NELSON G. NAVARRETE (Director/Producer) was raised in Caracas, Venezuela, until the age of 15, when his family fled the country in the face of mounting political upheaval. He went on to study at San Francisco State University, where he received a B.A. in cinema. After graduating, Navarrete returned to Venezuela, where his groundbreaking music videos and short films helped shape the visual aesthetics of his generation. Collaborating with some of the most influential Latino rappers, including Canserbero and Lil Supa, he built an expansive network of creative partners including directors Scott Lazer and Miguel Ferrer and photographer Claudio Napolitano. Navarrete has filmed in numerous international locations including Cambodia, Japan and Venezuela. He is the co-founder of digital production company Vitamin, whose clients include Samsung, Skype and Universal. A La Calle is Navarrete’s first feature documentary. Given the political nature of the film and the impending threat of the Venezuelan military and government, he is currently unable to return to his family in Venezuela.  

For Sudanese - Somalian - Norwegian director Ibrahim Mursal, this film is more than four years of asking and thinking through cross cultural questions. 

"I was going through a mini identity crisis. I was born in Norway to Somali parents; my religious family left for Sudan in the late 90's. There I received top class religious education and graduated as an oil engineer before pursuing my true passion: filmmaking. 

In 2013,  I decided to come back to Norway. In Norway, my years of conservative upbringing met one of the most liberal and secular societies in existence. Being away from the common religious dogma I hid behind in Sudan; I found myself having to answer some hard questions. One of the them: What do I think of homosexuality? This was the start of this story and the film "The Art of Sin".

Peter Murimi is a multiple award-winning Kenyan TV documentary director focusing on hard-hitting social issues, from extra-judicial killings to prostitution. He recently won the 2019 Rory Peck award for news feature camerawork. His first win was the CNN Africa Journalist of the year award for his intimate documentary about Female Genital Mutilation among his Kuria community, “Walk to Womanhood” (2004). Another ground-breaking project was the film “Slum Survivors” (2007) which won an award at the Czech Tur Ostrava film festival. Peter was a producer/ director for Al Jazeera's Africa Investigates strand exposing crime and corruption, including "Spell of the Albino" (2011) and "Zimbabwe's Child Exodus" (2011). "Kenya's Enemy Within" (2015), also for Al Jazeera, revealed the terror threat posed by homegrown al Shabaab Somali militants to Kenya. "I am Samuel" is his feature directorial debut, filmed verite style for five years in his home country of Kenya.

MAXX CAICEDO (Director/Producer) leads business development as chief marketing officer of digital production company Vitamin, whose clients include Microsoft, HBO and Change.org. A second-generation Colombian-American, Caicedo studied at Tufts University, where he received his B.A. in political science and English literature before entering the Peace Corps to teach English and biology in Mozambique. In 2012, Caicedo joined Lake Research Partners as a political consultant representing Senator Mark Begich (Alaska), Congressman Jerry McNerney (California) and Congressman Michael Honda (California). He went on to partner with Essential Access Health to win the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Next Generation Condom Grant in 2015. A La Calle is Caicedo’s first feature documentary.

NELSON G. NAVARRETE (Director/Producer) was raised in Caracas, Venezuela, until the age of 15, when his family fled the country in the face of mounting political upheaval. He went on to study at San Francisco State University, where he received a B.A. in cinema. After graduating, Navarrete returned to Venezuela, where his groundbreaking music videos and short films helped shape the visual aesthetics of his generation. Collaborating with some of the most influential Latino rappers, including Canserbero and Lil Supa, he built an expansive network of creative partners including directors Scott Lazer and Miguel Ferrer and photographer Claudio Napolitano. Navarrete has filmed in numerous international locations including Cambodia, Japan and Venezuela. He is the co-founder of digital production company Vitamin, whose clients include Samsung, Skype and Universal. A La Calle is Navarrete’s first feature documentary. Given the political nature of the film and the impending threat of the Venezuelan military and government, he is currently unable to return to his family in Venezuela.

Suhaib Gasmelbari was born in 1979 in Sudan. He studied Cinema in France at the University of Paris VIII. He has written and directed several short films, both fiction and documentary. Talking About Trees is his first feature film. He is also a researcher with a special focus on audio-visual archives. Through his research he was able to find some long-lost Sudanese films, and actively participates in international and local projects for saving and digitizing Sudanese films, including those of Ibrahim Shaddad, Suleiman Mohamed Ibrahim and Altayeb Mahdi.

Carl is a baby boomer, a product of the Sixties. He was born in Boston, as was his grandmother, father, two daughters and a grandson. His ancestry is Black, Indigenous American and western European. He made the calculation early in life that he did not want to be a full participant in the so-called "American dream" since he felt that his people were not respected or embraced by America. As a consequence, he feels his education was incomplete. His lifestyle choices did not include lots of money. Originally poor by choice, then by necessity, he sees himself as poor but not impoverished. Throughout his life he has been able to give lectures and presentations on Indigenous culture in southern New England, which he believes is a small contribution to young people’s education. When his youngest daughter went away to college, he struggled with what to do next. A year later he found the Clemente Course in the Humanities. There, he received a first-rate education and a new direction in his life. He was elected class graduation speaker, and this honor confirmed to him that he should speak to the positive impact Clemente has on a person’s life. He has spoken in videos, public forums and small classes. This is his first film.

Kafi has been employed as a gravedigger, fishmonger, retail merchant, Boston bus driver, community organizer and mother of three. She is certified as an urban farm by the City of Boston. Kafi, a former Clemente Course student, worked closely with the film’s director James Rutenbeck for the last four years. She is currently lead organizer for the Common Good Project, and urban farm and cooperative for poor and working-class women of color in Dorchester, Massachusetts. This is her first film.

James Rutenbeck’s nonfiction films have screened at various forums including Cinema du Reel, Museum of Modern Art, National Gallery and the Flaherty Film Seminar. James is a two-time recipient of the Alfred I. du Pont Columbia Journalism Award for his work as producer of the PBS series, Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick? (2008), about health disparities in the U.S. and Class of ’27, which he executive produced, directed and edited, about the lives of young children in rural America, is streaming as an Editor’s Pick at The Atlantic. His film Scenes from a Parish aired on the PBS series Independent Lens in 2009. James’ films have been funded by the Sundance Documentary Fund, LEF Moving Image Fund, Southern Humanities Media Fund and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. His broadcast editing credits include Zoot Suit Riots, Jimmy Carter and Roberto Clemente for the PBS series American Experience and the Peabody Award-winning DEEJ for Independent Lens. James studied filmmaking with Richard Leacock at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.