Father Figures
FATHER FIGURES
When a retired theater director begins creating internet videos featuring deeply intimate conversations with his growing collection of ventriloquist dummies, his daughter embarks on a process of collaborative filmmaking to understand his motivations and repair their fraught relationship—using puppets.
Stage: Production
Project Type: Documentary
Evoke’s Role: Father Figures is a grantee and program-related investment of Evoke Media. Evoke founder Sabrina Merage Naim and Evoke Director of Impact and Storytelling Jamie Newton are Executive Producers.
Meet the filmmakers
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Director/Producer
Emma D. Miller is a documentary filmmaker and the founder of Marcona Media. She produced Iliana Sosa's Gotham Award-nominated, SXSW award-winning WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND (ARRAY Releasing/Netflix), a New York Times "Critic's Pick,” and recently directed the short documentary THE SCHOOL OF CANINE MASSAGE, which premiered at SXSW 2024. Her films have screened at festivals worldwide including Full Frame, Camden, Morelia, DOC10, DC/DOX, and First Look at the Museum of the Moving Image, and have been supported by Sundance Institute, Ford Foundation, Field of Vision, Impact Partners, and Anonymous Content, among others. As development executive for nonfiction at Concordia Studio, she worked on Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning films that premiered at Sundance, Tribeca, and Telluride, including TIME (Amazon Studios), BOYS STATE (Apple TV+/A24), and PROCESSION (Netflix). She was casting associate for Showtime's COUPLES THERAPY series, associate producer of the Academy Award-nominated short documentary KNIFE SKILLS (The New Yorker), and associate producer of the Oscar-shortlisted, Sundance award-winning feature UNREST (Independent Lens/Netflix). She is currently producing Elizabeth Lo's MISTRESS DISPELLER and co-producing an upcoming feature for National Geographic Documentary Films. Named one of DOC NYC’s “40 Under 40” in 2022, Emma is a 2023 Sundance Producers Fellow and 2024 JFI Filmmaker in Residence. She is interested in forging new ways of seeing, connecting, and knowing through film.
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Producer
Florrie Priest is a documentary producer based in London. She started her career at Rise Films, working in-house on productions including Paul Taylor's THE ART OF POLITICAL MURDER, Dror Moreh's THE HUMAN FACTOR and series 4 and 5 of ITV2's highest rating comedy ever – Roman sitcom PLEBS. Florrie was an assistant producer for David Osit's multi-award winning MAYOR; associate producer for Jed Rothstein's ONCE UPON A TIME IN LONDONGRAD; and associate producer for GEORGE CARLIN'S AMERICAN DREAM, a two-part documentary for HBO directed by Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio, which won the 2022 Emmy® for Outstanding Documentary. Most recently, Florrie co-produced Shaunak Sen's ALL THAT BREATHES – the only film ever to have won both the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and Best Documentary at the Cannes Film Festival. The film received BAFTA and Oscar nominations for Best Documentary. Florrie is a mentor for Raindance’s Filmmaking MA program, and for Creative Access — a social enterprise which provides support and training to underrepresented groups in the industry. She is passionate about bringing new audiences to documentary cinema and elevating the genre by working with and advocating for filmmakers who are taking bold and surprising artistic risks in their storytelling.
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Co-producer
Colby Day is an award-winning producer, writer, and director. He is the writer of the Netflix film SPACEMAN, directed by Johan Renck (CHERNOBYL) and starring Adam Sandler and Cary Mulligan, which premiered at Berlinale 2024 and was the no. 1 film on the streaming service. He is also the writer of IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE (Searchlight Pictures), directed by Oscar winner Andrew Stanton (WALL-E) and starring Kate McKinnon, Rashida Jones, and Daveed Diggs, with Day serving as executive producer. Day wrote, directed, and produced the short film LEAD/FOLLOW (Austin Film Festival), and produced Emma D. Miller's short documentary THE SCHOOL OF CANINE MASSAGE (SXSW 2024). He has developed projects with Hulu, Lionsgate, LBI, and 3311, and previously worked in artistic development for the New York-based theater company Pipeline. Colby is represented by UTA and Grandview.
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Cinematographer
Aurora Brachman is a Queer mixed-race Black and South Asian woman and an award-winning documentary director and cinematographer. Through patient and poetic storytelling her films explore narratives of intimate relationships within families and communities. Her short documentaries (including “Club Quarantine,” “The Gallery That Destroys All Shame,” “Joychild,” and "Still Waters") have been acquired by The New York Times, The New Yorker, and POV; shortlisted for an IDA Award; selected for Vimeo Staff Picks; and screened at numerous festivals including Sundance, True/False, Hot Docs, AFI Docs, DOC NYC, Blackstar, and SFFILM. Aurora is a graduate of the MFA program in Documentary Film at Stanford University, a 2020 Sundance Ignite Fellow, a 2022 SFFILM FilmHouse Resident, and a 2023 BAVC MediaMaker Fellow. She is also the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship in filmmaking. She associate produced the A24 documentary UNDERRATED (Sundance 2023); co-produced Apple TV+’s GIRLS STATE, sequel to the Sundance and Emmy award-winning BOYS STATE; and assisted on the critically acclaimed Showtime docuseries COUPLES THERAPY.
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Cinematographer
Ora DeKornfeld is an Emmy-award winning journalist, filmmaker, cinematographer, and editor based in Los Angeles and Mexico City. She directed, produced, filmed, and edited the Emmy-nominated short USA VS. SCOTT (Tribeca 2020, The New Yorker). Her work has been showcased in the Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, CNN, Netflix, National Geographic, The Atlantic, and Vox's EXPLAINED on Netflix, among others. She is a regular contributor to the New York Times. Her work there has been nominated for four News and Documentary Emmys. In 2019, she won in the "Outstanding Editing: News" category. She was an integral part of the creative team both as a cinematographer and editor on the feature documentary film MIJA, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2022, was acquired by Disney+, and earned IDA Award and Independent Spirit Award nominations. She was also the director of photography for Emma D. Miller’s documentary short THE SCHOOL OF CANINE MASSAGE, which premiered at SXSW 2024.
