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Pamela Yates

Pamela Yates is an award-winning film director and the co-founder of Skylight, a not-for-profit media organization that for over 35 years has combined cinematic arts with the quest for justice to inspire the defense of human rights. Skylight’s  films and programs strengthen social justice movements and catalyze collaborative networks of artists and activists. She is the Director of the Sundance Special Jury award winning When the Mountains Tremble; the Executive Producer of the Academy Award winning Witness to War; and the Director of State of Fear: The Truth About Terrorism, which has been translated into 47 languages and broadcast in 154 countries. Her film Granito: How to Nail a Dictator, for which she awarded a Guggenheim fellowship, was used as key forensic evidence in the genocide trial against Efraín Ríos Montt in Guatemala. Her third film in the Guatemalan trilogy, 500 YEARS had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, was broadcast on POV/PBS and streamed as part of Amazon Prime Festival Stars. Pamela is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Writers Guild of America, and the International Documentary Association and is on the Advisory Board of the Woodstock Film Festival.

Paco de Onís

Paco de Onís is the Executive Director and Executive Producer of Skylight, a human rights media organization dedicated to advancing social justice through storytelling by creating documentary films and media tools that can be applied in long-term strategies for positive social change.

Paco co-created SolidariLabs, a program designed to disseminate Skylight’s innovative model for creating human rights media ecosystems in conjunction with committed media makers, artists, technologists and movement organizations, with the aim of building enduring networks of 21st century human rights defenders. One of the promising initiatives that has emerged from the SolidariLabs network is the Virtual International Volunteers Xchange, VIVX, an app and online platform designed to connect volunteers who will virtually accompany human rights defenders under threat, to support the accompaniment work already being done on the ground by organizations such as Peace Brigades International, with whom Skylight will partner. Paco’s film producing credits include Borderland |The Line Within,  500 YEARS, Granito: How to Nail a Dictator, Rebel Citizen, Disruption, State of Fear, and The Reckoning.