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. 

Peter Gilbert is one of the filmmakers who made Hoop Dreams, serving as a Producer and Director of Photography. The film won numerous awards including The Sundance Film Festival Audience Award, Producers Guild of America, Independent Spirit Award, and The Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Award for Journalism. Hoop Dreams was on 100+ top ten lists for 1994. Also with Kartemquin and Steve James, he recently finished At the Death House Door which premiered at South by Southwest in 2008, and won awards at several other festivals following, including the inspiration award at Full Frame. It aired on the Independent Film Channel in May of 2008.

Adam D. Singer began working with Kartemquin Films in 1989 spending 5 years on the critically acclaimed documentary Hoop Dreams and has continued his association with them for the past 19 years. He has worked on various productions, both nationally and internationally, as a producer, cameraman and sound recordist.

With Kartemquin and director Steve James he produced No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson which had its world premiere at the SXSW Film Festival and aired as part of ESPN Films' 2010 International Documentary Association award-winning series "30 for 30." The film was selected for the IDOCS International Documentary Forum in Beijing, and also played at the Cleveland, Full Frame, Dallas, Nashville and Atlanta film festivals, among others. In 2011, No Crossover was selected by the U.S. Department of State for the American Documentary Showcase.

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.