Presented live at DC/DOX in partnership with The Redford Center and IF/Then Shorts, the Nature Connection Pitch brings together five bold new short documentary projects exploring the evolving relationship between people, place, and the natural world. The event spotlights filmmakers whose work examines environmental justice, access to nature, cultural memory, and the communities and individuals working to restore connection amid an ecological crisis and transformation.
Selected from hundreds of submissions, the five featured projects represent some of the most exciting emerging voices in documentary storytelling. Following a period of intensive pitch and impact training, the filmmakers will present their projects before a live audience of industry leaders, funders, journalists, filmmakers, and advocates. Grants totaling up to $90,000 will be awarded to support these outstanding projects as they move into production and completion.
The Nature Connection Pitch offers audiences a rare opportunity to encounter documentary films at their earliest stages — before they reach the screen — and to engage directly with the ideas, voices, and creative visions shaping the future of environmental storytelling.
María José Calderón is a Chilean producer and editor based in Oakland, California, with a master’s degree in journalism from UC Berkeley. She specializes in documentaries exploring environmental justice, human rights, and social inequality.
Her credits include COVID’S HIDDEN TOLL (FRONTLINE/PBS), THE EDGE OF THE SEA (PBS), and WATER FOR LIFE (2023), narrated by Diego Luna, which was shortlisted for the IDA Best Feature Documentary Award and won multiple international prizes. She also produces and edits films for the Goldman Environmental Prize and currently has two fiscally sponsored projects in production with the Redford Center.
Kristy Hyunsoo Choi is a Korean American filmmaker interested in stories about desire, freedom, and belonging. She is currently working on her next short hybrid film, SING PEAK, and her debut narrative feature, PENTIMENTO, which she developed at the 2025 Cine Qua Non Lab.
Kristy’s short hybrid film HERSELVES was released by THE NEW YORKER, and her short hybrid film EXCERPTS FROM A FIELD GUIDE was released by REI. She also produced an Emmy-nominated episode of the ASIAN AMERICAN STORIES OF RESILIENCE AND BEYOND series for PBS WORLD Channel and was an associate producer of the groundbreaking documentary ISRAELISM.
Over his 16 years as a filmmaker, Micah has brought commercial and documentary work to life as a passionate director. His first film project was producing a series of documentary stories for a nonprofit operating in Kenya. His early years as a musician and painter give him a unique artistic voice in telling inspiring human stories. Prior to starting Household, he spent five years running his own production company and three years agency-side as a Creative Director. He currently lives in Colorado and enjoys spending time outdoors, fly fishing, and raising two wild kids.
Jamaica Kalika is a filmmaker, farmer, and chef of Ndebele, Jewish, and Cape Verdean heritage based in Washington, DC. Her work exists at the intersection of filmmaking, farming, and food preparation. It reflects the belief that food and film are fundamental elements of culture, essential to passing down stories and values across generations. Through her artistry, she aspires to build a future where nourishment and storytelling go hand in hand, cultivating spaces of connection, empowerment, and cultural preservation. Her work has been supported by Visionary Justice StoryLab and the Southern Foodways Alliance.
Javier Pineda is a Colorado-based community organizer, immigrant rights leader, and outdoor educator whose life story sits at the intersection of migration, identity, and belonging. Originally from Pátzcuaro, Mexico, he grew up undocumented in the U.S., navigating the shadows of exclusion while forging a deep connection to the mountains that would later define his work.
As co-founder of Mountain Dreamers and founder of MD Oso Outdoors, Javier is reimagining what access to the outdoors looks like, building pathways for immigrant and first-generation communities not only to experience nature, but to claim space within it. His work challenges long-standing barriers across legal systems, economic opportunity, and outdoor culture.
Chamberlain Staub is a filmmaker based in Los Angeles, California. She has produced Emmy-winning series, including CHEF’S TABLE and LIVE TO 100: SECRETS OF THE BLUE ZONES. Her work is guided by a curiosity about the spaces where personal history and collective memory intersect, creating stories that feel both deeply human and culturally resonant.
Isabela Zawistowska is a Mexican documentary filmmaker and cinematographer based in Ojai, California. Her work explores the intersection of ecology, culture, and identity, with an emphasis on environmental storytelling and women-led narratives. She has collaborated with PBS SoCal, Patagonia, and Earthrise Studio, and her films have been recognized by PhotoVogue and supported by Film Independent. Through an intimate, character-driven approach that blends cinematic realism with portraiture, she creates stories that reconnect people to place and inspire connection, awareness, and action.
Ramona S. Diaz is a Peabody, The Gotham, International Documentary Association, and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, and a nominee for the Gawad Urian Awards, Producers Guild of America, and Independent Spirit Awards. Her films have screened and won awards at top international festivals including the Sundance Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival, Busan International Film Festival, Tribeca Festival, SXSW Film Festival, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, and Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival.
Her independently produced films include IMELDA (2004), THE LEARNING (2011), DON’T STOP BELIEVIN’: EVERYMAN’S JOURNEY (2012), MOTHERLAND (2017), and A THOUSAND CUTS (2020), all of which have screened theatrically and been broadcast internationally. Her latest film, AND SO IT BEGINS, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was selected as the Philippines’ official entry for the 97th Academy Awards in the Best International Feature Film category.
Ramona is both a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow and a United States Artists Fellow, and was named the inaugural McGurn Family Trust Resident in Film by the American Academy in Rome. In 2024, she received the Marek Nowicki Award from the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights for lifetime achievement in advancing human rights through film. She divides her time between the U.S. and the Philippines.
Erika Dilday, producer, journalist, and media executive, is the Executive Director of American Documentary Inc. and the Executive Producer of its award-winning documentary series POV on PBS and AMERICA REFRAMED on WORLD.
Previously, she was the CEO of Futuro Media Group, a multimedia organization that gives a critical voice to the diversity of the American experience through award-winning journalistic content for and about BIPOC communities. Prior to Futuro Media, she was the Executive Director of Maysles Documentary Center, where she oversaw community cinema and filmmaking programs and produced the acclaimed documentary IN TRANSIT. Erika also held strategic planning and financial management roles at The New York Times, National Geographic Television, and CBS.
She is a graduate of Harvard College, the Columbia School of Journalism, and Columbia Business School. In 2020, she was a Knight Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, where she authored a piece for Nieman Reports on authentic journalism in communities of color. Erika is a 2016 recipient of the Columbia Journalism School Alumni Award and a 2017 National Arts Strategies Chief Executive Fellow. Her latest film projects include CIVIL WAR with Rachel Boynton and MEANWHILE with Catherine Gund.
Alexandra Garcia leads Op-Docs, The New York Times’s Oscar-winning series of short documentaries. Previously, she was a documentary director/producer for The New York Times’s video newsroom and for its documentary series The Weekly and The New York Times Presents on FX and Hulu. Her work at The Times has earned three Emmy awards, over a dozen Emmy nominations and has screened at film festivals worldwide. Formerly, she was a fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard and a senior video journalist at The Washington Post.
Jeff Seelbach is an award-winning media executive and documentary producer. At Topic, he developed, financed, and commissioned a wide ranging slate of projects including eight-part series PHILLY D.A., produced with Independent Lens and PBS (Peabody, Gotham, DuPont-Columbia awards); Geeta Gandbhir’s CALL CENTER BLUES (Oscar Shortlist); Lana Wilson’s A CURE FOR FEAR (IDA nomination); Richard Rowley’s 16 SHOTS (Emmy award); TRANS IN TRUMPLAND (GLAAD nomination); and THE ZO, a collaboration with Marshall Project, artist Molly Crabapple, and actor Michael K. Williams (Murrow award).
Jeff ran the short documentary team and helped launch AJ+, and he spent four years at Emmy-winning PBS strand Wide Angle. His recent consulting projects include the podcast WHEN THE WOLVES CAME and short doc series QUEER FUTURES (Criterion). Jeff mentors filmmakers at Union Docs and frequently consults with field-building organizations such as Black Public Media, Hot Docs, Points North Institute, and CPH:DOX.
Jill Tidman (she/her) is Executive Director of The Redford Center, an independent nonprofit organization founded in 2005 by Robert Redford and his son James Redford. Jill has worked with the organization since its founding and took the helm in 2012 to lead its vision, strategy, and operations in service of advancing environmental solutions through the power of stories that move people to act.
She has produced three award-winning feature documentaries and impact campaigns, and draws on her experience as a writer, filmmaker, and activist — along with her passion for sustainability and environmental justice — to help create new pathways for impactful environmental films.
