Accessible Storytelling

Day Al-Mohamed is an author, filmmaker, and disability policy strategist, and founding member of FWD-Doc. She is co-author of the novel Baba Ali and the Clockwork Djinn, is a regular host on Idobi Radio’s Geek Girl Riot with an audience of more than 80,000 listeners, and her most recent novella, The Labyrinth’s Archivist, was published in 2019 from Falstaff Books. She is a member of Women in Film and Video, a Docs in Progress Film Fellowship alumna, and a graduate of the VONA/Voices Writing Workshop. However, she is most proud of being invited to teach a workshop on storytelling at the White House in February 2016.
Day is a disability policy executive with more than fifteen years of experience. She presents often on the representation of disability in media, most recently at the American Bar Association, SXSW, and New York ComiCon. A proud member of Coast Guard Auxiliary (5th District Southern Region), she lives in Washington DC with her wife, N.R. Brown. The Invalid Corps, a documentary about disabled veterans’ contributions during the Civil War, was her first documentary as a blind filmmaker.

James LeBrecht has over 40 years of experience as a film and theater sound designer and mixer, filmmaker, author and disability rights activist. LeBrecht co-directed and co-produced, with Nicole Newnham, the 2021 Oscar-nominated feature-length documentary, Crip Camp. Crip Camp received the 2020 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for feature-length documentary, the 2021 Independent Spirit award for Best Feature Documentary and a 2021 Peabody Award. Jim began his career in the theater in 1978, working as the resident sound designer at Berkeley Repertory Theatre for 10 years. His theatrical sound design work took him to many, well known theaters, including the New York Shakespeare Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, and ACT in San Francisco. In 1989 he found a home at the legendary Saul Zaentz Film Center where he started out as an apprentice and worked his way up the ladder to become a sound designer, mixer, and sound supervisor. In 1996, LeBrecht founded Berkeley Sound Artists, an audio postproduction house. He quickly found a home in the documentary and independent film community. His film credits include Minding the Gap, The Island President, The Waiting Room, Audrie and Daisy and, of course, Crip Camp. Jim co-authored Sound and Music for the Theatre: the Art and Technique of Design. Now in its 4th edition, the book is used as a textbook all over the world. Jim’s work as an activist began in high school and continued at UC, San Diego, where he helped found the Disabled Students Union. Jim is currently a board member at the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, which works for the rights of the disabled through education, legislation and litigation. Some of LeBrecht’s additional accomplishments include co-founding FWD-Doc, an organization that supports documentary filmmakers with disabilities and being a character consultant for Pixar Animation Studios for 2 of their films. He has been a mentor at the SFFILM’s FilmHouse residency fellowship for 3 years. Jim is honored to be a member of the Disability Futures Fellowship, an initiative of the Ford Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Additionally, he is a 2020 BAFTA Breakthrough USA honoree.

StormMiguel Florez is a trans, queer Xicane filmmaker, whose work includes award-winning documentaries, The Whistle (Producer/Director) and MAJOR! (Editor/Co-Producer 2015). StormMiguel is also an event and media producer, actor, and a life-long musician. He was a 2020 San Francisco Pride virtual Community Grand Marshal and a recipient of NALAC (National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures), The San Francisco Arts Commission, and Horizons Foundation grants. He’s originally from Albuquerque, NM, which he very much considers to be his homeland, and has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 24 years. He lives with his partner, filmmaker, Annalise Ophelian, and their 3 chihuahuas.