Kiko Martinez is the film editor at Remezcla. He earned his degree in journalism and has been writing reviews and articles on film since 2001 for a number of different newspapers and magazines around the U.S. Kiko is a member of the prestigious Broadcast Film Critics Association, which earns him a vote each year in the Critic’s Choice Awards. He is also a member of the Houston Film Critics Society and the Online Film Critics Society. Kiko contributes to a number of outlets including the San Antonio Current. His film reviews are featured on News4SA (NBC affiliate) and FoxSanAntonio.com (Fox affiliate).
Michèle Stephenson is a filmmaker, artist, and author who pulls from her Panamanian and Haitian roots, and experience as a human rights attorney to tell compelling, deeply personal stories that are created by, for, and about communities of color. In her film American Promise, Stephenson and her partner Joe Brewster tell the story of their son and his friend, two African-American boys whose struggles through the education system tell complicated truths about America’s struggle to come of age on issues of race, class, and opportunity. Stephenson’s film American Promise was nominated for three Emmys including Best Documentary. The film also won the Jury Prize at Sundance, and was selected for the New York Film Festival’s Main Slate Program. Her collaborative film series with New York Times Op-Docs, A Conversation on Race, won the 2016 Online Journalism Award for Commentary. Stephenson was awarded the Chicken & Egg Pictures Filmmaker Breakthrough Award and is a Guggenheim Fellow. Her most recent film, Stateless, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and was supported by the National Film Board of Canada and the Sundance Documentary Fund. Her community engagement accomplishments include the PUMA BritDoc Impact Award for a Film with the Greatest Impact on Society, and she is a Skoll Sundance Storytellers of Change Fellow. Her book, Promises Kept, written along with co-authors Joe Brewster and Hilary Beard, won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work.
Barbara Vásconez is the Program Manager at New York Women in Film & Television. Before joining NYWIFT, she held the position of General Manager at the Quad Cinema for three years. She has worked for a variety of film festivals, including the Tribeca Film Festival, Rooftop Films, Hamptons Film Festival, Montclair Film Festival, Mill Valley Film Festival, DOC NYC, and the Nantucket Film Festival. Her spare time is spent programming panels and creating unique community engagement opportunities for the New York Latino Film Festival. In 2019, she launched and founded the Ville Film Festival in Somerville, New Jersey. In 2020, she joined the Ecuadorian Film Festival as Co-Director. Her educational goals include working to develop film programs in New Jersey that improve film education for low income students. She works on amplifying the Latinx community and speaking on important issues like immigration and minimum wage. She is committed to the importance of film as a means of community engagement. Barbara has a degree in Film and Video Production from the School of Visual arts in NYC and holds a Business certificate from W.O.R.C in Philadelphia.
