American Documentary, the nonprofit organization behind POV, POV Shorts, and America ReFramed, announces the 12 Wyncote Fellows who will attend the PBS Annual Meeting (May 19–21, Atlanta, Georgia).
A curated program introduces independent filmmakers to the PBS Annual Meeting, the eight annual Wyncote Fellowship is coordinated by AmDoc in collaboration between PBS indie partners. This year, nominations were from POV, Firelight Media, ITVS, Reel South, WORLD, and the five organizational members of the National Multicultural Alliance: Black Public Media, Center for Asian American Media, Latino Public Broadcasting, Pacific Islanders in Communications, and Vision Maker Media.
This year’s PBS Annual Meeting will take place in the shadow of hostile federal and state government actions against public broadcasting. Earlier this week on PBS NewsHour, PBS CEO Paula Kerger acknowledged that the Trump administration is expected to ask Congress to rescind more than US$1 billion in funding from CPB, which provides funding for PBS, PBS member stations, and PBS indies.
The Wyncote Fellows will attend curated events during the PBS Annual Meeting, including one-on-one meetings with station representatives and “key figures from the local Atlanta film community.” AmDoc Executive Director Erika Dilday explains the fellowship’s goal is “to introduce documentary filmmakers to the public media landscape and help them cultivate a strong and lasting network of industry peers and PBS station staff.”
According to a press release, Wyncote Foundation Board Member David Haas said, “Wyncote Foundation is honored to support this fellowship, now in its 8th year, which brings together a group of talented independent documentary filmmakers who recognize the value in sharing their work on public media. We’re especially grateful to the PBS indie community for their participation and partnership in this important initiative.”
The most notable alumni is 2021 Wyncote Fellow Elegance Bratton (Pier Kids), whose fiction feature debut The Inspection (2022) went onto a nationwide release from A24 and a Golden Globe nomination.
The shortened biographies of the selected 2025 Wyncote Fellows are republished below.
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Luchina Fisher (she/her) is the Emmy Award-winning director and producer of The Dads, about five fathers of trans kids bonding on a weekend fishing trip. The short documentary, executive produced by Dwyane Wade and acquired by Netflix, received the 2024 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Form Program and a Special Recognition Award from GLAAD. Her directorial debut, Mama Gloria, about a Black trans elder activist, was nominated for a 2022 GLAAD Media Award and broadcast on PBS. Her new project, Hiding in Plain Sight, about the unsung history of Black queer presence in music was the winner of the 2023 PitchBLACK Film Forum. Luchina has directed two scripted short films and written and produced several nationally broadcast documentaries.
Robie Flores is a filmmaker and editor drawn to telling stories that explore the nuances of her fronterizo and Mexican-American communities. Her first feature, The In Between, which received support from Ford Foundation and ITVS among others, had its world premiere at SXSW 2024 and its European premiere at FilmFest München. It is now streaming on PBS. Her other work has been presented on CNN, Bloomberg, Independent Lens, BET, Fusion and Teen Vogue.
Marquise Mays is a storyteller shaped by the rhythms of Milwaukee—a city that holds both his history and his vision for the future. As an award-winning filmmaker, professor, and cultural curator, his work explores the intimate textures of Black Midwestern life, offering careful and personal renderings of identity, memory, and place. Rooted in nonfiction, his films create space for Black Midwesterners to shape their own narratives—whether capturing a father’s quiet wisdom (Home Improvement), examining new remedies to trauma (Black Strings), or redefining the power of names (Monikers). Featured on Criterion Channel, PBS, and BET, his storytelling blends film, education, and cultural preservation, building a cinematic encyclopedia of Black Midwestern life.
Jota Mun (they/them) is the director and producer of Between Goodbyes, which had its world premiere at the DMZ International Film Festival, where they won the Emerging Filmmaker Award. The film has been selected to screen at Chicago International Film Festival, Santa Fe International Film Festival where it won a Special Jury Award for Feature Documentary, as well as DOC NYC. As an editor, their credits include the Emmy-nominated Netflix series “Who Killed Malcolm X?”.
Brittany Shyne is an independent filmmaker based in Dayton, Ohio. Working in the narrative and non-fiction artform, her work seeks to depict the complexity of everyday life by examining themes such as personal histories, alienation and cultural modernization. Her debut feature, Seeds, recently premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, where it received the esteemed U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Award. Shyne received her MFA in Documentary Media from Northwestern University and a BFA in Motion Pictures from Wright State University.
