Rooftop Films 2018 Gala

Yance Ford is a Sundance Institute Fellow, a Creative Capital Grantee and featured in Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film. A graduate of Hamilton College and the Production Workshop at Third World Newsreel, he is a former series producer of the PBS anthology series POV. The Root 100 recently named Ford among the most influential African Americans of 2017. His feature film Strong Island was awarded Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking, Outstanding Achievement in a Debut Feature Film, and Outstanding Achievement in Direction at the 2018 Cinema Eye Honors, and has been nominated for best documentary at the 2018 Academy Awards®.

Sean Baker is the director of Take Out (2008) and Prince of Broadway (2009), both nominated for the John Cassavetes Independent Spirit Award, and Starlet (2012), the recipient of the Robert Altman Independent Spirit Award, as well as another Cassavetes nominee. His fifth feature Tangerine premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and was released by Magnolia Pictures. The film was nominated for 4 Independent Spirit Awards including Best Feature and Best Director, and 4 Gotham Awards Including Best Feature (it won the Audience Award). His latest feature The Florida Project was nominated for four Gotham Awards in 2017 and Best Supporting Actor at the 2018 Academy Awards®, and won the Heterodox Award at the 2018 Cinema Eye Honors.