Sabrina Avilés is an award-winning independent filmmaker, whose work has taken her throughout Latin America, Canada and Europe. During her 25+ year career, she has worked on many PBS programs, among them the six-hour Peabody award-winning series, Latino Americans. Currently, she is in production for her first feature-length documentary on the city of Chelsea, MA and its response to the pandemic.
Sabrina has received grants from ITVS’ Diversity Development Fund, the LEF Foundation, Mass Humanities, Latino Public Broadcasting, and the New England Foundation for the Arts. She was a 2019 LEF Foundation Flaherty Fellow, is a member of the Documentary Producers Alliance and currently serves on the boards of Filmmakers Collaborative and Massachusetts Production Coalition. In addition to her film production career, in 2016 Sabrina became the Executive Director of the Boston Latino International Film Festival. In 2022, Sabrina founded CineFest Latino Boston film festival.
Born in Washington Heights, Sabrina’s family originates from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. She earned a B.S. in Broadcasting/Film from Boston University and currently lives in Boston, MA.
Director/Producer
SABRINA AVILES
JAMES RUTENBECK
Executive Producer/Editor
James Rutenbeck is a two-time recipient of the Alfred I. du Pont Columbia Journalism Award for his work as episodic producer of the PBS series, Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick? (2008), about health disparities in the U.S. and Class of ’27 (2016), which he executive produced, directed and edited. Class of ’27, which explores the lives of young children in three rural American communities, aired on the World Channel series America Reframed and streams as Editor’s Pick at The Atlantic. James’ films have screened at Cinema du Reel, Museum of Modern Art, National Gallery, Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival and Robert Flaherty Film Seminar. His featured film A Reckoning in Boston, about racial and economic disparities in Boston, aired on Independent Lens in 2021. His feature film Scenes from a Parish, about cultural change at a working-class Catholic parish, aired on Independent Lens in 2009. A Reckoning in Boston premiered at Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in 2021 and has been screened at many festivals, including Morehouse College Human Rights Film Festival, where it won Best Feature Documentary. The Sundance Documentary Fund, LEF Moving Image Fund, Southern Humanities Media Fund and Corporation for Public Broadcasting have supported James’ films. Editing credits include God in America, Zoot Suit Riots, Jimmy Carter and Roberto Clemente for the PBS series American Experience and American Denial and Herskovits at the Heart of Blackness for Independent Lens. James was a 2019/20 Fellow at the Film Study Center at Harvard University and 2021 Poynter Fellow at Yale University.
JENNY ALEXANDER
Producer
Jenny Alexander is an independent filmmaker and senior producer at Northern Light Productions. Her work at Northern Light Productions includes directing and producing documentaries for broadcast on PBS and the Discovery Channel, museums and the National Park Service, as well as interactive media exhibits for museum settings. She recently concluded an immersive exhibit featuring an animated film projected on a 40’ curved wall for the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21.
Jenny’s award-winning independent films, The Vigil and Detained focused on the impact of U.S. immigration policies on families and have screened at festivals in Tel Aviv, Poland, Germany and China as well as within the US. Prior to film, Jenny worked as a community organizer with immigrant youth and as a union organizer for the United Farm Workers and with the Puerto Rican Worker’s Union (Sindicato Puertorriqueño de Trabajadores). She is currently in production on an independent documentary about the immigrant-majority city of Chelsea, Massachusetts and the community’s response to the COVID pandemic.