Ursula Liang
DIRECTOR, PRODUCER, CINEMATOGRAPHER
DOWN A DARK STAIRWELL • 9-MAN
Ursula Liang is an award-winning director and producer with 25 years of experience in storytelling. Her debut feature, 9-Man, was broadcast on public television and called “an absorbing documentary” by the New York Times. Her second film, Down a Dark Stairwell, had its premiere at True/False and was called “the most essential Asian American documentary in decades.” Her latest feature, Jeanette Lee Vs., is part of ESPN’s acclaimed 30 for 30 series while her most recent short, Two Strikes, aired on the iconic PBS series Frontline. Her work has been supported by ITVS, Ford Foundation, Sundance Institute, Firelight Media, and the Center for Asian American Media. Before becoming a filmmaker, Ursula held staff positions at The New York Times Op-Docs, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, ESPN The Magazine, Asia Pacific Forum and Hyphen magazine. She also produced for television (UFC Primetime, NBC Spartan Ultimate Team Challenge). Ursula is a member of Film Fatales, A-DOC, IDD, and is the Vice President of Brown Girls Doc Mafia. She is from Newton, Mass. and currently freelances from Oakland, Calif. after two decades in the Bronx.
Rajal Pitroda
PRODUCER • DOWN A DARK STAIRWELL
Rajal is a producer working between the worlds of fiction and non-fiction film. She is currently working on a narrative short exploring gentrification in Oakland and a documentary series based on a New York Times bestselling book about young women and the cultural landscape around sex and identity. She is an associate producer of the film The Kindergarten Teacher, a 2018 Sundance selection and a co-producer of O.G., a 2018 Tribeca Film Festival selection. Rajal was the Founder/CEO of Cinevention, a media company focused on marketing and distribution for feature films, including Outsourced, which was developed into a sitcom at NBC. Rajal was previously a partner at Beyond the Box Productions, creating and running marketing campaigns for independent films. She was a SFFILM resident and Firelight Media Impact Producer Fellow, and is currently a member of the board of Investigative Studios, a non-profit documentary production company.
Chanelle Aponte Pearson
CONSULTING PROD. • DOWN A DARK STAIRWELL
Chanelle is a Bronx-bred, Brooklyn-based visual artist and filmmaker. In 2015, Chanelle was awarded the euphoria Calvin Klein Spotlight on Women Directors “Live the Dream” grant for the episodic series 195 Lewis, her directorial debut. The pilot episode first screened at the 2014 BlackStar Film Festival and had its international premiere at the 2016 International Film Festival at Rotterdam. Chanelle also produced the critically acclaimed feature film An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, which premiered in the New Frontier section of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and won the 2012 Gotham Award for “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You.” As chief operating officer, Chanelle also oversees the management and operations of MVMT, a Brooklyn-based film production company.
J.M. Harper
EDITOR, WRITER • DOWN A DARK STAIRWELL
Jason is a documentarian. He's made social interest stories on African-American barbershop culture featuring Nas and Black Thought as well as several short documentaries for Google on subjects ranging from the LGBTQ movement to the Kenyan ivory trade in Samburu. He was honored as part of the AdWeek Creative 100 in 2019 and nominated for a Webby for his unscripted “Bevel: Mirrors” series. Down A Dark Stairwell is his third documentary feature as editor. His last film, A Kid from Coney Island, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, and he's currently editing a feature documentary about Kanye West. His work has been featured on AdWeek, Vimeo Staff Picks, FADER and the Guggenheim.
Michelle Chang
EDITOR, WRITER • DOWN A DARK STAIRWELL
EDITOR, WRITER • 9-MAN
Michelle is an Emmy-nominated, Brooklyn-based editor of documentary features as well as short form projects. She recently finished the upcoming films When Claude Got Shot and Harbor from the Holocaust (PBS). Past feature credits include Ursula Liang’s award-winning feature, 9-Man, Like Any Other Kid, (A)Sexual, Black and Cuba, and Camp Victory, Afghanistan (Co-Editor). She also edited all four seasons of the Black Public Media web series Black Folk Don't, as well as many short films for Art:21’s New York Close Up series and various corporate and non-profit clients. She was a fellow at the Sundance Documentary Edit and Story Lab in 2009, and also attended in 2008 as an assistant editor. Before becoming an editor, Michelle was an associate producer for ABC News 20/20 and Primetime.
Andrew Orkin
COMPOSER • DOWN A DARK STAIRWELL
Andrew is a composer for film, video games and virtual reality installations based in Brooklyn, New York. He began his career as a guitarist and delved into electronic production as a teenager, producing and playing in bands in his hometown, Johannesburg, South Africa. His music embodies a synergy of the electronic and more traditional, acoustic, musical worlds, a combination that originates from Andrew's lifelong obsession with experimental production techniques, as well as a formal education as a Fulbright Scholar at NYU's Steinhardt School, where Andrew received his MMus in 2014. Along with Down a Dark Stairwell, his recent work includes the off-Broadway play Mies Julie, Sink, Sank, Sunk starring Laura Linney, Dead Pigs (Sundance 2018), Lucky Grandma (TriBeCa 2019), Save Yourselves (Sundance 2020) and Materna (Tribeca 2020).
Scott “Chops” Jung
ADDITIONAL MUSIC • DOWN A DARK STAIRWELL
CO-COMPOSER • 9-MAN
Chops is a hip-hop and R&B producer and recording artist known for a unique multi-instrument, no-sample production style that has allowed him to work with some of the world's biggest and most talented artists (Kanye West, Bun B, Lil Wayne, The Lonely Island, Nicki Minaj, Chamillionaire, Paul Wall, Raekwon, Talib Kweli, E-40, Ice Cube, The Game, Snoop Dogg). Chops’ music has been featured in ads for Nike and Coca Cola and in the TV shows Grey's Anatomy, Psych, House of Lies, Breaking Bad, Law & Order: SVU, Parks and Recreation, Basketball Wives, and the films Brown Sugar, House of Wax, Hurricane Season, Face, Ping Pong Playa. His work has charted on the Billboard Top 100. As a pioneering recording artist with the hip-hop trio the Mountain Brothers, Chops was part of the first Asian-American rap group signed to a major label. In 2014, he released Strength in NUMBERS, an independent project uniting the best established and aspiring Asian American and international urban music artists today with his signature powerhouse tracks. Chops lives in Philadelphia, PA.