Boots Riley, Board Member: Activist, filmmaker, and musician, Boots Riley studied film at San Francisco State University before rising to prominence as the frontman of hip-hop groups The Coup and Street Sweeper Social Club. His debut feature film Sorry to Bother You premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, was acquired by Annapurna Pictures, and was released to resounding box office success and widespread critical acclaim.

Fervently dedicated to social change, Boots was deeply involved with the Occupy Oakland movement and was one of the leaders of the activist group The Young Comrades. His book of lyrics and anecdotes, Tell Homeland Security-We Are The Bomb, is out on Haymarket Press. 

He is the recipient of the Independent Spirit Awards for Best Feature Film, and SFFILM's Kanbar Award. His most recent work, I'm a Virgo, is available on Amazon and was recently nominated for a Gotham Award and 4 Independent Spirit Awards.

Cheryl Dunye (Board Member) is a Liberian-American film director, producer, screenwriter, editor and actress. Dunye's work often concerns themes of race, sexuality, and gender, particularly issues relating to black lesbians. She is known as the first out black lesbian to ever direct a feature film with her 1996 film The Watermelon Woman. She runs the production company Jingletown Films based in Oakland, California

George Rush (Board Treasurer) is a producer and attorney specializing in the entertainment industry with emphasis on the independent film community. Clients include producers, directors, screenwriters and investors in development, production and distribution phases.

George has been production counsel on hundreds of films. George repped Barry Jenkin's Medicine for Melancholy, David Robert Mitchell's Myth of the American Sleepover, and recently worked on such indie successful movies like Menashe, Lovesong, Always Shine, Krisha and The Last Black Man in San Francisco. George produced Michael Tully's Ping Pong Summer, and Rick Alverson's Entertainment. In 2018, George produced Michael Tully's film Don’t Leave Home, Boots Riley's Sorry To Bother You, and John Maringouin's Ghost Box Cowboy. In 2019, George has produced Kirill Mikhavnosky's Give Me Liberty. When not working, George is an avid college football fan and a collector of Soviet propaganda.

Karina Hodoyán, Ph.D. (Board Member) , is a co-founder, educator, and producer at Jingletown Films, Inc. As the head of Latinx Content, she specializes in Mexican and Latinx Cultural Production. A graduate of the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television's Professional Program in Producing, she is known for her writing on topics such as immigration, race, gender, and sexuality in the US-Mexico Borderlands as portrayed in visual and literary arts. Karina currently serves as the Director of the Latin American Studies Department at the University of San Francisco.

Kat Gorospe Cole (Co-Director) is a Bay-Area based director and producer working in film and live performance. She has been an Associate Producer for a variety of filmmakers throughout the Bay Area, including Boots Riley’s Oakland-based series I’m a Virgo (Amazon); and with Academy and Emmy award-winning directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (State of Pride; Linda Rondstadt: The Sound of My Voice).

Kat has over 15 years of experience in nonprofit administration, working in development and production for CounterPulse, EyeZen Presents and Detour Productions, the latter of which she has Co-Directed for over 15 years. She is the receipient of an artist grant from the California Arts Council and is a graduate of the California College of the Arts’ graduate film program.  

Laura Wagner (Board Member) is a co-founder of Cinemama and an award-winning producer, director and curator. Recent films include Fremont (Sundance 2023), What the Hands Do (Camden IFF 2023), Logic Paralyzes the Heart (Venice Biennale 2022), and It Felt Like Love (Sundance 2013). Her films have screened at over 100 film festivals including Sundance, SFFILM, Tribeca, SXSW, and Rotterdam, and have enjoyed success worldwide in theaters, on television and on digital streaming platforms, including Amazon, Netflix, PBS, MUBI and the Criterion Channel. She is a recipient of The Sundance Institute’s Creative Producing Lab and Fellowship and SFFILM’s Kenneth Rainin Grant and Fellowship. She is also a Film Independent fellow, and an alum of the Rotterdam Producing Lab, Cannes Producers Network Fellowship, Trans Atlantic Partners program, and Berlinale Talents. She is a member of the Producers Union and Documentary Producers Alliance, and she is a recipient of the 2024 Dear Producer Award and the Spirit Award. 

Matthew Riutta (Board Chair) has worked for nearly 22 years as a filmmaker with the San Francisco Bay Area’s film and television community. He has written, directed, and produced the award-winning short films Lunch Lady, Sharks&Minnows, Across, and Median, which comprise his short film anthology ELEMENTS.  Matthew was a fellow with SFFILM’s Film House where he further developed his feature film scripts Lucky Star and Man Up Above.

As a location manager, Matthew has worked on productions such as HBO’s Looking and Insecure, the Netflix series Sense8 and Tales Of The City, and the films Milk, The Master, and Fruitvale Station (2013 Sundance Film Festival’s Audience and Grand Jury Awards). He is a co-recipient of the California On-Location Award for Fruitvale Station, Moneyball, and Memoirs Of A Geisha.

Residing in Oakland, Matthew served on the board of the Bay Area Chapter of The NAMES Project, bearers of the AIDS Quilt. He graduated from Indiana University with a BA in Broadcast Journalism and Business.

Niema Jordan (Co-Director) is a writer, speaker, professor, and an award-winning filmmaker from Oakland, CA. She is passionate about character-driven stories, harnessing the power of media for positive community impact, and ensuring that future generations have an opportunity to thrive.

Her work has been published in ESSENCE,  EBONY, and Glamour. Her documentary film "Oasis," which explores a struggling medical clinic's work with underserved populations battling Hepatitis C, earned her the Spike Lee Student Filmmaker Award at the Denver Film Festival in 2016. Her production credits include The Chosen Life, Bobby Kennedy for President, The Me You Can’t See, Eyes On The Prize: Hallowed Ground, and Bree Wayy: Promise, Witness, Remembrance.

She is an alumna of Northwestern University and UC Berkeley. She is also a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and serves on the board of Oakland Kids First.

Tajianna Okechukwu (Board Member) is an actor and filmmaker based in the Bay Area. She obtained a double degree in Acting and Film & TV Studies from Azusa Pacific University. After graduating, she returned home to direct and produce short films, music videos, and more. She has worked largely as a Production Assistant for different well-renowned studios such as Amazon, Marvel, and A24. Tajianna also was a Production Coordinator for an episode of Black Sci-Girls on PBS.

She recently gained an award-winning Co-Director & Producer short film credit for Cracks in the Foundation which has won Best Direction in the WILDsound FEEDBACK Film Festival, an official selection in the UCLAxFilm Festival, and more.

In her screenwriting and directorial work, she likes to explore narratives of the Black experience with an Afro-surrealist approach. Tajianna is passionate about Bay Area storytelling and is always seeking to tell stories with avant-garde ideas that will shift paradigms and shake culture in our society.

W. Kamau Bell (Board Member) is a stand-up comedian, director, producer, and dad. For seven seasons, he was the host and executive producer of the five-time Emmy Award-winning CNN docuseries United Shades of America. Kamau won a Peabody Award for his Showtime docuseries We Need To Talk About Cosby. He is also the co-author of the New York Times bestselling book Do The Work: An Antiracist Activity Book. His first book was his memoir with the easy-to-remember title: The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell: Tales of a 6' 4", African American, Heterosexual, Cisgender, Left-Leaning, Asthmatic, Black and Proud Blerd, Mama's Boy, Dad, and Stand-Up Comedian. Kamau won an Emmy and a Television Academy Honor for his HBO documentary 1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed, which he directed and produced in Oakland. As a stand-up comic, Kamau has recorded two comedy specials. The second one, Private School Negro, is available on Netflix. Kamau is on the board of directors of DonorsChoose - a non-profit that helps teachers raise money for class projects, and Live Free - a non-profit dedicated to ending gun violence, mass incarceration, and mass criminalization. Kamau also is the ACLU’s Celebrity Ambassador for Racial Justice. He lives in Oakland, California. He cares a lot… maybe too much.