Aurora Brachman is an Emmy Award-winning documentary director, producer, and cinematographer. She was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film and a Vimeo Breakout Creator. Through patient and poetic storytelling, her films explore intimate relationships within families and communities. Her latest film, HOLD ME CLOSE, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

Her short documentaries, including WHEN THE REVOLUTION DOESN’T COME, CLUB QUARANTINE, JOYCHILD, STILL WATERS, and THE GALLERY THAT DESTROYS ALL SHAME, have been acquired by The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian, and POV; selected as Vimeo Staff Picks; exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art; and screened at festivals including Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca Festival, True/False Film Fest, and BlackStar Film Festival. She co-produced Apple TV+’s GIRLS STATE (Sundance 2024), associate-produced A24’s STEPHEN CURRY: UNDERRATED (Sundance 2023), and assisted on the Showtime docuseries COUPLES THERAPY.

Aurora is a Sundance Institute Ignite Fellow, a Firelight Media Fund recipient, a Film Independent Amplifier Fellow, a Chicken & Egg Films (Egg)celerator Lab Fellow, a Chicken & Egg Films | POV Shorts Co-Production Fund recipient, an SFFILM FilmHouse Resident, and a Bay Area Video Coalition MediaMaker Fellow. She is also the recipient of a Fulbright Program Scholarship in filmmaking and holds an MFA in Documentary Film from Stanford University.

Aurora’s work centers the experiences of Black, brown, and queer communities and reflects her commitment to collaborative and ethical storytelling.

LaTajh Simmons-Weaver is a screenwriter, director and producer from Oakland, CA. Their work blends humor, imagination, and irony to explore overlooked stories within Black Queer dynamics, examining how these communities learn to cope with everyday injustices. One of Weaver’s previous projects, Cycles, follows a youth advocate worker and a young man, as they search for their purpose amid danger in Oakland, where the murder rate remains the second highest in the country. Using a blend of Western cinema tropes and gritty realism, Weaver processes what growing up surrounded by gun violence looked like to them. This film series was inspired by Weaver’s mother who’s worked in gun violence for over 25 years.

In early 2019, Weaver was commissioned by the National Queer Arts Festival to direct a short film reflecting on their experience growing up in Oakland as a Black Queer and how it weighs on their relationship to America. They have also been commissioned to direct a series of short films for the Museum of African Diaspora (MoAD) and SF Arts Foundation.

In 2022, Weaver was awarded the SFFILM FilmHouse Residency. During this time, they wrote and directed the short film Companion, which screened at Mill Valley, BlackStar and IndieMemphis. That same year, Weaver was selected as Chicken & Egg/ POV Inaugural grantee to develop the short film HOLD ME CLOSE alongside Aurora Brachman. Through their residency, Weaver collaborated with award-winning director, Savanah Leaf serving as an Associate Producer of Earth Mama (A24, Park Pictures & Academy Films), which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and won a BAFTA for Outstanding Debut.

In 2024, Weaver received several accolades, including The Future of Film is Female short film grant, the East Bay Fund for Artists, and the Fleishhacker Foundation grant, to produce their narrative short film, Budget Paradise. The film follows Chester, a Black, non binary painter as they search for space and permission to exist within their hometown. Budget Paradise is currently being submitted to Film Festivals for its premiere.

Weaver is now developing their first feature No One Turned Away For Lack of Funds: A Queer Inclusive Memoir, a dark comedy challenging identity politics amongst the ever-gentrifying Bay Area. Their script is a recipient of SFFILM’s Rainin Grant for development. In addition, Weaver is wrapping production on, When the Revolution Doesn’t Come, a short documentary they produced in coalition with The Guardian. Directed by Aurora Brachman, the film explores the upbringings of the children of some of the most revolutionary members of the Black Panther Party and is expected to be released in February 2025.