CREATIVE TEAM
Alexandra Nikolchev
Director, Editor &
Cinematography
Alexandra is a filmmaker exploring unexpected voices and stories and creating space for them in the media. She began her career reporting national news with PBS. Alexandra has directed for HBO, produced for national American broadcasts, and won Peabody and Emmy Awards for her work. She holds a journalism degree from N.Y.U. and an undergraduate degree in rhetoric and education from the University of California, Berkeley.
Alexandra believes in building media that is both factual and inclusive of diverse voices and audiences. With over a decade of experience in documentary filmmaking, she has learned the importance of listening closely. This has given her the privilege of connecting with people who inspire her by challenging the limits of what is possible in society.
Jane Comfort
Producer
Jane is a choreographer, writer, and director known for issue-oriented works integrating text and movement. Since 1978 she has created over 60 dance/theater works, most of them evening-length, that have been presented throughout the United States, in Europe, and in Latin America.
Recent works include the company’s Bessie Award winning 40th Anniversary Retrospective produced by La MaMa with Lumberyard, You Are Here, commissioned by the American Dance Institute and presented at The Kitchen, NYC, Altiplano, also commissioned by the American Dance Institute and presented at La MaMa, Beauty, a dance theater work about the cultural pressures surrounding women’s physique, attire, and appearance, An American Rendition, commissioned by NPN and NYSCA and voted a Best of 2008 Performance by both WNET Sunday Arts and Gay City News
Leslie Cuyjet
Co-Producer
Leslie is dance artist in Brooklyn, New York. Her tenure in New York is decorated with performances and collaborations, both formal and informal; with contemporaries, legends, and counterparts; on rooftops, good and bad floors, and alleyways; on stage, in film, art, on tour, and on the fly; since 2004. She was awarded a 2019 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for her sustained achievement as Outstanding Performer. And her 2021 solo,Blur, earned her a 2022 award for Outstanding Choreographer/Creator.
“Apotent choreographic voice,” says the New York Times. Her independent work has been presented in New York, where she aims to conjure life-long questions of identity, confuse and disrupt traditional narratives, and demonstrate the angsty, explosive, sensitive, pioneering excellence of the Black woman.
Sean Donovan
Co-Producer & Story Producer
Sean is an actor, dancer, writer, choreographer, director, and producer. He creates theater and dance performances that challenge the boundaries and intersections of both mediums. Ben Brantley of The New York Times called his work “darkly lyrical and exquisitely rendered.”
Sean won a 2022 Lortel Award for his performance in Heather Christian’s Oratorio for Living Things at Ars Nova. He was nominated in 2014 and again in 2017 for a BESSIE award for Outstanding Performer for his work with several artists over the past decade. Film and television credits include Law and Order: Organized Crime, Feast of the Epiphany directed by Oscar winning director Jeff Reichert, Laurence, and others. He has also danced in multiple music videos.
He received his BFA in Theatre from New York University’s Experimental Theatre Wing. He has trained and performed internationally and has also performed at theaters and universities throughout the U.S. He currently teaches movement and choreography at NYU.
seanpdonovan.com
Bara Jichova Tyson
Editor
Bara is a Czech-American artist and filmmaker. Currently, she is directing her second feature documentary film, Playtopia, produced by Cinepoint and Incomplete Pictures. Her first film, "Talking About Adultery," premiered at the 2019 Sheffield Doc/Fest and was nominated for the New Talent Award. Its North American premiere was at DOC NYC. Her short film, "The Hatch House," premiered at the 2016 Architecture and Design Film Festival. As a co-editor and writer, Bara co-created the feature documentary “Organ Player” directed by Narcissister (2018 Sundance Film Festival). She edited the feature documentary “Instructions on Parting”, directed by Amy Jenkins ( 2018 MoMA / Doc Fortnight). In 2009, she edited Michael Almereyda's feature film "Paradise," nominated for a Gotham Award. Bara was also the art director of "Now, Forager," a feature film by Jason Cortlund and Julia Halperin, selected for the 2012 New Directors/New Films Festival organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. The film received nominations at the Gotham Independent Film Awards.
Bara studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. In 2007 she earned her BFA at the MassArt in Boston at the Studio For Interrelated Media (SIM). In 2016, she was a recipient of The MacDowell Colony Fellowship. Municipal Bonds, a San Francisco-based gallery, represents her artwork.
Heather Christian
Composer
Heather is a Lucille Lortel, Drama Desk and Obie Award winning composer/performer making music centered shows and rituals. She is a 2021 Richard Rodgers Award winner and Sundance Institude Time Warner Fellow. Recent film and TV score: The Craft: Legacy (Blumhouse/ Sony Pictures), Lemon (Burn Later/ Magnolia Pictures) The Shivering Truth (Adult Swim), Teenage Euthanasia (Adult Swim), American Horror Stories (FX). Recent theatrical composing/performing credits include her own work Oratorio for Living Things (Ars Nova), Animal Wisdom ( The Bushwick Starr, now a motion picture (Wooly Mammoth and American Conservatory Theater) I am Sending You the Sacred Face (Theater In Quarantine/ YouTube— Named Vultures #5 Theater Experience of 2020), Prime: A Practical Breviary (Playwrights Horizons Soundstage—named IndieWire’s #1 Podcast Episode of 2020) in addition to being a lead artist on devised works Mission Drift Nat’l Theater London, The World Is Round BAM).
She has released 11 records, teaches vocal-based music composition at NYU, owns and operates her own recording studio in Beacon, NY, and can be seen regularly in concert halls and dive bars as Heather Christian & the Arbornauts.
Thea Piltzecker
Archival Producer
Thea Piltzecker is a documentary filmmaker whose work focuses on history, politics, and art as a medium for social change. She has produced documentaries for PBS, CNN, NBC, and the History Channel, as well as independent filmmakers. Thea's documentary "A Table for All" followed asylum seekers during the Trump administration, and premiered at the NYC Independent Film Festival. She is a former Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting Fellow. Thea is an Adjunct Professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She has an undergraduate degree from Bard College and a graduate degree in journalism from Columbia University. She grew up in the NYC modern dance world and is an active tango and salsa dancer.
Brydie O’Connor
Archival Producer
Brydie O’Connor is a Kansas-bred, New York based archival producer, researcher, & filmmaker. Her award-winning work focuses on women-driven and queer stories. Her films have screened at places such as The Museum of Modern Art, BFI, & DOC NYC, and her archival credits include series and feature documentaries for Vice, Showtime, Lincoln Center, and Sundance TV, among others and independent films.
ZARA KATZ
Director of Photography
Zara Katz is a filmmaker and photo producer for editorial, documentary and branded content, specializing in crafting character-driven visual stories. She is currently the Photography Director at NBC News Digital. She has contributed work to The New York Times Lens blog, Time magazine, Medium, The Guardian U.S., Pop-Up Magazine and Lifetime/A+E Networks. She was the Senior Photography Producer on a global Getty Images/Dove campaign photographed by more than 100 women and non-binary photographers, which won the Silver Glass Lion at Cannes in 2019.
Katz is the co-director and producer of “A WOMAN ON THE OUTSIDE” a feature documentary that premiered at SXSW Film Festival in spring 2022. She co-created Everyday Incarceration, a collaborative Instagram feed looking at 40 years of mass incarceration in the United States. Katz holds a Master’s degree from the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.