JoLu Productions was founded in 2000  by award-winning independent media-maker Luisa Dantas. The name pays homage to her late father José, and symbolizes her Brasilian roots and lived experience as a first-gen Latinx artist shapeshifting between cultures. We are a full-service multimedia production company that harnesses the catalytic power of storytelling to galvanize audiences across genres and formats, including documentary, cutting-edge interactive content,  short fiction and non-fiction films, web series, and branded digital content. Our social-justice projects focus on a spectrum of pressing issues from land+ housing justice, to immigration, to environmental justice, all viewed through the lens of race and place. Our work centers the under-represented voices and perspectives of impacted communities, both behind and in front of the camera. We also provide narrative strategy consulting to non-profits and foundations working on policy, organizing, and advocacy across a wide range of pressing issues.

TEAM

Luisa Dantas is a Brasilian-American multimedia storyteller whose work centers on race, place, and social justice. She has produced, written and directed narratives that span genres and modalities, including animated and live-action fiction and traditional and interactive documentary, that feature complex and nuanced protagonists from traditionally underrepresented communities. Her most recent film, Rip Tide, premiered at the Mill Valley Film Festival and has screened festivals around the world. She also wrote and co-directed MINE, an animated web series about an unraveling utopian community set in the near future, premiered at the Tribeca film festival and won best web series at American Black Film Festival.  Her work has received support from the Rockefeller, Surdna, Robert Wood Johnson, and Ford Foundations, among others. 

Luisa also served as the director and Executive Producer for Rise-Home Stories,  an innovative storytelling project funded by the Ford Foundation, which brings together artists and advocates from all over the country to collaboratively harness the power of narrative in the fight for housing, land, and racial justice. The award-winning project includes an  animated web series, children’s book, non-fiction podcast, interactive site, and video game that have engaged multigenerational audiences around the world. 

As a narrative consultant, Luisa works with clients in diverse sectors of social justice advocacy and philanthropy  to become better storytellers in the fight for a more just and equitable future. Luisa also wrote and directed the multi-platform documentary Land of Opportunity, which chronicles the reconstruction of New Orleans through the eyes of those on the frontlines. The project includes a feature film, which was commissioned by Arté in France for the 5th anniversary of Katrina,  and a groundbreaking interactive web platform produced in conjunction with partners in six cities. Luisa also co-produced the documentary Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, for which she worked undercover as a cashier at a Florida superstore, wearing a hidden camera..

LUISA DANTAS, DIRECTOR/PRODUCER


Mo is a seasoned communications strategist with over eight years of experience amplifying mission-driven organizations through impactful storytelling, digital marketing, graphic design, and media relations. From securing national media coverage to designing innovative campaigns, they specialize in crafting strategies that elevate visibility, inspire action, and drive meaningful change.

As a consultant, Mo has partnered with non-profits, small business owners, and independent filmmakers who are in need of high quality, consistent communications, marketing, and design support. Whether building comprehensive communication plans, designing reports, managing social media strategies, or creating compelling content, Mo is dedicated to helping clients achieve their goals and make a lasting impact.Mo is the co-founder of Grassroots Story Works, where they offer comprehensive digital organizing, communications, and marketing designed to move people and build power.

Mo Banks, Digital Communications Director




Micheal Boedigheimer is photographer and filmmaker based out of New Orleans, LA. His award-winning films have screened at festivals around the world. He was the co-producer and cinematographer on the award-winning feature documentary Land of Opportunity and Digital Content Manager on the Land of Opportunity interactive platform. He has worked as a camera operator on various reality shows for A&E, Bravo, tru TV and the web-series Voices From the Gulf for Color of Change. He graduated from the Art Institute of California, Santa Monica in 2006 with a B.A. in video production

MICHEAL BOEDIGHEIMER, d.p., EDITOR

Lindsey Phillips is a documentary filmmaker and editor based in Brooklyn, NY. In her work she celebrates unique places and communities, finding humor in complex places. She recently edited the hybrid feature film, HOLDING BACK THE TIDE (DocNYC 2023) which the New York Times declared as, "both an elegy and a prophecy". Her award winning films have screened at festivals across the country including San Francisco Indie Shorts, Miami Int. FF, Cucalorus, New Orleans FF, Cleveland Int. FF, and more.

Lindsey Phillips, Cinematographer/Editor

Advisory Board

Angela Tucker is an Emmy nominated producer, writer and director. Her directorial work includes PAPER CHASE, a teen comedy in pre production with Gunpowder and Sky; ALL STYLES, a dance movie in post production starring Fik-Shun (SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE) and Heather Morris (GLEE); BLACK FOLK DON’T, a documentary web series in its fourth season featured in Time Magazine’s “10 Ideas That Are Changing Your Life” and (A)SEXUAL a feature length documentary about people who experience no sexual attraction that streamed on Netflix and Hulu for four years. She is in her seventh year as Series Producer of the PBS strand, AFROPOP and was Co-Producer on THE NEW BLACK. Previously, she was the Director of Production at Big Mouth Films, a social issue documentary production company. There, she worked on several award-winning documentaries, including PUSHING THE ELEPHANT (PBS’ Independent Lens). In 2006, she co-founded TuckerGurl LLC, a production company passionate about telling compelling and irreverent stories about underrepresented communities. Tucker was a Sundance Institute Women Filmmakers Initiative fellow. She received her MFA in Film from Columbia University.

ANGELA TUCKER, Filmmaker

Tim Watson is a documentary editor, writer, and producer based in New Orleans. His work has been seen on PBS, the Sundance Channel, HBO, the Documentary Channel, and other networks in the U.S. and Europe; and at many film festivals around the world. He edited and co-wrote A Story Like Mine (2017); edited Everything Is To Be Continued (summer 2015); was advising editor for Big Charity: The Death of America’s Oldest Hospital (2014); edited and co-produced Campo to B.C. (2014); co-edited and co-wrote Bayou Maharajah (2013); co-produced and co-edited The Music’s Gonna Get You Through (2010); was supervising producer and co-editor for Bury The Hatchet (2010); co-edited Walker Percy: A Documentary Film (2010); edited Taste Of Place (series, 2010-11); did story development for and edited Vows of Silence (2008); edited Member Of The Club (2008); co-produced and edited By Invitation Only (2006); edited a documentary segment for HBO Comic Relief (2006); co-produced and edited A Player To Be Named Later (2005); co-produced and co-edited Desire (2005); edited and co-wrote ShalomY'All (2002); and edited Ruthie The Duck Girl (1999).

TIM WATSON, editor/writer/producer

 

Lolis Eric Elie is a New Orleans born, Los Angeles based writer and filmmaker. Most recently, he joined the writing staff of the AMC television show, Hell on Wheels. Before that, he wrote for the HBO series Treme. Working with the award-winning director Dawn Logsdon, he co- produced and wrote the PBS documentary, Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans. His essay, “America’s Greatest Hits,” is included in Best African American Essays: 2009. A former columnist for The Times-Picayune, he is the author of Smokestack Lightning: Adventures in the Heart of Barbecue Country and co-producer and writer of Smokestack Lightning: A Day in the Life of Barbecue, the documentary based on that book. He is editor of Cornbread Nation 2: The Best of Southern Food Writing. A contributing writer to The Oxford American, his work has appeared in Gourmet, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Bon Appetit, Downbeat and The San Francisco Chronicle.

LOLIS ERIC ELIE, Filmmaker

Rebecca Snedeker is the Clark Executive Director of the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South in the School of Liberal Arts at Tulane University. Prior to this position, she worked as an independent documentary filmmaker, writer, and program curator, cultivating a body of work that supports human rights, creative expression, and care for place in her native city, New Orleans. Snedeker co-authored Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas (University of California Press, 2013), a book of 22 imaginative maps and essays, with Rebecca Solnit. She has produced several feature documentaries that take place in New Orleans and the Gulf South, including By Invitation Only (PBS, 2007), Witness: Katrina (National Geographic Channel, 2010), and Land of Opportunity (ARTE, 2010) and contributed to many others, including Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans (PBS, 2007) and A Village Called Versailles (PBS, 2008). Snedeker has served on the Steering Committee of New Day Films and the boards of the New Orleans Film Society, Patois: The New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival, and Video Veracity. She is the recipient of an Emmy Award for “Outstanding Historical Programming – Long Form” and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

REbecca snedeker, filmmaker/writer

 

Alvaro produced the award-winning short films, LA MILPA, FAMILY PORTRAIT, and ZEN AND THE ART OF LANDSCAPING. Collectively, among many accolades, these films won two Student Academy Awards, a Student Emmy, a Sundance Jury Prize and a Mexican Academy Award. An alumnus of the Sundance Producer’s Lab, Alvaro also produced the feature sci-fi thriller, MESSENGERS, and the documentaries, THE EVOLUTION OF DAD and DALAI LAMA, COLOMBIA. He has also directed and produced short content for clients such as Hess, Stanley Black & Decker, Office Depot, and Nike Air Jordan. Other feature film production credits include Sidney Lumet’s BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD, Mia Hansen-Løve’s EDEN, PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF, and TV shows for HBO, Sony Pictures, CBS, and Warner Bros. TV. He holds an MFA in Film from Columbia University and a BA in Art History & Photography from William Paterson University.

Alvaro DONADO, director/producer