Stay Connected

Contact Us

Meridian Hill Pictures
2437 15th Street NW
Washington, DC 20009
202.450.4085

Our Team

Our team comprises talented filmmakers, educators, community organizers and social entrepreneurs. One thing we all have in common: a love for the power of documentary film.

Brandon Kramer

Artistic Director
Brandon is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, educator and a co-founder of Meridian Hill Pictures. Brandon has focused his career and education on directing documentary films and teaching youth and adults how to create their own films. Brandon is director of the feature documentary in-production, Green Corps (working title), and co-director of the award-winning short documentaries Porchfest (2011) and Community Harvest (2010). Brandon served as executive producer and media teaching artist on the award-winning youth documentary Life as a Collage (screened at the 2011 AFI SchoolDocs and the San Francisco International Film Festival). Brandon co-designed MHP's Community Video Storytelling media education curriculum, a standards-based approach for teaching documentary filmmaking to diverse populations. Brandon has presented on Community Video Storytelling at the Media That Matters Conference, Yale University, AFI's Silverdocs, MHZ's ShortiCon and the Corps Network's Annual Conference. Brandon has served as a reviewer for the President's Committee on the Arts & Humanities National Youth Program Awards, the highest honor in the country for after school youth arts programs. Prior to forming MHP, Brandon taught documentary filmmaking to youth at ten middle schools across the country for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ ‘On Location’ national tour. Brandon holds a Bachelors Degree in Film Production and Cultural Anthropology from Boston University. He has worked with arts, nonviolent and cross-cultural education programs for the The Story Pirates, Nonviolence International and the State Department-sponsored Youth Exchange & Study Program.

Lance Kramer

Executive Director
Lance is a documentary filmmaker, educator, journalist and a co-founder of Meridian Hill Pictures. At MHP, Lance produces the studio’s documentary films and media education projects, spearheads development, social media, outreach and engagement strategy, and curates the PictureHouse pop-up public film screening series. Lance has participated in a variety of successful projects with emerging digital technologies, including the Mozilla/ITVS/BAVC LivingDocs ‘Hackathon’ project at Silverdocs 2012. In 2009, Lance helped lead a digital and grassroots outreach effort to screen the environmental documentary Hope in a Changing Climate in over 20 countries. As a journalist, Lance has written on news, music, film, arts and culture, for a variety of publications. Lance holds a Bachelors Degree in History from Dartmouth College. He is the author of Great Ancient China Projects You Can Build Yourself, a children’s book selected to the American Bookseller’s Association Fall 2008 Indie Next List. Lance serves as Board Chair of Docs In Progress, a 501(c)3 organization dedicated to building community through the power of documentary film. Lance has also served as a Humanities Council of Washington DC humanities scholar.

Ellie Walton

Staff Filmmaker & Educator
Ellie Walton is a filmmaker and educator, dedicated to building and sharing intimate stories as transformational acts that reveal and inspire. Ellie’s feature length documentaries include: Chocolate City (2007), screened over 100 times across the world at festivals, universities, and theatres (including E st. Landmark) and broadcast internationally on The Community Channel, and locally on Greenbelt Access Television and Arlington Cable; Igual Que Tú (2009), screened nationally at universities, conferences and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Ellie is a recipient of the 2011 Mayor’s Arts Award, the highest honor given to individual artists and organizations in Washington, DC. Her work has been recognized through funding from the Humanities Council of Washington, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Zoe Schein

Production & Post-Production Intern
Zoe recently graduated from Grinnell College in Grinnell, IA with a degree in Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies and an unofficial focus in film and media studies. While at Grinnell, Zoe volunteered teaching Creative Writing classes at Iowa Correctional Institute for Women, where she was powerfully introduced to the capacity of non-fiction storytelling to affect individual and collective change. Zoe is thrilled to work with MHP and to learn to use film as a means of promoting community engagement and positive social reform.

Jasmine Bright

Development & Production Intern
Jasmine is currently a student in George Washington University's Documentary Film Institute. After studying Anthropology and Visual & Dramatic Arts at Rice University, Jasmine received a Fulbright award to conduct research in Jamaica. Upon completion of this project, she returned to her hometown of Washington, DC impassioned to raise awareness about global social injustices and human rights transgressions through film and education. Jasmine is delighted to contribute her development knowledge to the innovative, knowledgeable, and creative team at MHP.

Monica Santis

Outreach & Production Intern
Monica is currently a student at the George Washington University’s Documentary Film Institute. Monica holds a Bachelors Degree in English from Boston College. Before continuing her studies, she worked as the Director of Outreach at The Austin School of Film where she focused on cultivating community engagement, media education and expanding a bilingual film program for Spanish-speaking youth. She recently completed her master’s degree at George Washington University’s Latin American & Hemispheric Studies program and focused her research on anthropology, international affairs, and human rights issues. Her graduate research and outreach experience sparked her passion for advocacy and raising awareness via the film medium. She is excited to join the MHP team and looks forward to learning and fostering greater community participation and positive social impact.

About Us