Love the Sinner (2017)

Directed by Jess Devaney & Geeta Gandbhir

In the wake of the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Evangelical Christians grapple with their relationship to the LGBTQ community.

GEETA GANDBHIR (Director) has been nominated for three Emmy Awards and won two. Most recently, she co-directed the feature documentary I AM EVIDENCE for HBO and a short film, LOVE THE SINNER. Both films premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival. Her feature documentary PRISON DOGS, which she co-directed with Perri Peltz, premiered at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival, and a feature documentary she directed with Academy Award winning director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, A JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND MILES: PEACEKEEPERS, premiered at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival and was broadcast on PBS in 2018. She also co-directed and co-produced a "Conversation on Race" series with The New York Times Op-Docs, which won an Online Journalism Award for Online Commentary, an AFI Documentary Film Festival Audience Award for Best Short, and garnered a MacArthur Grant. She also co-directed and edited the film, REMEMBERING THE ARTIST, ROBERT DE NIRO, SR.," with Perri Peltz for HBO which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014. 

JESS DEVANEY (Director and Producer) is a Brooklyn-based producer and the founder of Multitude Films. Recent films include THE FEELING OF BEING WATCHED (Tribeca 2018) and ROLL RED ROLL (Tribeca 2018). She also produced the Critic’s Choice nominated SPEED SISTERS (Hot Docs, 2015), which the New York Times called “subtly rebellious and defiantly optimistic” and OUT AGAIN (Outfest 2017) for Refinery29’s Shatterbox Anthology. Jess’s directorial debut short, LOVE THE SINNER (Tribeca 2017), screened at over 20 festivals and was supported by Sundance, The Harnisch Foundation, Fork Films, The Fledgling Fund, and Chicken & Egg Pictures. Additional credits include CALL HER GANDA (Tribeca 2018), NAILA & THE UPRISING (IDFA 2017), Peabody Award-winning MY NEIGHBOURHOOD (Tribeca 2012), Ridenhour Prize-winning BUDRUS (Berlin, Tribeca 2010). Jess co-founded the Queer Producers Collective, produced Doc Society’s inaugural Queer Impact Producers Lab, and was Sundance Edit and Story Lab Fellow and a Women at Sundance Fellow. 

NADIA HALLGREN (Director of Photography) is an award winning filmmaker and cinematographer from the Bronx, New York with over a decade of experience working across 5 continents. She has DP'd numerous feature films including the Academy Award nominated and Sundance grand jury prize winner TROUBLE THE WATER, TRAPPED, CITIZEN KOCH, TOUGH LOVE, WAR DON DON, and THE NEW BLACK. She has worked closely with top documentary filmmakers including Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Joe Berlinger, Morgan Spurlock, and she recently co-directed a short film with Laura Poitras. Nadia specializes in cinema verite and was trained under the tutelage of Kirsten Johnson. She’s a Sundance Fellow, Cinereach fellow, and alum of International Center of Photography. Nadia serves on the board of the Bronx Documentary Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to sharing photography and film with underserved Bronx communities.

RABAB HAJ YAHYA (Editor) is an Emmy-nominated documentary editor and a Sundance Edit and Story Lab Fellow. Her recent work includes the award-winning feature documentary SPEED SISTERS (HotDocs 2015), LOVE THE SINNER (Tribeca 2017) and the web series THE SECRET LIFE OF MUSLIMS (Peabody Finalist, Vox and USA Today, 2016). Rabab has also edited numerous documentaries commissioned by the Al Jazeera Documentary Channel, including ENEMIES OF THE SOUTH (2015), which was featured in multiple prime-time slots on the network. In between projects, Rabab has dedicated a significant amount of her time helping aspiring editors and filmmakers, through training and pro-bono consultations in the Middle East, West Africa, and the Balkans. Rabab speaks English, Arabic, and Hebrew fluently and currently lives in New York. 

NANDITA AHMED (Editor) is an artist, designer, and filmmaker. After graduating from Wellesley College she started her career with various TV stations including WGBH in Boston and DoorDarshan in Ahmedabad and then as a Producer / Editor at Fly Communications, a boutique-sized ad agency based in New York City. At Fly, Nandita worked on high-profile accounts including Amazon.com, New York Jets, the French Culinary Institute, and various Condé Nast Publications. Since then, Nandita has started her own shop, Brand Bean LLC, and has expanded her portfolio into documentary films. Nandita was born and raised in Dhaka, Bangladesh and resides in Brooklyn, New York.

VIRIDIANA LIEBERMAN (Editor) has worked in television, film and short form digital content as an editor, director, and writer for the past 10 years. Her first documentary feature BEHIND THE OCTAGON, chronicling the musical Lesbian Love Octagon, was chosen to be workshopped at the 2013 CineSLAM Program at the Pride of the Ocean Film Festival. In 2014, her book Sports Heroines on Film: A Critical Study of Cinematic Women Athletes, Coaches and Owners was released by McFarland Publishing. She worked on BACK ON BOARD: GREG LOUGANIS which aired on HBO in 2014 and NOTHING LEFT UNSAID: GLORIA VANDERBILT AND ANDERSON COOPER which aired on HBO in 2016. She edited I AM EVIDENCE, which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2017. And she also edited and co-directed FATTITUDE, an upcoming feature length documentary that exposes how popular culture fosters fat prejudice.

MILO CHESNUT (Curriculum Developer) (they/them/their) is a queer and non-binary trans educator and curriculum developer. They currently teach high school, and advise the Gender Sexuality Alliance at a public high school in Brooklyn. Milo has worked to implement school-wide policies and best practices on sharing pronouns, and organizes to expand systems for supporting LGBTQ students and teachers. The pronoun sharing lesson they wrote has been accepted for publication in an upcoming book on gender diversity, and they have written curricula for documentaries LOVE THE SINNER (Tribeca 2017) and GAVIN GRIMM VS. Milo's course, Movement Building, was featured in the book Safe is Not Enough: Better Schools for LGBTQ Students by Michael Sadowski. Their work has also been highlighted in New York Teacher, News 12 Brooklyn, and NPR. Milo leads workshops on affirming trans and GNC students around the city, and is a member of the NYC DOE's LGBTQ Inclusive Curriculum Committee, and the Trans Educators Network. Milo was honored by GLSEN Hudson Valley at its 2015 Leadership Awards as the 2015 Adult Leader Honoree for their LGBTQ advocacy work in schools. They have a Bachelor's degree in the Study of Women and Gender with a concentration in Queer studies from Smith College, and a Master's degree in Special Education grades 7-12 from Brooklyn College. They will soon begin a PhD in Trans Inclusive Education at Strathclyde University.