Stanford documentary alumni are represented across multiple premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival this year.
The Haunting of Pennhurst, screening in the Escape From Tribeca section as a World Premiere, is co-directed and co-produced by Mike Attie (MFA '09) alongside Nathan R. Stenberg and Katarina Poljak. The feature documentary explores Pennhurst, a former institution for people with disabilities that closed in 1987 after decades of documented abuse. The film follows a group of disabled performers who reframe the site's harmful history by transforming it into a haunted house experience. Attie previously directed Abortion Helpline, This Is Lisa, which won the AFI Docs Grand Jury Prize in 2020. His feature In Country, co-directed by Meghan O'Hara (MFA '09), premiered at Full Frame and screened at Hot Docs and CPH:DOX, earning rave reviews in TIME, Salon, and The Atlantic.
In the Documentary Short section, Aurora Brachman (MFA '21) directs When the Revolution Doesn't Come, a documentary from The Guardian looking at the children of the Black Panther party 50 years later. Brachman is an Emmy Award winner and Filmmaker Magazine's 25 New Faces honoree whose recent feature Hold Me Close premiered at Sundance 2025 and screened at True/False and Full Frame. She has also co-produced Girls State for Apple TV+ and served as associate producer on A24's Stephen Curry: Underrated.
Inês Pedrosa e Melo (MFA '19) directs the short The Dark Knot at the Center. A Portuguese filmmaker and researcher-educator, Pedrosa e Melo explores trauma through hybrid and archival approaches. She was a Fulbright Scholar and Calouste Gulbenkian Grant recipient.
David Zucker (MFA '21) edits Paving the Way, a documentary short that follows young people on the Flathead Indian Reservation and the role skateboarding plays in their identity and creativity. Zucker has worked as an editor on the Netflix docuseries Cheer and ABC News Studios' The Fox Hollow Murders. His thesis film Groundhog Town was featured in The New Yorker Documentary, and his debut directorial feature Your Friend, Memphis premiered at SXSW.
