Maria Finitzo is a two-time Peabody award winning social-issue documentary filmmaker. She has been producing and directing documentary films for network television, public broadcasting, cable TV and the Internet for more than 25 years. Her body of work has been honored by every major broadcast award granted to documentary films. Ms. Finitzo’s films demonstrate a depth and breadth of knowledge and expertise, tackling a wide variety of subjects including the controversial science of stem cell research, the command and control of nuclear weapons on an international level, and the complex psychology of adolescent girls.

Mary Morrissette is a Chicago-based producer who, most recently, was the Producer for In the Game, a Kartemquin film following a high school soccer coach teaching girls about winning in life and the determination of three Hispanic girls in their quest for a higher education (2015). Previously Mary was Associate Producer for The Trials of Muhammad Ali, another Kartemquin film that premiered at Tribeca Film Festival (2013) and was broadcast on PBS’ Independent Lens (2014). Mary was also Associate Producer for Make No Little Plans: Daniel Burnham and the American City that was broadcast nationally on PBS in 2010 with two major outdoor public premieres—on the National Mall in Washington DC and in Millennium Park in Chicago.

Artistic Director and founding member of Kartemquin Films, Gordon Quinn has been making documentaries for over 50 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. 

From 2008-2015, Justine led Kartemquin Films as Executive Director as well as being an Executive Producer on each new film. She was responsible, in concert with the Board of Directors, for creating and implementing the strategic vision for Kartemquin. Justine successfully transitioned to the ED role in a historic founder-led organization, and made major strides in building a foundation for long-term sustainability.

Leslie Simmer is Kartemquin's Director of Editing as well as Senior Editor on staff.

Liz Kaar is an independent documentary filmmaker, working in Chicago and Latin America. She edited Kartemquin’s feature-length documentary Typeface, as well as a slew of shorts, demos and trailers for the company.  She’s also produced and directed non-profit videos for the Illinois Department of Public Health, CDC, and The Newberry Library.  Most recently she edited and associate produced the feature-length music documentary Andrew Bird: Fever Year.  

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.

Ines Sommer is a Chicago-based documentary filmmaker, who frequently collaborates with other filmmakers as a cinematographer. Ines' camera work has been featured in several productions for Chicago's legendary Kartemquin Films, including Maria Finitzo's Peabody Award-winning Mapping Stem Cell Research: Terra Incognita and Joanna Rudnick's Emmy-nominated In the Family. She shot on two PBS Frontline programs directed by Marian Marzynski and a number of Kindling Group documentaries: A Doula Story: On the Frontlines of Teen Pregnancy, "The Calling" , and the forthcoming @home. Other recent credits include Mary Fishman's A Band of Sisters, Ethan Bensinger's Refuge: Stories of the Selfhelp Home, and Pamela Sherrod Anderson's award-winning The Curators of Dixon School, which Ines shot and co-produced.

Diane worked in LA for over 17 years before moving back to her hometown of Chicago. While in LA, Diane had a successful career at NBC and at Paramount Pictures where she was last the Vice President of Marketing.

Zak is an Emmy-winning Documentary Producer who previously served as Director of Production at Kartemquin Films for more than a decade. Most recently, he produced Saving Mes Aynak, which follows an Afghan archaeologist as he and histeam race to save a 2,000-year-old Buddhist archaeological site in Afghanistan from imminent demolition by a Chinese copper mine. Zak also produced the critically acclaimed film Life Itself.

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.

For over thirty-five years, Jim Morrissette has had extensive experience as both a professional videographer and teacher, supporting his conviction that sharing and access are instrumental to the vitality of the independent production community. Jim has been the director of photography on numerous productions including: the award winning PBS documentary A Still Small Voice dealing with spiritual thought and mystic understanding, five episodes of Bill Kurtis' New Explorers, two episodes of Discovering Women for WGBH Boston, and Shadow Over Tibet, a documentary featuring the Dalai Lama. He was the principal videographer on the highly acclaimed six hour Frontline documentary The Farmer's Wife, which aired twice nationally on PBS.

Keith, co-owner and director of photography for Media Process Group, has shot hundreds of broadcast segments for shows like 60-minutes, Oprah’s Next Chapter, Dateline, and HBO Real Sports, as well as numerous award-winning documentaries for PBS, NBC and CBS. He also shot many corporate marketing and educational projects for clients like the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Gates Foundation, Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Starbucks.

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.

Ian Robertson Kibbe is a freelance filmmaker, writer, producer and musician with over 10 years experience as a producer, director and editor. Ian was the engagement coordinator for the award-winning PBS documentary, The Calling, and its companion campaign, What’s Your Calling (The Kindling Group) and also the engagement coordinator for the Emmy nominated, designer cult hit, Typeface (Kartemquin Films). Ian is currently working on the upcoming Kartemquin documentaries, Raising Bertie and Unbroken Glass. Ian's work has appeared on PBS, CNN, G4, The Health Care Blog, Billboard Magazine and the Huffington Post.

Nora Gully is a curious and compassionate video editor who specializes in long-form documentary films. She values the opportunity to learn about people's lives and bring their stories to the screen. Nora was most recently an editor on How to Build a School in Haiti and Unity Dinners, additional editor on Finding Vivian Maier and post production supervisor for Almost There. She spent five years as Kartemquin Films’ Post Production Associate. Her first credit was on the Emmy-award-winning The Interrupters, first as assistant editor and subsequently as post-production supervisor. She shepherded its popular festival run, its theatrical release, and delivered multiple versions to national and international broadcasters, including PBS Frontline, BBC Storyville, CBC’s The Passionate Eye and Canal Plus.

A graduate of Columbia College Chicago, Ryan first joined the Kartemquin family as an intern of Xan Aranda and assisted in the rollout of her film Andrew Bird: Fever Year. Later, as an intern at Kartemquin, he worked on a range of tasks including contributing to outreach on The Interrupters, assisting in editing of the demo of Living Revolution, and helping with Kartemquin’s first KTQ Labs Spring Showcase.

Hillary Bachelder is a former Kartemquin intern turned staff member now working as a freelance editor, producer, and director in Chicago. Hillary first began her Kartemquin staff life as a night shift assistant editor for the Emmy-award winning The Trials of Muhammad Ali. Hillary went on to become Post Production Manager and then Director of Production at Kartemquin, managing teams, collaborating with filmmakers, and ultimately earning credits on over a dozen recent Kartemquin projects.

Matt Lauterbach is a documentary filmmaker and editor, an educational media developer, and an advocate for accessible media. He crafts engaging non-fiction content for classrooms, museums, and the big screen.

Eugene is a Post Production Assistant. He works on various aspects in the finishing of a film. His responsibilities include media management, online editing, and creating exports for festivals and distributors. Eugene is a former intern at Kartemquin and worked extensively on the show In the Game. Before joining Kartemquin, Eugene worked in the environmental field. Seeing a need to communicate environmental issues visually, he got hooked on documentaries and filmmaking. Eugene was born in Kyoto, and raised in Manila and New Orleans. He has a bachelor's degree in East Asian Studies and a minor in Environmental Studies from the University of Chicago.

Rachel Dickson is an independent documentary filmmaker based in Chicago. Before working in film, she worked as a print and radio journalist in Latin America. She is currently the Supervising Producer of The School Project, a series of short documentaries and webisodes about public education collaboratively produced by Kartemquin Films, Kindling Group, Media Process Group, Siskel/Jacobs Productions, and Free Spirit Media.

Emily Strong is committed to sharing and supporting authentic and inspiring stories from diverse perspectives that stimulate conversation, unite people, and express humanity. She is grateful to have the opportunity to do this every day running the Internship, KTQ Labs, and Diverse Voices in Documentary programs at Kartemquin, cultivating and producing over 42 filmmakers each year. She is currently producing an independent documentary, Keep Moving Forward, about a veteran who uses Disney to find peace from his memories of the war.

Suzanne, the Vice President of Finance & Operations at Kartemquin, is a non-profit finance, operations and accounting expert dedicated to building stronger non-profit organizations through better fiscal management and organizational efficiency. Suzanne has a decade of professional experience focused on strengthening the internal capacity of charitable organizations. She believes that navigating the financial challenges unique to non-profits requires a high level of financial accountability, transparency, and integrity. In her role at Kartemquin, Suzanne is responsible for all aspects of the organization’s financial management, general operations, human resources, compliance, information technology, legal affairs and risk management.

Tim Horsburgh is Kartemquin’s Director of Communications and Distribution. Since 2009, he has driven marketing, audience engagement, public relations, and social media for Kartemquin and all their films. In March 2014 he began overseeing Kartemquin's distribution strategy. He is also responsible for assessing and managing potential new Kartemquin documentary projects.

Beckie is responsible for managing the professional development programs and outreach initiatives of the organization including Diverse Voices in Docs, KTQ Labs, the KTQ Internship program, and classroom, media advocacy, and production outreach initiatives. Additionally, she works to build successful strategies for providing producers with critical advice and support around audience engagement, social impact, and fundraising throughout the production and distribution process. Beckie has led strategy for over 10 social impact and audience engagement campaigns for award-winning documentaries.

Nancy first joined the documentary community as an intern of filmmaker Xan Aranda and assisted on her film Andrew Bird: Fever Year. She then worked for several years as Production Coordinator on an educational children's television show, Green Screen Adventures. Her roles there included costume design/styling for which she was nominated for a National Daytime Emmy. Nancy is currently the Production Manager at Kartemquin Films -- a collaborative center for documentary media makers who seek to foster a more engaged and empowered society. She joined the Kartemquin family in 2014 and has since worn a variety of hats there - from development/administrative work to post production/archive management.

Alanna Schmelter is a film & television editor with a concentration in narrative non-fiction & documentary. After graduating with a degree in film editing from Columbia College Chicago, she started her career by cutting comedy at the world-renowned Second City. She has since edited series for National Geographic, Travel Channel, Ovation and A&E. In January 2016, she finished cutting a feature documentary titled Walk All Night: A Drum Beat Journey (Co-dir: Kate Benzschawel & Mallory Sohmer), about four teenage street musicians from Chicago who embark on a journey to Senegal to explore its culture and their connection to Africa. The film made its Chicago debut at the Black Harvest Film Festival in August of 2016.

Justin Williams has worked as a communications and arts management professional to enhance the outreach and impact of theaters, businesses, and individuals. He has been affiliated with Kartemquin beginning in 2014 – first as an intern then as an Associate Producer. He is glad to return to Kartemquin in the role of Diverse Voices in Docs coordinator as the company further commits and invests in documentaries produced by filmmakers of color.