Is Your Work Sample Working?

About this virtual workshop

Learn practical tips from an experienced panel of editors, filmmakers, and application evaluators on how to make your sample stand out and represent the integrity and heart of your project(s). We'll be delving into the art of selecting a compelling work sample for grants, fellowships, and festivals! We will watch and review real samples together, hear live feedback from our panel, and end with an open dialogue. Bring your questions!

This workshop is part of BAVC Media's Versed summer workshop series, presented in partnership with the Berkeley Film Foundation, to support filmmakers working on applications for grants, sponsorship or artist support opportunities.

BAVC Media Members get FREE access to all VERSED workshops – become a member today!

About our guest speakers

Jillian Schlesinger is an independent documentary maker whose work accompanies emerging visionaries on collaborative filmmaking adventures. Jillian produced, edited, and co-directed HUMMINGBIRDS (2024), Silvia Del Carmen Castaños’ & Estefanía “Beba” Contreras’ self-portrait of a coming-of-age summer in their hometown on the Texas-Mexico border. HUMMINGBIRDS won the Berlinale Generation Grand Prize for Best Film, received Critic’s Pick reviews from The New York Times and Indiewire, and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary. Jillian produced and directed MAIDENTRIP (2014) in collaboration with Laura Dekker on Laura’s quest to become the youngest person to sail around the world alone. MAIDENTRIP won Audience Awards at SXSW and CIFF among other festival honors and was released globally by First Run Features and ro*co. The film received nominations for Gotham Awards and Cinema Eye Honors as well as a spot on Indiewire’s list of the Best Documentaries of 2014. Jillian is a 2024 Sundance Producers Fellow, 2023 DOC NYC 40 Under 40, and a member of the Documentary Producers Alliance. Jillian is an instructor at DCTV in New York and has been a visiting speaker at Uniondocs, Austin Film Society, and Wexner Center for the Arts. Her commissioned work has been featured in The New Yorker, The Guardian, and AJ+. Jillian lives in Brooklyn with her partner Miguel Drake-McLaughlin and their youngest collaborators, Mateo and Arlo.

tamate uta is a birth and death worker, drum keeper, and artist. she is devoted to lineage healing through her attendance to animist ritual work, with a particular focus on gestation, birth, and pregnancy loss. she is the director of a mythical documentary visual album called Kizuna, about the spirit of a baby born into a taiko drum and the unbreakable bonds between people, earth and stars. she is committed to unwinding from colonial and patriarchal worldviews, and stoking matriarchal and land-based memory through creative, spiritual, and relational practice. she weaves home and belonging between the territories of ainu and ohlone people.

About our moderator

Dawn Valadez is a queer, Xicana, filmmaker, social worker, artist, youth development specialist, resource wrangler, and impact strategist. Raised by her Mexican-American single mother, she never planned on being a filmmaker. Her award-winning, ITVS-funded, feature documentary (with Kristy Guevara-Flanagan), Going on 13, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. As co-director and producer with Katie Galloway, Dawn is spearheading The Pushouts impact campaign. The Pushouts engages audiences through a character driven story of Victor Rios, a “dropout,” 3-time felon, and now nationally recognized expert on the “school-to-prison” pipeline and beloved professor of sociology at UC Santa Barbara. Along with her Co-Director Rodrigo Reyes their film Untitled Lorena (in production) won the 2024 DocLands Jury Prize for their recorded pitch. Working as a producer/co-producer on films such as “Vivien’s Wild Ride” (Hillgrove, in production), “All We Carry” (Voge, 2024), "Hummingbirds" (Castaños & Contreras, 2023), and "Manzanar, Diverted" (Kaneko, 2021), she supports filmmakers nationwide.

About BAVC Media

BAVC Media a community hub and resource for media makers in the Bay Area, serving thousands of filmmakers, artists and activists every year. Inspiring social change by empowering media makers to develop and share diverse stories through art, education and technology since 1976.

About the Berkeley FILM Foundation

The Berkeley FILM Foundation is a 501(c)(3) grant and educational program for independent filmmakers founded by the City of Berkeley, Wareham Development, and the Saul Zaentz Company with a mission to nurture, sustain and preserve the thriving local film community while attracting the next generation of filmmakers. The BFF grant program accepts applicants who live or work in the cities of Berkeley, Emeryville, El Cerrito, Albany, Richmond, and Oakland.

About VERSED

BAVC Media's VERSED is a series of hybrid workshops, hands-on labs, virtual and in-person trainings for creators of all ages and skill levels to spark and sustain careers in the media arts on a free or below-market basis. See our upcoming workshops at bavc.org/versed

About the BAVC MediaMaker Fellowship

The MediaMaker Fellowship is devoted to supporting documentary filmmakers using bold cinematic language and innovative impact strategies to grapple with critical issues of our time. This nine-month-long program provides directors with structured learning, workshopping, and community building as they near post-production on their first or second documentary feature. Applications for the 2026 MediaMaker Fellowship will be opening August 11. Learn more about the program at bavc.org/mediamaker

Accomodations for virtual workshops

Zoom captions will always be turned on for virtual workshops and recordings will include subtitle tracks. Transcripts will be made available upon request.

If you would benefit from any accommodations to access and participate fully in this event, for example ASL interpretation, please email versed@bavc.org and we will do our very best to make it a reality.