Maggie Lemere is a DC-based documentary filmmaker, oral historian, and National Geographic Explorer, whose projects explore people’s relationship to the environment. She’s currently directing a National Geographic Society-supported film, Land of Canaan, about the relationship between indigenous communities and old-growth olive trees in Palestine, and co-directing and producing films following environmental changemakers in Southeast Asia and the U.S. Maggie is the co-founder of Rhiza Collective, a women-led collective that uses storytelling, healing, organizing, and research to support social transformation and environmental justice. Maggie is a trained Master Naturalist and serves as Oral Historian for the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

Sam Ellertsen is a Providence, Rhode Island-based filmmaker. He worked for a decade as a cinematographer on narrative films, while looking for a way to channel his concern for the climate crisis and passion for activism into a film project. His debut documentary feature is Israelism, which explores American Jewish young people’s shifting relationship to Israel and Palestine. Israelism premiered at Big Sky Doc Fest in 2023 and won prizes at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, the Arizona International Film Festival, and the Tallgrass Film Festival. It has since become a phenomenon on college campuses and across social media, while also drawing repeated attempts at censorship—controversies that have been covered in major outlets like The New York Times. His second feature, Generation on Fire, currently in post-production, follows youth climate activists.

Nate Birnbaum is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, who has made climate and environmental storytelling his life’s work. Beginning his career as a co-founder and producer at the American Resilience Project, where he produced Tidewater (2016) and Current Revolution (2018), Nate is now a director and producer at Tikkun Olam Productions, where he is producing and co-directing Generation Green New Deal, the forthcoming feature documentary, and chart-topping companion podcast, about youth climate activists in the Sunrise Movement. Nate is also a co-creator and co-director of Vs. Goliath, Tikkun Olam’s forthcoming Documentary Series about frontline environmental justice activists across the country, for which he was selected as a 2022 Film Independent x CNN Doc Series Fellow. Nate is also a co-producer of Tikkun Olam’s award-winning feature documentary, Israelism, which made its world premiere at the 2023 Big Sky Documentary Film Festival.