Filmmakers

GORDON QUINN (DIRECTOR, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) is the Artistic and co-founder of Kartemquin Films, where over the past 50+ years he has helped hundreds of documentary filmmakers advance their projects forward and been a leading champion of the rights of all documentary filmmakers. He is the 2015 recipient of the International Documentary Association Career Achievement Award and was a key leader in creating the Documentary Filmmakers Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use. His credits as director and producer include films as diverse and essential as “‘63 Boycott” (2017), “Inquiring Nuns” (1966), “Golub” (1988), and “A Good Man” (2011), and as executive producer include Academy-Award nominated films “Minding the Gap” (2018), “Abacus: Small Enough to Jail” (2016), “Hoop Dreams” (1994), and the Emmy Award-winning “The Interrupters” (2011), “The Trials of Muhammad Ali” (2013), “The Homestretch” (2014), and “Life Itself” (2014), and the acclaimed limited series “The New Americans” (2003) and “Hard Earned” (2015).

LESLIE SIMMER (DIRECTOR, EDITOR) is Kartemquin’s Director of Editing and Senior Editor on staff and has worked at Kartemquin for over 20 years in various capacities. She edited Steve James’ series “America to Me,” which aired on the Starz network in 2018. She also edited and co-wrote “Raising Bertie” (2016) which premiered at Full Frame, was broadcast on POV, and was named by Slate Magazine as one of the 15 best docs of 2017. Leslie has also edited and co-wrote the Emmy Award-winning film, “The Homestretch” (2015, Hot Docs and PBS’s Independent Lens); edited and co-wrote the Emmy-nominated documentary “As Goes Janesville” (Independent Lens 2012); edited Steve James’ ESPN film “No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson”; edited the Emmy-nominated “In the Family” (for which she received the Best Editing prize at the “Best of the Midwest Awards”), and co-edited with Steve James on the award-winning “The War Tapes” (Tribeca Film Festival). From 2001-2004 she wore dual hats on the seven-part PBS series “The New Americans” as both Series Story Editor and Post Production Supervisor.

HOWARD REICH (PRODUCER, WRITER) An Emmy award-winning filmmaker, Reich covered music and the arts for the Chicago Tribune from 1978 to 2021. He has written six books: “The Art of Inventing Hope: Intimate Conversations with Elie Wiesel,” “Portraits in Jazz,” “Let Freedom Swing,” “Jelly’s Blues” (with William Gaines), “Van Cliburn” and “Prisoner of Her Past” (originally published as “The First and Final Nightmare of Sonia Reich”). The latter inspired the Kartemquin documentary film “Prisoner of Her Past” (broadcast nationally on PBS), which Reich wrote, narrated and produced. He has served on the jury for the Pulitzer Prize in Music four times, including the first time a jazz work won: Wynton Marsalis’ “Blood on the Fields.” Reich holds two honorary doctorate degrees and has won two Deems Taylor Awards from ASCAP; Alumni Merit Award from Northwestern University; Bravo Award from Dominican University; Anne Keegan Award and eight Peter Lisagor Awards from the Society of Professional Journalists; an Excellence in Journalism Award from the Chicago Association of Black Journalists; and the Public Advocacy Award from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. The Chicago Journalists Association named him Chicago Journalist of the Year in 2011 and has given him three Sarah Brown Boyden Awards.

DIANE QUON (PRODUCER) is an Academy Award-nominated producer who worked as a marketing executive for 17 years at NBC and Paramount Pictures before moving back to her hometown of Chicago. Diane produced the Kartemquin Films documentaries: Oscar and Emmy nominated, Peabody and Sundance award-winning film, “Minding the Gap” directed by Bing Liu; “Finding Yingying” by Jiayan “Jenny” Shi (MTVDocs; SXSW 2020 Jury Award for Breakthrough Voice) and “The Dilemma of Desire” with Peabody Award-winning director Maria Finitzo (SXSW 2020). She is currently producing the feature documentaries: “Untitled Sam Project,” directed by Nadav Kurtz; “Untitled 19th* News Film”; and “Wuhan Wuhan” (HotDocs 2021) directed by Yung Chang, along with producing partners Donna Gigliotti (“Silver Linings Playbook”) and Peter Luo (“Crazy Rich Asians”). She is also developing a fiction film based on the New York Times best-selling book, “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet”; as well as Bing Liu’s original fiction screenplay. An AMPAS member, Diane is a 2020 recipient of the Cinereach Producer Award, and a 2019 Sundance Creative Producing Fellow.

MATT LAUTERBACH (EDITOR) is a documentary film editor and an advocate for accessible media.

As Post Production Manager at Kartemquin Films from 2012 to 2014, Matt and his five-person team escorted nine films safely to release. Matt served as Post Supervisor of “The Trials of Muhammad Ali”; as an Editor of “American Arab”; as Co-Editor of “Saving Mes Aynak”; and as Editor of “Unbroken Glass.” He also played a key role in the inception of “’63 Boycott,” a Kartemquin project that began as an exhibit video and expanded into an Oscar shortlisted documentary short. Matt continues to freelance for Kartemquin, and is currently contributing to “For the Left Hand” as Co-Editor and to “Tres Fridas” as Editor.

In 2019, Matt launched a consulting initiative called “All Senses Go,” which is dedicated to advocacy and education within the film community by highlighting the importance of captions, description, and accessible events for all audiences. He also collaborates with Reveca Torres of Backbones Online and artist Grishma Shah to bring the ReelAbilities Disability Film Festival to venues across Chicago; and periodically produces media for an interactive multimedia website called Beyond Blind: A Guide for the Sighted, which addresses common misconceptions and stereotypes about blindness.

ZBIGNIEW BZDAK (CINEMATOGRAPHER) is a former staff photographer of the Chicago Tribune, where he worked for almost 20 years. His assignments included the war in Iraq, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the 2008 campaign of Barack Obama, and the first 100 days of President Obama’s first term.

He left his native Poland to photograph kayaking expeditions exploring white-water rivers in Mexico and Peru.

Kartemquin Films

Sparking democracy through documentary since 1966, Kartemquin is a collaborative community that empowers documentary makers who create stories that foster a more engaged and just society.

Kartemquin’s films have received four Academy Award® nominations, and won six Emmys® and three Peabody Awards, among several more major prizes. In 2019, Kartemquin was honored with an Institutional Peabody Award for “its commitment to unflinching documentary filmmaking and telling an American history rooted in social justice and the stories of the marginalized.” Recognized as a leading advocate for independent public media, Kartemquin has helped hundreds of artists via its filmmaker development programs and championing of documentary.

Kartemquin is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization based in Chicago.