Skip to main content
Armando Zamudio (he/him) is a first-generation Mexican-American with parents from Guanajuato, Mexico. He is a filmmaker and film lover from Chicago, IL, and studied film at Columbia College Chicago. Upon graduating, he joined Cinema/Chicago, where he began his journey in the film festival circuit. He joined Sundance and, soon after, many more film festivals across the country. he got to travel to Salt Lake City, Seattle, New York City, and finally Los Angeles, where he’s resided and now excited to be part of IDA, helping documentaries have a platform. Over the years he has grown and built a strong bond with filmmakers and the film community through screenings and public programming. He hopes to continue to build stronger bonds with you and documentarians like himself.
Melissa (she/her) moved to L.A. to join IDA by way of her native New York, Philadelphia, an earlier brief stint in L.A., Washington D.C., and Chicago--in that order. As such, she no longer has much of an accent, but she does know an unusual lot about regional sandwiches. She holds an M.A. in Public History and became a grant writer quite by happy accident. She loves bookstores, riding her bike, old movies, Bruce Springsteen and the Grateful Dead, and she lives for dogs – especially her super senior basset hound, Sue.

Maria Santos joined the International Documentary Association as the Funds Program Officer in September 2022. She oversees all of the funding grants and provides year-round creative and strategic support to all IDA grantees. Previously, she was the Manager of Labs and Artist Support at the Sundance Documentary Film Program, since September 2020. During her time there, she was the lead on working with International Artists, primarily in Central and South America.

Lilla (she/her) has been with IDA's fiscal sponsorship team since 2022. As of November 2025, she serves as the organization's Acting Fiscal Sponsorship Program Manager. Her responsibilities include onboarding new projects, handling grant paperwork, and managing daily communication with filmmakers. 

Gabriella Ortega Ricketts (she/her) is a Colombian-American actress, multidisciplinary artist, and producer living in Los Angeles with her partner and their three cats, Archie, Hank, and Duke. Born and raised in Los Angeles, with a stint in Bogotá, Colombia, she feels a lot of hometown pride and will argue with anyone who disparages the culture, landscape, and historic architecture of our fair city (criticisms about cops and the city council are encouraged, however).

Abby Sun (she/her) is IDA's Director of Programs and Editor of Documentary magazine. Before joining IDA, Abby was the Curator of the DocYard and edited MIT Open Documentary Lab's Immerse. She has bylines in Film Comment, Filmmaker, Film Quarterly, Notebook, Sight & Sound, and other publications. Abby has served on festival juries for Hot Docs, Dokufest, Palm Springs, New Orleans, and CAAMfest, as well as nominating committees for the Gotham Awards and Cinema Eye.

Anisa Hosseinnezhad (She/They) is an Iranian Artist and Filmmaker. Their film and video work focuses on issues of displacement, immigration, and the militaristic U.S. imaginary. Their research is centered on West Asia, as rendered through by western media. They hold their MFA from Temple University. They live and work in what is known today as Los Angeles with their partner and pet child Spud. At IDA, They are the Membership and Individual Giving program manager, and they are proud to be one of the co-leads of the union Documentary Workers United.

 

Since 2018, Orwa Nyrabia (he/him) has been the Artistic Director of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, IDFA, the world’s largest documentary film and new media festival. At IDFA, Orwa is a member of the board of directors, overseeing the organization's various programs and offers.
Michael Turner (he/him) is Senior Director & Head of Original Documentary Films at Netflix, where he oversees business and legal affairs for Netflix’s slate of award-winning and critically acclaimed documentary films. Before joining Netflix, Michael was SVP and Head of Business and Legal Affairs at Discovery’s production studio. Michael holds double degrees in Economics and Political Science from Swarthmore College and a law degree from Cardozo. He began his career in 2001 as a corporate associate at Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson in NYC, focusing on mergers and acquisitions before moving to Sony Music as a business affairs executive.
Founder of Iguana Films, and a professor at Emerson College, Maria Agui Carter’s (she/her) recent work includes REBEL: Loreta Velazquez, Secret Soldier of the American Civil War, on Amazon Prime, Erik Barnouw award winner for best historical films in America; and the PBS series SCIGIRLS nominated for a 2019 daytime Emmy. She is a 2021-2 Concordia Studio Fellow with a first-look deal. Concordia is Executive Producing ALLEGED, Maria’s criminal justice series currently in production. She is also a 2022 winner of a Spark grant from the National Endowment for Humanities & Firelight Media for BIRTHRIGHT, an essay film exploring the racialized roots of immigration policy in America. In development is her feature script SECRET LIFE OF LA MARIPOSA, a fable on immigration and climate change based on Maria’s experience growing up undocumented.
Subscribe to