BRIC Documentary Intensive Screening: 2026 Cohort

Alani Weeks (she/her) is a 2-time Telly Award-winning video editor, who dabbles in screenwriting, producing, directing, and podcasting. Being a first-generation college graduate and the first in her family to pursue a creative career, Alani has worked on multiple projects that include stylist videos and book release campaigns. She briefly worked as a production assistant for the talk show SHERRI, which resulted in her 2 Telly Award wins for her contributions to the program’s social media. In 2024, Alani Weeks was an inductee in the BRIC Podcast Intensive, which resulted in the Neurospicy Black Girl podcast. Alani plans to continue on working on independent short films, with the intention to contribute more to BRIC programming.

Amelia Parker is a public school teacher whose students might be shocked to learn she has dreams, interests, and a life outside of school. She is interested in how art can generate political discourse, critical thinking, and creative collaboration. Her work explores relationships between learning, language, dis/ability, identity, and the systems that mediate these experiences. In 2025, she wrote & directed her first film, How to become a poet, a narrative short about her father’s recovery from traumatic brain injury. She is grateful and excited to make her first documentary as a BRIC Documentary Intensive student!

Afia Henriques is a multidisciplinary artist with experience both behind and in front of the camera. A native New Yorker and proud graduate of New York City public schools, her work tackles environmental justice, public health and equity while occasionally delving into the absurd.

Ariel P. (she/her) is a Mexican filmmaker based in the Bronx, New York. Through intimate, human-centered films, she explores the spaces between migration, memory, identity, and belonging. Grounded in her own lived experience and the stories of the communities around her, her work seeks moments of quiet resilience, revealing the humanity that connects us across borders and generations.

As a fellow in the Bronx Documentary Center's Film Fellowship, Ariel is dedicated to amplifying underrepresented voices and creating films that foster empathy and belonging.

David McCreery is a fashion photographer who has covered fashion shows in Paris, London and New York. He has worked as a freelance photojournalist for the Associated Press and Getty Images and in staff positions at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Gannett News Service. He is a former Visual Journalism Fellow at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and has an advanced degree from Columbia University.

Jarika Johnson (she/her) is a filmmaker and photographer originally from North Carolina and based in Brooklyn. Across her work, she is interested in how individuals navigate social, cultural, and environmental change. Drawn to intimate, character-driven documentaries, she creates films that examine resilience, belonging, and the relationships between people and the environments they inhabit. Her documentary practice is rooted in long-form observation and trust, allowing participants' voices and lived experiences to shape each film.

In 2023, her short film Simple Syrup received the Best Student Film award at the Shops of New York Film Short Festival. Her latest documentary, Tah-Kee-Os-Tee, which explores the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina, was officially selected for the Asheville Film Festival.

Jarika is passionate about using film as a tool to foster community, amplify voices, and inspire empowerment through storytelling.

Jessica Chia is interested in different worlds and ways of living. As a filmmaker, she is always looking to capture the humor and magic of everyday life and the meaning people attach to what they do. 

Her work as a journalist has appeared in the New York Times, New York Daily News, CNN, The Verge, and the Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism.

Lisseth is a multimedia artist who believes every person has a story that can change the way we see the world. Working across documentary filmmaking, photography, and sound, she is interested in the moments that reveal the complexity of people’s lives. Her work explores a wide range of experiences, from personal histories to community narratives, to create stories that encourage empathy and new perspectives. Her projects include My Housing Story, a short documentary about her mother’s journey navigating housing insecurity, and Roots of Resilience: Passing the Torch, a collaborative documentary project highlighting voices from Brownsville.

Natalie Pegano is a creative producer, media researcher, and storyteller whose work sits at the crossroads of video games, film, and cultural history. Born and raised in California, she grew up immersed in the visual language of games and cinema, developing an early fascination with how stories move, transform, and take on new meaning across different mediums. That early curiosity evolved into a lifelong commitment to understanding narrative craft and the cultural forces that shape the entertainment we consume.

Natalie earned her bachelor’s degree in Digital Arts and Design and her Master of Fine Arts in Film Production from Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida. During her time there, she honed a multidisciplinary skill set spanning directing, editing, visual design, and production management. She discovered a particular passion for video editing—an art form that allows her to blend rhythm, emotion, and structure into cohesive storytelling. Her academic and creative work explored how visual media communicates identity, memory, and cultural context, laying the foundation for her current research-driven approach.

Her professional experience includes directing the music video Little Bird and collaborating with the company The Royal Crowd in Norway to design visual assets for their artists’ music releases. She edited the short film Break-Out Case, which screened at the Florida Film Festival, and has contributed to key production roles across a variety of short film projects. Beyond film, she has designed cover art, branding, and visual materials for independent artists, and has collaborated with international clients on entertainment and media projects. Whether she is shaping a narrative in the edit, developing visual materials, or analyzing the cultural significance of a story, Natalie approaches every project with a blend of technical precision, creative curiosity, and thoughtful research.

Natalie is also the creator and host of Console to Camera, a podcast dedicated to examining how video games are adapted into live-action films and television. Through this project, she combines her background in film production with her deep interest in interactive storytelling, exploring why certain adaptations succeed, why others fall short, and what these transformations reveal about audience expectations and cultural trends. Her work blends media analysis, cinematic insight, and a genuine love for the evolving relationship between games and screen-based storytelling.

Across all her creative pursuits, Natalie is driven by a desire to understand how stories travel between mediums—and how those shifts shape the way we experience characters, worlds, and cultural narratives. She continues to expand her craft through ongoing study, hands-on production, and a commitment to exploring new forms of storytelling within the entertainment industry.

Samantha Rudick is an Impact Producer, making her debut documentary with ‘Pins and Needles’ at BRIC. A TEDx speaker and formerly with the United Nations, Samantha has been working to uplift workers’ voices for over 15 years. She has focused on international labor rights and anti-sweatshop movements, including getting hundreds of thousands of dollars repaid directly to workers through her work at the non-profit Transparentem, and has conducted her own labor rights investigations in NYC, including for the news outlet More to Her Story. Her projects and work have been featured in the New York Times, MSNBC, the Guardian, Journal of Modern Slavery, the ILO and others. She is continuing her work with a documentary series, in production, highlighting human rights stories around the globe. Follow her work @samantharudick.

Sidney Madden is an award-winning music journalist, cultural critic, producer and host. She believes that honest cultural conversation can lead to lasting cultural change and strives to create work that backs up that belief. That's led her to deliver coverage everywhere from the tour bus of Kendrick Lamar, the greenroom of Cardi B and backstage at #Beychella to inside prison walls, public protests and high-profile trials. When it comes to covering pop culture and power, she’s made a career by staying dedicated and curious. When she knows what she’s talking about, you will, too.

Sid’s work as a producer, host and critic can be found via NPR, NBC, PBS, Complex, EBONY and more, as well as her own newsletter, sub_stance. She exists mostly everywhere online (bird app, clock app, camera app etc) as @sid_madden. 

Thanks to the 2026 BRIC Documentary Intensive, she’s added filmmaker to her list of titles.