TEAM

A woman with short, curly hair wearing red floral earrings and a black top stands in front of a pink curtain.

Michèle Stephenson

Rada Studio Co-Founder/ Director/ Producer

Emmy Award–winning filmmaker, artist, and author, Michèle Stephenson, draws from her Haitian and Panamanian heritage to transform non-fiction storytelling. Through a Black Atlantic lens, she reimagines narratives of resistance and healing, weaving fiction, immersive, experimental, and hybrid forms that center a Black Radical tradition and the lived experiences of the Black diaspora. Her non-fiction films "Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project" and "Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games" were both Oscar-shortlisted, with "Going To Mars" winning the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and the prestigious Emmy Award for Outstanding Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking and "Black Girls Play" winning the Edward R. Murrow for Excellence in Video. Her other body of work includes "The Changing Same", a magical realist VR installation that premiered at Sundance Film Festival’s New Frontier Showcase and won Tribeca’s Grand Jury Prize for Best Immersive Narrative, along with several other projects recognized with Emmy nominations and a Canadian Screen Award nomination. Her newest work, "True North: A Movement in Five Parts", is a creative non-fiction feature that explores the history of the Black liberation movement in Canada. She is a Guggenheim Artist Fellow, Creative Capital Artist, a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the 2025 DOC NYC Lifetime Achievement recipient.

An elderly African American man with gray hair and beard, wearing glasses and a black sweater, sitting with hands clasped in front of his face, in a cozy indoor setting with artwork in the background.

Joe Brewster

Rada Studio Co-Founder/ Director/ Producer

Joe Brewster is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker who believes in the healing power of stories. Drawing on his experience as a prison psychiatrist, he made his directorial debut at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival with "The Keeper", nominated at the 12th Spirit Awards. Over three decades, Brewster has created genre-bending works that fuse fiction, immersive, experimental, and hybrid forms to center the lived experiences of the Black diaspora. His documentary "American Promise" (2014) earned three Emmy nominations and the Sundance Jury Prize. His recent films, "Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games", received the Edward R. Murrow Award, and "Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project" won the Emmy for Outstanding Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking and the Sundance Grand Jury Prize. His VR piece "The Changing Same" won the 2021 Tribeca Grand Prize for Best Immersive Experience. "O-Dogg: On Othello", featuring Tariq Trotter, premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Brewster has produced work for PBS, HBO, Amazon, and Disney. He is a Guggenheim Fellow, a member of both film and television academies, and the 2025 DOC NYC Lifetime Achievement recipient.

A young woman standing outdoors on a city street with buildings and cars in the background. She has shoulder-length dark hair, wears glasses with purple-tinted lenses, and is dressed in a blue hoodie with a matching scarf.

Karem Orrego

Co-Producer

Karem Orrego, born in Lima, Perú, is a filmmaker exploring immersive storytelling to center lives and communities often erased from dominant narratives. She co-directed Shattering the Pictures in Our Heads, an immersive multi-screen installation blending traditional and 360-degree video, challenging stereotypical portrayals of Indigenous peoples of the Mountain West. The project received an Anthem Award for Best Diversity, Equity & Inclusion as part of the Webby Awards initiative. Since 2014, she has led a filmmaking mentorship program at Edge of Discovery Co-Creation Studios, shaping over 40 short documentaries in collaboration with the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of Duck Valley, and developed a VR media literacy series with the Utah Film Center focused on refugee representation, reaching rural schools across the state. She is currently a co-producer at Rada Studio and previously contributed to Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, an Emmy and Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner, as well as the award-winning Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games and The Age of Water. She is also an editor and producer at CENTRO, supporting the Diasporican Art in Motion docuseries, highlighting Puerto Rican visual artists in the diaspora, and contributing to their Emmy-winning investigative series Puerto Rican Voices. She is a 2024 Baldwin for the Arts Fellow and a 2023 HessenLab Artist Fellow at the B3 Biennial in Frankfurt, Germany.