Recent Film Collaborators

Sofia Chang (Editor)

Sofia Chang is a director and editor based in Los Angeles. She edited the feature documentary Raising Aniya, directed by John Fiege, which premiered at the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital. Previously she edited The New Yorker short film Herselves, a personal hybrid doc examining intergenerational relationships in the Asian American diaspora. With her background in community organizing, she approaches storytelling with the hope of connecting people at different intersections of race, class, gender and sexuality. As a director she uses experimental nonfiction to explore belonging and intimacy as mediated by the digital landscape. Her latest film, OT7, premiered at the 2024 San Diego Asian Film Festival. Sofia holds a BA from Carleton College.

Morgan Honaker (Re-recording Mixer)

Morgan Honaker is based in Austin, TX and is best described as an Audio Generalist - she's a re-recording mixer and sound supervisor at Soundcrafter, the head studio engineer at Chez Boom Audio, an instructor with the Austin Film Society, and contracts on various podcasts and video games. Her work has screened at numerous festivals, including Sundance, Palm Springs, Hot Docs, SXSW, and the Berlinale. Some of her recent credits include "Sangre Violenta / Sangre Violeta" (featured at SXSW), "Rajas and the Wolf Girl" (featured at Fantastic Fest), and Blue Moon (nominated for 2 Academy Awards). She works with John Fiege on both his films and the Chrysalis podcast. When she’s not in the booth, Morgan enjoys browsing the shelves at We Luv Video, making friends with feral cats, and swimming at Barton Springs Pool.

Walter J. Hull II (Producer)

Walter J. Hull II is a Houston-based youth development strategist, filmmaker, choreographer, and cultural leader dedicated to advancing healing-centered leadership through the arts. With more than 25 years of experience working with Black and Brown youth and communities, Hull’s work centers emotional intelligence, storytelling, and long-term mentorship as tools for transformation.

He serves as a senior leader with the U.S. Dream Academy, where he has helped develop youth impacted by parental incarceration and systemic inequities. Hull is also the Executive Director of Urban Souls Dance Company, one of Houston’s premier contemporary dance companies, where he has helped build a nationally recognized platform for Black storytelling through movement.

Hull is a co-architect of the Black Arts Movement Houston, a citywide initiative advancing Black artistic excellence through fellowships, artist convenings, and cultural leadership programs designed to strengthen Houston’s Black arts ecosystem.

As a filmmaker, Hull produced the documentary Raising Aniya, which explores mentorship, healing, and the power of connection. His creative work continues to bridge performance, film, and community storytelling, amplifying the voices and lived experiences of Black communities across the South.

Ella Jarman-Pinto (Composer)

Ella Jarman-Pinto is a critically acclaimed composer, described by Classic FM as ‘one of the UK’s most exciting music-makers’ and recognised by the Women of the Year Lunch 2021. Ella focuses on positive-change storytelling, exploring: themes of claiming radical softness while Black, female/politically feminised and neurodivergent (opera belly/back with Jennifer Farmer, 2025); experiences of women and caregivers in the pandemic (Plango: A Cure Lament, poet Jo Brandon, BBC Radio 3 2021); rage and grief on men’s violence against women (Girls Are Coming Out Of The Woods, poet Tishani Doshi, Donne, Women In Music 2022); explorations of Black awakening and introspection (Lucky, BBC Radio 3 2020 & :Insert Expletive Here: East London Music Group 2022). Ella released her debut album with Jo Brandon, Lemon Verbena in 2024. Ella’s film work includes: Raising Aniya (Dir. John Fiege 2025); AstraZeneca - The Attack, (Havas Lynx 2018); and The Fell We Climb (Anti-Racist Cumbria 2023). Ella has had works performed at the Royal Albert Hall, Lilian Baylis and the Barbican Centre. This Little Rose is included in Trinity College London’s Grade 8 Singing syllabus.

Christopher Lucas (Producer)

Christopher Lucas is a producer, writer, and educator. As a producer on John Fiege’s feature documentary in post production about environmental justice on the Gulf Coast, he participated in IFP’s Project Forum: Spotlight On Documentaries at Film Week in 2016 and Doc Society’s 2019 Climate Story Lab in New York City. He produced Raising Aniya (DCEFF, 2025) and Above All Else (SXSW, 2014), as well as numerous shorts and commercial projects with Fiege Films. He produced Above All Else (SXSW, 2014) as well as numerous shorts and commercial projects with Fiege Films. He was an associate producer on The Sensitives (Tribeca, 2017) and Living Springs, an interactive environmental documentary about Barton Springs in Austin, Texas. In 2011, he was awarded a doctorate in media studies from the University of Texas, where he co-founded flowjournal.org, a popular site for scholarly media criticism. He is currently Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator of Digital Cinema at Southern Oregon University, where he teaches courses in documentary and non-fiction cinema, screenwriting, cinematography, film editing, and online journalism. He has presented research at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, International Communication Association, Broadcast Education Association, and Popular Culture Association.

Leah Marino (Editor)

Leah Marino is an Austin-based documentary editor with over 25 years of experience shaping award-winning films. Her recent work includes Patrick Bresnan’s First They Came for My College (True/False, SXSW 2026). She is a frequent collaborator with Kim Hopkins, editing Still Pushing Pineapples (Sheffield Doc/Fest opening night 2025), A Bunch of Amateurs (Sheffield Audience Award winner; BAFTA long-list), and Voices of the Sea (True/False; POV; Best Documentary, NYLFF). She edited five films with Ramona Diaz, including A Thousand Cuts (Emmy Award; Peabody Award; Gotham Award), Motherland (Sundance Commanding Vision Award; Independent Spirit Award nomination), Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey, The Learning, and Imelda. Additional credits include Deborah Esquenazi’s Southwest of Salem (Peabody Award; Emmy nomination), John Fiege’s Above All Else (SXSW; Best North American Documentary, Global Visions Film Festival; Silver Heart Award, Dallas International Film Festival), and Ray Santisteban’s The First Rainbow Coalition (Independent Lens). Leah was inducted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2019.

Martin V. Melosi (Producer)

Martin V. Melosi is Cullen Professor Emeritus and Founding Director of the Center for Public History at the University of Houston. A specialist on the urban environment, energy, technology, and public history, he has been a Visiting Professor at Beijing Normal University China; Visiting Professor for the International Institute of Management, Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (Cnam), France; Fulbright Senior Specialist in Environmental Science, Tampere University of Technology, Finland; Visiting Scholar, Peking University and the University of Shanghai, China; Visiting Professor, Institut Français d'Urbanisme, Université de Paris VIII, France; Visiting Scholar, “The Sea and the Cities Program,” University of Helsinki, Finland; and Fulbright Chair in American Studies, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark. He was awarded the Distinguished Scholar Award and the Distinguished Service Award, both from the American Society of Environmental History, and the Distinguished Service Award from the Urban History Association. He is the author or editor of twenty-three books and more than 100 articles and book chapters. His recent books include Fresh Kills: A History of Consuming and Discarding in New York City (2020), which was the winner of on the John Brinckerhoff Jackson Prize in Landscape Studies in 2021; Water in North American Environmental History, which received the 2022 John Lyman Book Award Honorable Mention for Naval and Maritime Science and Technology from the North American Society for Oceanic History; and Consumption and Waste in American Environmental History (2025).  

Jeff Scott (Composer)

A native of Queens, NY, Mr. Scott started the French horn at age 14, receiving an anonymous gift scholarship to begin his private study and formal introduction to music theory at the Brooklyn College Preparatory. An even greater gift came from his first private teacher Carolyn Clark, who taught the young Mr. Scott for free during his high school years, giving him the opportunity to study music when resources were not available.

Since receiving degrees from Manhattan School of Music, ’90 and SUNY @ Stony Brook, ’92, Jeff has enjoyed a career as a studio, chamber, solo and orchestral musician, performing in Broadway shows, Ballet companies, touring with various commercial artists as well as recording for film, classical music, pop music and jazz music.

Mr. Scott’s composing credits include original works for symphonic and chamber orchestra, chorus, chamber ensembles and solo works for winds, brass, strings and voice.

In 2021 Mr. Scott, a founding member of the acclaimed wind quintet “Imani Winds,” retired after 24 groundbreaking years of touring, recording and pedagogy. The quintet was honored with a permanent installation at the Smithsonian Museum of African American History in 2017.

In 2024 Mr. Scott’s groundbreaking composition “Passion for Bach and Coltrane,” was awarded the Grammy for Best Classical Compendium

After four years as Associate Professor of Horn at Oberlin College and Conservatory, Mr. Scott joined the faculty of University @ Buffalo as Professor of Composition and Horn in 2024.

Kacey Stewart (Producer)

Kacey Stewart is Postdoctoral Associate of Environmental Humanities in the Department of Environment and Sustainability at the University at Buffalo. He holds a PhD in English from the University of Delaware, and has received fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the American Philosophical Society, and the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library. His work focuses on environmental narratives, with particular emphasis on how a sense of place forms through the interplay of storytelling and scientific data—often creating public-facing digital exhibits with communities about environmental justice issues. Stewart draws on his experience as a writer, researcher, and educator, and he produces podcasts and documentary films with John Fiege, including the film The Love Life of Mussels, which documents the inner lives of scientists working to restore freshwater ecosystems (currently in production); the experimental film City Spring (in production), highlighting the power of community action to restore ecosystems and combat environmental injustice; and an interview with Love Canal activist Lois Gibbs for the Chrysalis Podcast.