We’re thrilled to announce five extraordinary new members who have joined the ranks of Working Films’ Board of Directors!
CATY BORUM CHATOO
Caty Borum Chattoo is Director of the Center for Media & Social Impact (CMSI), an innovation lab and research center at American University that creates, showcases, and studies media designed for social change; and Executive in Residence at the American University School of Communication in Washington, D.C. She is an award-winning communication strategist and documentary film/TV producer working at the intersection of social-change communication, research, documentary, and entertainment storytelling.
Borum Chattoo’s social-change storytelling, strategy, and research work has been featured in USA Today, NPR, Businessweek, The Huffington Post, and PBS MediaShift, and her social justice documentaries have aired internationally and nationally on Netflix, the Sundance Channel, Pivot, NDTV (India), PBS World, Link TV, KCET, DirectTV and theatrically. She has produced two documentary feature films (Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price and The After Party), a TV documentary and transmedia series (Stand Up Planet, starring Hasan Minhaj from “The Daily Show”), a multi-part documentary TV series focused on global poverty (ViewChange), a seven-part environmental justice documentary TV series (Sierra Club Chronicles), and PSA campaigns designed for social change on issues ranging from global poverty to climate change to HIV. At CMSI, her current research, creative and strategy work focuses on audience effects of documentary storytelling, nonfiction industry race and gender diversity, audience effects of entertainment storytelling across platforms, and the role of comedy in social justice.
Previously, she was senior vice president in the social marketing practice group at FleishmanHillard International Communications in Washington, D.C., focused on social-change programs. In Los Angeles, she was a longtime collaborator with legendary TV producer and philanthropist/activist Norman Lear as a founding director of Declare Yourself, a national youth civic engagement organization; and special projects director & senior producer at the USC Norman Lear Center, a research and public policy center that examines the social impact of entertainment on society. She also served as the program officer in the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Entertainment Media & Public Health program; project director at the Center for Media Education; and fellow in civic journalism at The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Borum Chattoo holds an M.A. in Communication from the University of Pennsylvania (The Annenberg School for Communication), and a B.A. in Communication Studies (summa cum laude, In Honors, Phi Beta Kappa) from Virginia Tech.
FELIX ENDARA
Born in Ecuador, Felix Endara is a transgender New York-based independent filmmaker, programmer, and arts administrator whose films have screened at festivals including Berlin, Frameline, Outfest, NewFest, DOC NYC, and Mill Valley. From 2008 to 2012, he programmed Arts Engine’s documentary screening series DocuClub, which he toured to Mexico City and Silver Spring, Maryland. In 2010, he was a fellow at the IFP Documentary Finishing Lab (2010) as producer for Wildness (2012, Dir: Wu Tsang), which follows the trajectory of a gay male bar in Los Angeles as its transforms into a refuge for immigrant Latina transgender women. It premiered at MoMa’s Documentary Fortnight series in February 2012, was an official selection at SXSW, and screened at the Whitney Biennial later that year. He also produced Article of Faith (2011, Dir: Christina Antonakos-Wallace), which received the “Changemaker Award” at the Media That Matters film festival in 2011. The short portrays anti-bullying Sikh activist Sonny Singh and his fight to ban discrimination in New York City schools. In addition, he participated in Working Films/Fledgling Fund’s first Reel Engagement workshop (July 2010), focusing on outreach and audience engagement; and in documentary trainings at Dok-Leipzig’s Co-Production Meetings (October 2011), in Germany; and Amsterdam’s IDFA Academy (November 2011). He has been a reviewer for P.O.V., Tribeca All Access, NewFest, Human Rights Watch Film Festival, and the New York Asian American International Film Festival; and an advisor for Cinereach Reach Fellows. In 2013, he served as a jury member of the New Orleans Film Festival.
Felix has a long and consistent track record of producing innovative, thought-provoking media of consequence that has screened at prestigious film festivals around the world. Topics he has covered have ranged from the preservation and celebration of LGBT historical spaces to character portraits of activists who rise up to the challenges of fighting prejudice and violence. In addition, his work as an independent programmer and arts administrator draws on his values to champion art that functions as a catalyst for social change.
Grit & Grind, his most recent short documentary, tells the story of the Clit Club, an edgy lesbian club set in New York’s Meatpacking District in the 1990s, as the city struggled with the AIDS epidemic. The film had its debut at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2014.
WILL JENKINS
Will Jenkins has more than a decade of communications and policy experience at the White House, the Department of Health and Human Services, Congress, and international nonprofit organizations. Over the years, he has also worked with many filmmakers and media producers on stories that engage policy issues.
During his time in the federal government, Will served as a spokesperson to local, national, and foreign news outlets on a wide range of issues, including criminal justice reform, drug policy, immigration, public health and education. At the White House, he worked with filmmakers to plan interviews and events with the President and senior officials for documentaries airing on PBS/Frontline, MTV, Showtime, and other outlets. He has planned high profile events and policy rollouts featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA TODAY and The Washington Post and managed appearances for government officials on Meet the Press, Morning Joe, 60 Minutes and The Colbert Report. As a legislative aide in Congress, he guided from introduction to enactment the first legislation to protect American military members from the health effects of toxic burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan, which has been called this generation’s Agent Orange.
As part of his work with media producers, he was Policy Director for the Impact Film Festival at the 2012 Republican and Democratic National Conventions, where he coordinated screening discussions with politicians, filmmakers, celebrities and reporters. In 2013, he developed the American Film Institute’s first Political Bootcamp for Filmmakers. He has spoken about film and policymaking at South by Southwest, the Tribeca Film Festival, Good Pitch, and the International Documentary Association. He is co-author of a report series on films and policymaking published through American University in 2017.
PETER MILLER
Peter Miller’s award-winning documentaries include the theatrically-released AKA Doc Pomus (about the legendary songwriter), Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story (narrated by Dustin Hoffman), and Sacco and Vanzetti (winner of the American Historical Association’s best film award). With Carlos Sandoval, he directed and produced A Class Apart (PBS American Experience, Imagen Award). His musical film The Internationale was short-listed for an Academy Award nomination. His documentary Projections of America, about a little-known American WWII propaganda film unit, premiered on PBS stations in the fall of 2016. With Renée Silverman, he produced, directed and shot Sosua: Make a Better World (shown on PBS stations nationwide) and Refugee Kids: One Small School Takes On the World. He most recently co-directed Robert Shaw: Man of Many Voices, about the celebrated conductor, and is currently collaborating with filmmakers Peggy Stern and Justin Schein on a new film about the Palliative Care movement in medicine.
MALAIKA MOSE
Malaika (Paquiot) Mose splits her times between her two loves: film and tech. To this end, she is a Digital Strategist with ARRAY, formerly known as African American Film Festival Releasing Movement (AFFRM), founded by the director of the Oscar-nominated film Selma: Ava DuVernay. Malaika has led a group of 60 volunteers in the digital promotion of 13 out of ARRAY’s 14 releases and will be working on their 15th acquisition: Namour.
Vice-President of Product Management at a Wilmington, NC-based cloud banking startup, she has been in the software industry for 14 years during which time she has won the National Women of Color Technology Award.
She merges the tech and film worlds by writing about online film distribution and crowdfunding and has done so for Focal Press’ Mastering Film blog, Filmmaker Magazine’s blog and her own blog Beyond the Box Office. Up since 2009, it focuses on innovative ways for filmmakers to distribute their films, including set-top boxes, streaming services and mobile apps.
An authority on online film distribution, Malaika has been invited to cover industry events like National Association of Broadcasters, and has covered events like NewTeeVee Live, The Conversation, IFP and Power to the Pixel’s CrossMedia Forum NYC, DIY Days, and SXSW. When last she checked, she was listed 84 times on Twitter in such categories as filmmaking, film-video, IPTV, new movie distribution and her personal favorite: Awesomocity.
She is currently a member of the Sundance Institute and a former board member of the San Jose Multicultural Artists Guild.
Having gotten to know Working Films co-founder Robert West briefly in the year before his cancer diagnosis, it is her great honor to lend her skills to advancing the mission of the organization through membership on the board.
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