KAREN B. SONG (Director, Producer, Co-Creator) began her 20+ year career in the entertainment industry producing and commissioning music albums on major labels, TV programs, and music videos, working with artists ranging from Madonna, Beyoncé, Bono to Missy Elliot & Patti Smith, and some of the most influential music video directors. She continued on to live events through a span of production, development and marketing roles, working with Ricky Martin, Britney Spears, Alicia Keys & the VH-1 Fashion Music Awards. She’s also provided various media and production services for countless non-profit organizations and their live events, such as GLAAD, Astraea, The Sister Fund, Red Hot Organization, and Keep a Child Alive. She was the Associate Producer on the star-studded TV programs and music albums “Ain’t Nuthin’ But A She Thing” (Polygram Records/MTV Worldwide) and “Inner City Blues: The Music of Marvin Gaye” (Motown Records/MTV Worldwide); and was the Director of the Music Video Department at Elektra/Warner Bros. Records. Her stint in theater includes being a member of the HB Ensemble and working with Tony Award-winning Director Jack Hofsiss. A body of short plays she wrote, “Love and Other Natural Disasters,” was produced at the Manhattan Repertory Theater. As a film/video Director & Producer, she’s directed various music videos, narrative shorts, documentaries, and worked with the advertising industry’s top agencies in commercials, branded content, radio ads & live events media (ie. American Express, Verizon Wireless, Mini-Cooper/BMW, VICE). She directed a music video & documentary short for Meshell Ndegeocello’s “Comet, Come to Me” album and has narrative feature film and TV projects under various stages of production & development. Some of her work can be found at www.singasongproductions.com
WANDA ACOSTA (Co-Creator, Producer) is a stalwart icon in lesbian nightlife in downtown New York. The creator and co-host of Sundays at Cafe Tabac, she has been creating and producing events in NYC for over 25 years. She was an owner of WonderBar, Starlight, and Clubhouse in Manhattan’s East Village. She also hosted and curated, events at many venues in NYC, PR and Florida. She has worked with a diverse range of clients and media, including The New Festival (New York Gay & Lesbian Film Festival), Mix NYC (New York Gay & Lesbian Experimental Film/Video Festival), The L-Word/Showtime Networks, Miramax Films, Tribeca Film Festival, Twist/Columbia Records, fashion/art magazine Visionaire, and non-profit organizations such as GLAAD, Empire State Pride Agenda, Astraea Foundation, Hetrick-Martin Institute and the LGBT Center. In collaboration with Electric Sheep Co. and L-Word/Showtime, Wanda developed a queer dance event, an experimental simulcast on secondlife.com, an online virtual world. She also published Tulip, a free quarterly pocket-zine for women. Most recently, she was awarded the Community Advocacy Award from The Leslie Lohman Museum of Art. She is the host and producer, of The Podcast, Sundays at Café Tabac.
wanda-events.com
RHYS ERNST (Editor) is a filmmaker and artist. He has shown his work at the Sundance Film Festival, Oberhausen Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Whitney Biennial, Walker Art Center, and Hammer Museum. He has won awards at the Chicago International Film Festival, Outfest, Oslo Fusion, Mezipatra Film Festival, LA Transgender Film Festival, and Seattle Transgender Film Festival, in addition to two Special Recognition GLAAD Awards and an Emmy nomination. He lives in Los Angeles.
rhysernst.com
MESHELL NDEGEOCELLO (Music Composer—Original Score) is an American singer-songwriter, bassist, vocalist, composer & producer. Her music incorporates a wide variety of influences, including funk, soul, hip-hop, reggae, jazz and rock. She has received significant critical acclaim throughout her career, and has had ten career Grammy Award nominations since her highly acclaimed breakout album “Plantation Lullabies” in 1993 when the world took notice of her when Madonna signed her to her newly created, highly anticipated Maverick Records. She has made key contributions to film & TV soundtracks including Batman & Robin, Love Jones, Talk to Her, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Love and Basketball.
CATHERINE GUND (Consulting Producer) is the Founder and Director of Aubin Pictures, is an Emmy-nominated producer, director, writer, and activist. Her media work focuses on strategic and sustainable social transformation, racial justice, arts and culture, HIV/AIDS and reproductive justice, and environmental justice. Her films have screened around the world in hundreds of festivals, theaters, museums, and schools; on PBS, the Discovery Channel, Sundance Channel, Netflix, and Amazon Prime.
Her most recent films include: Aggie (Sundance, Doc Fortnight), Primera (Tribeca), Dispatches From Cleveland (CIFF, MSPIFF), Chavela (Berlinale, Hot Docs, Ambulante), America, Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity, What’s On Your Plate?, A Touch of Greatness, Motherland Afghanistan, Making Grace, On Hostile Ground, and Hallelujah! Ron Athey: A Story of Deliverance.
Gund currently serves on the boards of Art For Justice, Art Matters, Baldwin for the Arts, and The George Gund Foundation. She co-founded the Third Wave Foundation which supports young women and transgender youth, and DIVA TV, an affinity group of ACT UP/NY. She was the founding director of BENT TV, the video workshop for LGBT youth. She was on the founding boards of Bard Early Colleges, Iris House, Working Films, Reality Dance Company, and The Sister Fund and has also served for MediaRights.org, The Robeson Fund of the Funding Exchange, The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School, and the Astraea Foundation. An alumnus of Brown University and the Whitney Independent Study Program, she has four children and lives in NYC.
TAJAMIKA PAXTON (Consulting Producer) Taj Paxton is currently the Head of Logo Documentary Films. Under her guidance, the division won its first Emmy Award in 2016 for the critically acclaimed documentary Matt Shepard Is a Friend of Mine and a subsequent Emmy in 2017 for Out of Iraq about two soldiers in love and fighting to be reunited. At Logo, she has carefully selected films with pressing social causes. Out of Iraq was screened on the floor of the UN. Hungry highlights chefs fighting for gender and equality. The IF Project, about a Seattle police officer’s commitment to prison reform, has been selected to tour with the US State Department as a part of its cultural exchange program. Paxton was named by Newsweek magazine as one of the people changing the face of Hollywood. Her work has also earned a Humanitas Prize for works that inspire human freedom. Her mission is to use great storytelling to bring us closer to equality. Tajamika Paxton’s creative career has included positions in film, television and music. She was the head of Forest Whitaker’s SpiritDance production company for three years. Alongside him, she produced two feature films, the Fox 2000 comedy “Chasing Papi” and the award-winning independent film “Green Dragon.” She was an MTV Films Executive, supervising “The Wood” and serving on the development team for “Election” and “Varsity Blues”. She managed acclaimed recording artist Meshell Ndegeocello during her Grammy nominated second album and was also an Associate Producer on Star Jones’ first TV show. Taj’s writing was published in the groundbreaking collection of essays edited by Rebecca Walker entitled What Makes A Man: 21 Writers Envision the Future.