Toni Achebe Bell is the creator and host of the "What's Up with Docs" Podcast and a documentary impact strategist. She has created impact campaigns for many films, including “The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales”, “Fruits of Labor”, and “A Woman on the Outside”. She has also served as an Impact Strategist for Represent Justice and Odyssey Impact Partners. She teaches media and impact at Saybrook University. A speaker, mentor, and juror at major festivals, she has reviewed grants for Firelight Media, California Humanities, and more. Formerly at IDA, she managed fiscal sponsorship and global filmmaker initiatives. Toni holds degrees from USC, Naropa University, and UCLA and is entering the Ph.D. programme in Anthropology and Social Change at CIIS.

Ranell Shubert is the Executive Director of the Disability Media Alliance (DMA), a global nonprofit building infrastructure to support disability-led nonfiction media organizations. Identifying as neurodivergent and living with a mental health condition, and drawing from her background as a caregiver, Ranell centers the perspectives and experiences of disabled people in all aspects of her leadership. She brings over a decade of experience in nonprofit management, arts education, and funds administration, with deep knowledge of the  documentary field and funding landscape.

At the International Documentary Association (IDA), she served as the Nonfiction Access  Initiative Funds Programme Manager, where she led community-driven research, outreach, and programme implementation to support disabled nonfiction media makers. She launched the Direct Access Fund, which provided targeted access grants, covering caregiving, assistive  technology, interpretation, and festival support, for 21 nonfiction projects by disabled creators. She also co-authored the Enhancing Accessibility and Support for Disabled Nonfiction Media Makers: NAI 2024 Report, a field-shaping publication urging funders and institutions to reevaluate how they engage with disability and access.

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