An award-winning documentary filmmaker & instructor, Anayansi Prado was born in Panama and moved to the United States as a teenager. She later attended Boston University where she received a B.A. in Film. Her debut documentary, Maid in America, an award winning film about the lives of Latina immigrant women working as domestic workers in Los Angeles, CA, screened nationally on the PBS Independent Lens series.

Her second production, Children in No Man’s Land about unaccompanied minors crossing the US/Mexico border is part of the State Department’s American Documentary Showcase and it’s been screened in more than 30 countries around the world and won multiple awards. Anayansi also served as an executive producer on the Discovery en Español series Voces de Cambio, about humanitarian issues in the Latino community, which featured Carlos Santana and Edward James Olmos.

Her third documentary, Paraiso for sale about an island in Panama and the impact that the migration of American retirees and developers is having on its local community broadcast nationally PBS and has received various film festival awards.

Anayansi is an Adjunct Professor at Chapman University's Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. She also works on a regular basis with the State Department’s Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs to bring documentary filmmaking production and photography training to people in developing countries. She’s taught in Burma, Angola, Nicaragua, Colombia, Peru, and Paraguay. She also serves as an film expert on the State Department’s film program The American Film Showcase (2013-14).

Ms. Prado has received funding for her various projects from The Rockefeller Media Fellowship, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Creative Capital, ITVS, Latino Public Broadcasting, The Pacific Pioneer Fund, The Paul Robeson Media Fund, The Fledgling Foundation and Chicken and Egg Pictures. 

In 2008, Anayansi Prado and Elease Lui co-founded Impacto Project, a non-profit program geared to bringing visual arts and digital media training to youth in developing countries as tools for empowernment and archival of their own cultures. Prior to that, in 2000 Prado founded Impacto Films, a production company geared toward the production of documentaries with a social impact. 

As co-founder of Impacto Project, Anayansi's main goal is to bring visual arts to people all around the world but specially to young people living in underrepresented communities, closed-countries and remote parts of the world to give them the opportunity to tell their own stories. 

Elease Lui was born and raised in Philadelphia, PA. After completing her B.S. degree in Film & Television Production at Boston University, she moved to Los Angeles, California.  Her industry experience began at Women Make Movies, a non-profit media arts organization which facilitates the production, promotion, distribution and exhibition of independent films by and about women. In 2001, Elease went to work for Black Entertainment Television (BET/Viacom) on various episodic programs, ranging from music trivia to comedy and talk shows.  After working there as an Associate Producer on several shows, she left the network in 2002.

For the next several years, Elease worked as a Production Coordinator on a large scale, live events such as the American Music Awards, Daytime Emmy Awards and the Golden Globes. She has also freelanced on numerous nationally broadcast shows produced by MTV Networks, Dick Clark Productions, Ken Erlich Productions, and Lyn Goldfarb Productions.

Throughout her academic and professional life, Elease has been an enthusiastic and outspoken advocate for environmental awareness and social change. After several years of work in television, she decided to vigorously pursue this passion, ultimately leading to her current position as a Producer at BlackLight Films, an award-winning documentary production company.

Additionally, Elease has worked on a volunteer basis with many non-profit organizations including The Nature Conservancy, Visual Communications (an Asian Pacific American filmmakers association) and The Big Picture Alliance, which partners with schools, community centers and arts organizations to educate disadvantaged and underserved youth in developing self-expression, life and job skills through the collaborative process of creating media art.

In 2010 Elease finished production on a feature nature documentary, POLLEN, under Walt Disney Pictures’ new wildlife and environmental production banner, DisneyNature.  It is being released internationally in March 2011.  

She is a member of Film Independent and the Producers Guild of America.