GOING VARSITY IN MARIACHI

Alejandra Vasquez (Director) is a Mexican-American filmmaker and producer. Raised in rural Texas, she tells stories about the lives of immigrants and activists, typically from rural communities similar to her own. She’s at work on a multi-year project about her hometown with support from the International Women’s Media Foundation and Latino Public Broadcasting. Alex has also cut her teeth working on the award-winning features MATANGI / MAYA / M.IA. (2018) and US KIDS (2020), along with co-producing Nanfu Wang’s upcoming feature. As a Series Producer for Topic Studios, she’s released the four-part series Night Shift and ten-part series Eating. 

Sam Osborn (Director) is a writer and filmmaker of Mexican-American descent. His debut feature-length documentary, Universe, about Wallace Roney, the only protege of Miles Davis, was Executive Produced by Carmelo Anthony and awarded Best Music Documentary by the International Documentary Association in 2020. His short works include Varsity Oro for Pop-Up Magazine, Night Shift for Topic, Language Keepers, a hybrid documentary project meant to help sustain the endangered Athabaskan language of Gwich’in, which premiered at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, and Eating, a 10-episode docuseries for Topic Studios. Currently he is working with Independent Lens to develop Folk Frontera, a magical-realist documentary about life in the borderlands of Northern Chihuahua and West Texas.  

Alejandra and Sam are 2020 Logan Nonfiction Fellows and 2020 Film Independent Docuseries Fellows. 

James Lawler is the founder and CEO of Osmosis Films, whose work spans documentary films, animation and design, television, and interactive design. Past films as a producer include Don't Let Me Drown (Sundance, 2009), The Lottery (shortlisted for the Academy Awards, 2011) and ESPN 30-for-30 Fernando Nation. James leads the Osmosis Films team of award-winning creatives in their work to make powerful, empathetic, and visually stunning work across all media and formats. James is also the founder of Climate Now (www.climatenow.com), a multimedia platform focused on educational content and events related to the energy transition and climate science.

Luis A. Miranda, Jr. has four decades of experience as a leader in the public, private, political, and advocacy sectors. He is the founding partner of The MirRam Group, founding president of the Hispanic Federation, and board chair of the Latino Victory Fund, The Public Theater, and Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance. He is recognized as a key contributor to the Senate campaigns of Senator Chuck Schumer, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and former U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton. Most recently he managed Letitia James’ successful re-election campaign for New York State Attorney General.

For over 40 years, Luis and the Miranda family have championed community activism and Latinx-led organizations. Through the Miranda Family Fund and Miranda Family Fellowship, they have created and fostered institutions that work with underserved populations in Upper Manhattan and communities throughout New York City, across the country, and in Puerto Rico. They are active supporters of initiatives that increase people of color’s representation throughout the arts and government, ensure access to women’s reproductive health, and promote Puerto Rico’s renaissance. 

Luis executive produced the New York Times’ Op-Docs short Takeover, which tells the story of the Young Lords’ 12-hour occupation of Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx in 1970. The HBO Documentary Film, Siempre, Luis—about Miranda’s life and storied career—made its World Premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.  Additional on-screen credits and appearances include In The Heights, tick, tick…BOOM! and TV’s S.W.A.T.

Julia Pontecorvo is a creative producer enthusiastic about telling humanity’s most idiosyncratic and heartfelt stories through traditional and innovative forms. She started at RadicalMedia working on a variety of short documentaries for original YouTube channel THNKR and on The System With Joe Berlinger (Al Jazeera America 2014). Notable projects include the docuseries Year Million (National Geographic 2017), the Grand Clio-winning interactive horror audio play Possession Begins (Cinemax 2017), and Lance Weiler’s acclaimed Where There's Smoke (2019 Tribeca Film Festival). Recently, she was a producer on season two of Home (Apple TV+ 2022), and a forthcoming docuseries exploring the intersection of fashion and modeling in the early 90s. Julia was also proud to be a 2020 Impact Partners Producers Fellow. She currently serves as Supervising Producer across an array of documentary projects for Firelight Media.