Steve James' affiliation with Kartemquin began in 1987 with the start of production of Hoop Dreams, for which he served as director, producer, and co-editor. The film won every major critics award as well as a Peabody and Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award in 1995. The film earned James the Directors Guild of America Award and the MTV Movie Award’s "Best New Filmmaker." Recently, Hoop Dreams was selected for the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry, signifying the film’s enduring importance to American film history, and hailed by critic Roger Ebert as "the great American documentary."

Artistic Director and founding member of Kartemquin Films, Gordon Quinn has been making documentaries for over 45 years. Roger Ebert, of the Chicago Sun Times, called his first film Home for Life (1966) "an extraordinarily moving documentary." With Home for Life Gordon established the direction he would take for the next four decades, making cinéma vérité films that investigate and critique society by documenting the unfolding lives of real people. 

Jerry Blumenthal, one of the founding partners of Kartemquin Films, has been a director, producer, editor and sound recordist with Kartemquin since 1967. He's most recent work was as Editor on Kartemquin's documentary, Prisoner Of Her Past. Blumenthal's previous film, Golub: Late Works are the Catastrophes (2004), co-produced with Gordon Quinn, revisits the great American artist thirteen years after the award-winning Golub (1988) and was a selection at the 2004 IDFA.

Fenell Doremus has worked in documentary film since graduating from the University of Wisconsin with a BA in Sociology. She began her career as an Assistant Editor on the award-winning Hoop Dreams. She went on to serve as staff Producer at Kartemquin Films for the next eight years. While at Kartmequin, Doremus was Segment Producer and a Segment Editor (Palestinian story) of The New Americans. Hailed as "Totally engrossing...filled with many unexpected riches..." by The New York Times, the series was nationally broadcast on PBS in 2004 and won multiple awards at festivals worldwide.

David E. Simpson is a producer, director and editor who has crafted award- winning films and television for over twenty-five years. He has worked in close association with Kartemquin Films since 1997.

David’s first feature-length documentary, When Billy Broke His Head... was a groundbreaking film about disability culture that garnered major prizes at a dozen film festivals, including a jury award at Sundance and a duPont- Columbia Baton for Journalistic Excellence.

David directed Refrigerator Mothers, about a generation of mothers who raised autistic children under the shadow of professionally-promoted mother-blame. The
film won top honors at the Florida, Indiana, and Sedona film festivals and aired nationally on the PBS series P.O.V.

Leslie Simmer is Kartemquin's Director of Editing as well as Senior Editor on staff. For over twelve years Leslie has worked at Kartemquin in various capacities. Most recently she edited and co-wrote the feature documentary As Goes Janesville, a co-production between Kartemquin and 371 Productions which will screen on PBS in October, 2012. Prior to that, she edited with Steve James on the ESPN film No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson; she edited the Emmy-nominated In the Family (for which she received the Best Editing prize at the "Best of the Midwest Awards); and in 2005 Leslie was co-editor with Steve James on The War Tapes. From 2001-2004 she wore dual hats on the seven-part PBS series The New Americans as both Series Story Editor and Post Production Supervisor.

Zak is an independent Producer, Director, and Sound Recordist who, until 2013, served as Kartemquin's Director of Production and was on staff for more than 10 years. Most recently he co-produced the critically acclaimed film The Interrupters, which premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Currently, Zak is producing Life Itself, a film based in large part on renowned film critic Roger Ebert’s acclaimed memoir of the same name.

Aaron Wickenden is a filmmaker with extensive professional experience as a freelance editor and cinematographer. He is regarded for bringing a tireless work ethic and playful spirit to each of his creative collaborations. His recent accomplishments include: Co-Editor and Post Supervisor for Kartemquin’s The Interrupters, Documentary Cinematographer and Post Supervisor for the concert documentary Andrew Bird: Fever Year, and Producer and Cinematographer for multi-media content on The New Yorker website.