Thanh Tran is an Amerasian-Vietnamese and Black filmmaker, music artist, and community organizer from Sacramento. While incarcerated at San Quentin, he co-founded Uncuffed, an award-winning podcast, and ForwardThis Productions, a trailblazing film collective. He is also the co-founder of New Krma Collective, a creative label and mutual aid network that supports directly impacted artists through music, film, and activism. Thanh now directs Finding Má, a feature documentary tracing his family’s search for their unhoused mother after years of separation through the foster care and prison systems. He serves as a Program Manager for the San Quentin Film Festival managing the Returning Filmmaker Fellowship and sits on advisory council for the New Breath Foundation. Through storytelling, advocacy, and music, he works to shift dominant narratives around race, incarceration, and migration. His work has been supported by the Sundance Institute, Ford Foundation, and Creative Capital to name a few.

Tony Jelks-Tran, Thanh’s younger brother is also a former foster youth who aged out of the system. Despite his childhood traumas and trouble in his teenage years, he finally got on the right track after serving a couple months in Juvenile Hall. After high school, he immediately got involved at Cosumnes River College where he served as Director of Finance of the Clubs and Events Board for a term as well as Student Body President for 3 Terms. This work earned him the prestigious Oliver J. Durand Award for “Exemplary Leadership and Service”, the highest honor a student can achieve at Cosumnes River College. From here, Tony then found a skill and passion in videography, which he leveraged to sustain him ever since. Recently married, he is currently doing media full time . He aims to use this film to help bring light to the topics that go unspoken and give a voice to those who need it most.

Grace Lee is an independent filmmaker who most recently produced and directed two episodes of the Peabody Award-winning ASIAN AMERICANS series as well as AND SHE COULD BE NEXT, POV’s first broadcast series about women of color transforming politics and civic engagement, which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Other credits include the Peabody-winning AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY: THE EVOLUTION OF GRACE LEE BOGGS, THE GRACE LEE PROJECT MAKERS: WOMEN IN POLITICS, OFF THE MENU: ASIAN AMERICA and K-TOWN’92, an interactive online project about the 1992 Los Angeles civil unrest. Other credits include the Emmy-nominated MAKERS: WOMEN IN POLITICS and OFF THE MENU: ASIAN AMERICA, both for PBS; She is co-founder of the Asian American Documentary Network (A-Doc), a Directors Guild of America member as well as a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 

Aldo Velasco is a seasoned film editor with a rich portfolio of work, including the Emmy-nominated Netflix documentary "Massacre at the Stadium." He edited "Free Chol Soo Lee" (Sundance 2022) and "The Infiltrators" (directed by Cristina Ibarra & Alex Rivera, Sundance 2019). As a writer and director, Velasco created two shorts for ITVS's innovative FUTURESTATES series: "Tent City" and "Excarcerated”; and contributed as a writer and editor to the Peabody Award-winning PBS documentary series "Asian Americans."

Cori is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and author. Her plays have been produced around the country and her current projects include a screenplay in development for HBO/Tribeca Films, and the feature length documentary Finding Ma. She co-authored, with Sara Kruzan “I Cried To Dream Again: Trafficking, Murder and Deliverance - A Memoir” published by Penguin Random House. Cori is the Andrew Mellon Foundation Playwright-in-Residence at WP Theater and a current New Dramatists Resident Playwright. ​​In 2022, she was one of five playwrights to win the prestigious Helen Merrill Playwriting Award. She is a member of the WGA, serves on the Board of No More Tears SQ, and is a longtime volunteer at the San Quentin Media Center.