemquin Films’ Peng Zhao and Cherry Chen AAPI Voices Fund for the film.
In 2022, she was presented the “Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing” award in the motion pictures documentary category from the Cinema Audio Society for her work on the Academy Award winning documentary, SUMMER OF SOUL (dir. by Questlove | prod. Joseph Patel) and has worked as a location sound mixer on other notable works such as ATTICA (Academy Award nominee 2022), Netflix’s TAYLOR SWIFT: MISS AMERICANA (Sundance 2019), and Conan O’Brien’s CONAN MUST GO on HBO Max.
DIANE QUON
PRODUCER
An Academy Award-nominated producer, DIANE QUON worked as a marketing executive at NBC and Paramount Pictures in LA before moving back to her hometown of Chicago. Diane has produced the documentaries: the Oscar-nominated and Peabody award-winning film, MINDING THE GAP (Hulu, POV); 2022 Oscar-shortlisted BAD AXE (IFCFilms); AKA MR. CHOW (HBO 2023); THE DILEMMA OF DESIRE (Showtime); Emmy-nominated FINDING YINGYING (MTVDocs); FOR THE LEFT HAND (PBS); Emmy-nominated WUHAN WUHAN (POV) and SURF NATION (Mountainfilm Telluride 2022). Upcoming projects include the documentaries UNTITLED K-ROCK DOC and the SAM AND OMAR PROJECT, as well as a fiction feature based on a NYTimes bestseller. Diane is an AMPAS member, a Sundance Creative Producing Fellow, a Cinereach Producer Awardee and the proud mother of four.
BRENT BANDEMER
EDITOR
BRENT BANDEMER is an award-winning Chicago-based filmmaker and freelance editor specializing in documentary and branded docu-style content. Past clients include Communities in Schools, Unite Here, and Gatorade. After studying post-production at Columbia College Chicago, he was accepted into Oscar-nominated Chicago documentary house Kartemquin Films’ internship program. His film KEEP MOVING FORWARD, about a Vietnam veteran who finds peace from his PTSD through Disney, had its world premiere at the 2017 Big Sky Documentary Film Festival.
Sebastián Pinzón Silva
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
SEBASTIÁN PINZÓN SILVA is a Colombian documentary filmmaker. He studied film and television at the Savannah College of Art and Design and a master’s degree in documentary media at Northwestern University in Chicago. His directorial work has been screened at festivals such as Locarno, True/False, FICCI, SFFILM, Camden, RIDM, and New Directors/New Films and has received support from Catapult, Sundance, Visions SudEst, the National Cinematography Fund of Colombia, and Nia Tero. His film PALENQUE won Best Latin American Short in FICValdivia in 2017.
Sebastian was an assistant editor for MINDING THE GAP (2019 Oscar Nominee). He has since worked as an editor and cinematographer for productions for National Geographic, Honnold Foundation, and the Truth Commission of Colombia. He has been recognized with awards from the Directors Guild of America, Cinélatino, and Rencontres de Toulouse, among others. Sebastián is a Sundance Documentary Fellow and was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film in 2019. He is co-founder of Jarana Cine, SITE Collective, and Video Consortium Colombia, a global network of support and connection between documentary filmmakers.
Sam Paakkonen
B CAMERA
SAM PAAKKONEN is a cinematographer and editor based in New York City, specializing in documentary and commercial projects. After graduating from Tribeca Flashpoint College in Chicago with a focus in post-production, he has produced and edited for major companies including Business Insider, Bloomberg News, Washington Post, Great Big Story, AJ+, and Voice of America.
Sam views creativity as a way of operating and strives to share something new with every project.
Noah MacNeil
Composer
NOAH MACNEIL is a jazz pianist and composer as well as an animator and storyboard artist. As a jazz pianist, he regularly performs at venues such as The Blue Note, Smalls Jazz Club, and Fat Cat. Some notable acts he has worked with include: Sami Steens, JSWISS, FKAJazz, Shareef Keyes and The Groove, Moruf, Jesse Boykins, Melo-X, Jonathan Blake, and countless others.
When not bandstand performing a variety of genres in a wide range of settings, he composes music for film, including THE OVERSIMPLIFICATION OF HER BEAUTY directed by Terrence Nance and executive produced by Jay-Z. He recently composed the score for HARLEM FRAGMENTS directed by Cameron Tyler Carr.
Avantika Nimbalker
Location Sound Mixer
AVANTIKA NIMBALKER is a production sound mixer and sound designer working in documentaries and fiction films. Her credits include Webby-award winner CHASING COSBY, FIRST MOVE (DOC NYC) and FIERCE, FUNNY & FLY. Avantika was the lead production sound mixer for feature narrative ALLSWELL (Tribeca) and A PERIOD PIECE (SXSW). Born and raised in India, she is currently based out of Philadelphia.
GRACE SIN
FIELD PRODUCER
GRACE SIN is a producer and consultant committed to supporting underrepresented filmmakers and championing projects with a strong social justice impact. She has produced non-fiction content for Netflix, HBO, HULU, CNN, NatGeo, and more. Recent credits include PHOENIX RISING (Sundance 2022, Dir. Amy Berg) for HBO, LOOK AT ME: XXXTENTACION (SXSW 2022, Dir. Sabaah Folayan) for Hulu, and IN THE COMPANY OF ROSE (DOCNYC 2022, Dir. James Lapine). She has collaborated with partners including Imagine Documentaries, RadicalMedia, Anonymous Content, and A24. Her company, PARADOXIC, is currently developing a non-fiction series with Story Syndicate, a scripted web-series with BricTV, and two independent scripted projects.
David Torcivia
Colorist
DAVID TORCIVIA is a senior colorist located in NYC but working globally. His work covers music video, advertisement, documentary, and short form and episodic narrative. The projects he has worked on have amassed billions of views and have competed (and won) at SXSW, Tribeca, the Grammys, the VMAs, the BET awards, and many other industry events. Clients include industry leaders such as Solange, Young Thug, Jon Batiste, Kelsey Lu, Diplo, Vince Staples, Katy Perry, Adult Swim, the NFL, MLS, NHL, Google, Apple, Adidas, Kate Spade, Ford, Mazda, GSK, Pfizer, British Airways, Neutrogena, SKII, Elta, Chemours, Corteva, PPG, Citizens Bank, Invesco, Philips, Siemens, Lean Cuisine, Corona, Hot Pocket, and countless others. In his spare time, he can be found shooting still photography, working with radios, or writing.
JOHN WONG
Sound DESIGNER AND RE-RECORDING Mixer
JOHN WONG is a Supervising Sound Editor, Re-Recording Mixer, and Sound Designer. Over the course of his career he has worked on a variety of mediums including film, television, and video games . John’s feature and television work has been shown on Showtime, Amazon, Max, Lifetime, and others. John’s attentive and innovative takes at sound design has led him to work on such projects as GUNNER, ASKING FOR IT, and INJUSTICE: GODS AMONG US, just to name a few. Along with his stellar sound design, John is known for his work as a re-recording mixer and supervising sound editor on Features (5lbs OF PRESSURE, ROBOTS, FINDING YING YING), and network television shows (WORK IN PROGRESS, DEBUNKING BORAT, and SOUTH SIDE).
Co-production Partners
THE GROCERY LIST SHOW is a co-production of Oyster Films, LLC, Independent Television Service (ITVS), and CAAM with funding provided by the Corporation For Public Broadcasting (CPB). This program was produced by Oyster Films, LLC, which is solely responsible for its content.