Chris Jonas
Chris is one of our master storytellers whose specialty is participatory filmmaking, music making, and multimedia exhibitions. Like most of our team, he invents projects he’d love to do and finds the grants and funds needed to energize them. He teaches filmmaking with teens, and then joins with them in the production of highly original pieces that express a shared vision. One project resulted in a PBS feature documentary called Our Time is Now, broadcast to millions of American homes. It was about teen attitudes toward school among a diverse group of Anglo, Hispanic, and Native youth. He recently directed Acoustic Bike Tour about the 2,000-mile bike odyssey of a jazz cornet player. He was associate producer and composer for Sembene! about the Senegalese filmmaking revolutionary Ousmane Sembene. The film premiered at Sundance 2015. Jonas has taught media arts at the Institute of American Indian Arts, won the 2009 United States Artists Award and is a Rockwood Arts and Social Engagement fellow.