KEVIN SHAW. Director & Producer
As a director, producer and cinematographer, Kevin Shaw has created award-winning content for national television networks. Shaw was a segment director and cinematographer on “America to Me,” and additional cinematographer on “City So Real,” both from Oscar- nominated filmmaker Steve James. “America to Me” debuted to high acclaim at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and premiered on Starz in August 2018, where it was lauded as the No. 1 television mini-series of the year by The Hollywood Reporter and The New York Times.
Shaw’s debut documentary, “The Street Stops Here,” aired nationally on PBS and ESPN in 2010 to rave reviews. The following year, Shaw’s Big Ten Network short documentary on a quadriplegic trying to regain the ability to walk won the Edward R. Murrow Award for Sports Reporting Excellence. His cinematography talents were recognized in 2015 with a National Sports Emmy for ESPN’s FIFA World Cup Show Opens and Teases. Later that year, Shaw produced a documentary about the relationship between megastar Shaquille O’Neal and his collegiate coach, Dale Brown. “Shaq and Dale” premiered on ESPN.
Shaw is a Firelight Media Documentary Lab Alum.
STEVE JAMES. Executive Producer
Steve James’ previous work includes Hoop Dreams; Sundance award winner, Stevie; The Interrupters, which won an Emmy, Independent Spirit Award, and the DuPont Columbia Journalism Award; Emmy winner Life Itself, named best documentary by The National Board of Review, and The Producers Guild of America among many others; and Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, which earned James a second Academy Award nomination. His Starz docuseries, America to Me, premiered at Sundance and was one of the most acclaimed TV shows of 2018. His most recent docuseries, City So Real premiered to rave reviews at Sundance in 2020.
RACHEL DICKSON. Producer
Rachel Dickson is an independent filmmaker based in Chicago with a background in journalism and Spanish translation. She produced ‘63 Boycott with Kartemquin Films, which was named on the Academy Awards shortlist for Best Documentary Short Subject, won the Jury Award for Best Short Documentary at the Nashville Film Festival, the Audience Award at the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles, and was an official selection of the Museum of Modern Art Doc Fortnight and the DOC NYC Short List.
Dickson was the supervising producer of The School Project, a web series collaboratively produced by Kartemquin Films, Media Process Group, Kindling Group, Free Spirit Media, and Siskel/Jacobs Productions, in partnership with WTTW/ Channel 11, the Chicago Sun-Times, and Ebony. com, and won a Hometown Media Award.
Dickson was a field producer for Hard Earned, a Kartemquin Films production which won the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award. Before that, she was a story producer for Central Standard on Education, WTTW/Channel 11’s first web series with PBS Digital. Dickson has worked as a teaching filmmaker of high school students for UChicago Impact Lab of the Urban Education Institute. She attended Chicago Public Schools, and before working as a filmmaker, she worked as a journalist in Latin America for four years.
