Meet the Team

this film was produced with the intention of building and creating community around the filmmaking process.

Led by director emily packer, the team was assembled through friendships and a shared desire for an alternative to traditional hierarchical and extractive filmmaking practices. All team members were extensively involved in early discussions and pre-production, imbuing a sense of collective ownership of the film. The team’s roles and responsibilities were consciously flexible and able to evolve as skills and interests developed.

  • Director / Producer

    Emily (she/they) is an experimental filmmaker and editor with an interest in geography and hybrid formats. Their directorial work has been screened at film festivals and theaters across the country, including at Anthology Film Archives, BlackStar, DOCNYC, and others. Emily’s short film “By Way of Canarsie,” which she co-directed with Lesley Steele, is streaming on the Criterion Channel and was a part of POV Shorts Season 6. Her archival film “Too Long Here,” which Criterioncast called “a fascinating, important work” about the inauguration of an international park, has been used as an advocacy tool for its preservation. As an editor, Emily’s work has been featured in the New Yorker, PBS, and on Vimeo Staffpicks. Her feature film editorial experience spans indie narrative, experimental nonfiction, historical arthouse fiction, and personal essay film. In addition to her editing and directing work, Emily serves on programming committees for film festivals in New York City. They were a fellow in the 2018 Collaborative Studio at UnionDocs in Brooklyn, and are a proud alumna of the anomalous Hampshire College. Emily collects voicemails for future use; consider yourself notified.

  • Editor

    Lindsey Phillips is a documentary filmmaker and editor based in Brooklyn, New York. In her work, she celebrates unique traditions and idiosyncrasies of place, culture, and communities, finding humor and humanity in complex places. In addition to editing the hybrid feature film "Holding Back the Tide", she is currently working on a comedic hybrid project called "Serious Play" about the juggling community and its annual festival. She is known for directing and editing several short films including: "The Exceptionally Extraordinary Emporium," about the significance of costuming in New Orleans, “My Name Is Marc, And You Can Count On It,” about Cleveland’s late-night commercial cult icon Marc Brown, and "Rhythm's Gonna Get Ya", a city symphony of the many challenges NYC subway commuters face. Her award-winning films have screened at numerous festivals across the country, have appeared on PBS's Reel South, and her work has been featured on The New Yorker, Time Studios, Vox, and CNN’s Great Big Story.

  • EDITOR / PRODUCER / 1st camera unit

    Ben Still is a filmmaker whose documentary work has won awards at film festivals and has been featured as a Vimeo Staff Pick. He also makes music videos, which have been featured in Rolling Stone and NPR’s All Songs Considered. He is a founding editor of the collage journal ctrl + v, whose website he designs and maintains, and he was a 2018 - 2019 UnionDocs fellow. His writing has appeared in The LA Review of Books, The Offing, Landfill, and elsewhere. He holds a PhD in Social Psychology from New York University.

  • PRODUCER / NARRATIVE SUPERVISOR

    Trey Tetreault (he/him) is a producer, director, and production specialist, with experience in film & tv, theatre, live events, advertising, and publishing. Film & TV Credits: Anthony Bourdain’s ‘Parts Unknown’, Saturday Night Live, Holding Back the Tide (feature), The Tunnel (short), The Missed (short), I’m Fine (web series) Theatre Credits: Love All (La Jolla Playhouse), Laramie…10 years Later (TheatreLab NYC), Last Room (NYC), Awake in the Dark (NYC), Days of Rage (NY workshop).

  • DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY

    John Marty (he/him/his) is a non-fiction filmmaker based in New York City. His visual practice explores anthropological stories based in the (un)natural world. He is an alumnus of Hampshire College where he made the film “Tartufai” by utilizing ethnographic methods to explore the clandestine world of multi-generational truffle hunting in Italy. John is the director of photography for “Holding Back The Tide”, a hybrid documentary about New York City’s queer environmental heroes: Oysters! His work with the band CyberAttack won Best Music Video at the Bowery Film Festival for the song "Fantasy Killer”. John was a fellow in the 2021-2022 Collaborative Studio at Union Docs in Brooklyn where he researched public space in New York City. He co-directed “Altitudes", a short documentary about the multi-dimensional efforts from scientists, activists, and students to prepare for and prevent the climate crisis. The film was selected to be part of Labocine’s October 2023 issue (art)ificial 2.0.

  • PRODUCER / ARCHIVAL PRODUCER

    Josh Margolis is a Brooklyn based documentary producer with a keen interest in art, visual culture, and archival research. He is best known for his work on Netflix’s This Is A Robbery, Abstract: The Art of Design, and a number of PBS American Experience films including Voice of Freedom, The Riot Report, The First, and The Man Who Tried To Feed The World.

    As an undergraduate at Ithaca College Josh co-produced a documentary short following a community of Syrian refugees as they resettled in Detroit. The film was selected as an Editor’s Pick by The Atlantic magazine, and won Best in Show at Docs Without Borders Film Festival.

    Outside of work Josh can most often be found searching for meaning at an art museum, rock show, or in the cheap seats at a baseball game.

  • PRODUCER

    Liz Beeson is a Brooklyn-based producer who has worked with a diverse array of clients including Netflix, Instacart, Amazon, Samsung, Under Armour, GE, and more. Her most recent film, "Serious Play," premiered at the Brooklyn Film Festival 2023 winning the Audience Award for best narrative short film, and is screening at Cucalorus Film Festival, SCAD Savannah Film Festival, and the New Orleans Film Festival. In addition, Liz also produced, edited, and co-hosted an award-winning podcast called “On the Virge,” which is all about your first time and the topic of virginity/sexuality. During her time in New Orleans, Liz produced and served as the producer and production manager for an original series called “Sunken City,” hailed by the press as 'the New Portlandia' and featured on Indiewire's list of web series that could be 'the Next Broad City.' Liz is also a freelance producer for Inspired Storytellers, a creative agency dedicated to working with non-profit organizations, and all those making change in their communities. Liz is also in early development on a feature-length hybrid documentary about the International Jugglers' Association.

    Liz received a Bachelor’s in Journalism from Middle Tennessee State University, was part of the 2018 National Arts Strategy cohort earning a certification in Arts and Culture Strategy at the University of Pennsylvania, and received a certification in Diversity and Inclusion at Cornell University.

  • 2ND CAMERA UNIT

    Lesley Steele is a director, editor and producer of video art and documentary film. Originally a NYC native she obtained a BFA in Design Technology from Parsons The New School for Design and Masters in Directing from SVA.

    In 2020 she was chosen to participate in Sundance's Art of Editing Fellowship and subsequently appeared on DOC NYC's “40 under 40” filmmakers list. Steele’s spark in experimental 16mm cinematography & analog editing is a driving force in her work. Her latest film “By Way of Canarsie,” is currently available on The Criterion Channel and is distributed by Dedza Films and Kino Lorber. Steele’s filmmaking reflects the essence of nonlinear experimental storytelling and unorthodox approaches to visioning stories of the black experience and culture within the African Diaspora across the Caribbean and United States. During the civil uprising following George Floyd’s murder in 2020, she documented the late Floyd’s horse-carriage funeral on 16mm film in Austin.

    In addition to curating a series of independent new work, Lesley is currently producing her first investigative feature doc about the state of mental health in Nebraska and its intersection with race and the carceral system in the United States. She is a member of Meerkat Media, a democratically run co-operative production company in Sunset Park, Brooklyn that produces artful and impactful films with an emphasis on ethical narrative storytelling, non-fiction and visual craft. Her previous clients include MoMa, MTV, Vogue, Nickelodeon, Spotify, Museum of Moving Image, TED, Buzzfeed and others. You can find Lesley via Brown Girls Doc Mafia, The Alliance of Doc Editors and Array Crew.