Filmmakers

Andrew Kukura, Director/Producer

Andrew Kukura is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and Principal/Creative Director of Northern Light Productions, where he has been producing both short-form and long-form documentary work for over twenty years. His recent credits include producing and directing Revealed: The Hunt for Bin Laden, a two-hour History Channel special featuring interviews with Presidents Obama and Bush, Secretaries Clinton and Gates, and members of Seal Team Six. Other notable directing credits include Urban Nutcracker: Beyond the Stage, a PBS holiday special, and The Dhamma Brothers, a theatrically released feature about the profound effects of Vipassana meditation on inmates inside a maximum-security prison in Alabama, which won numerous awards and was featured as part of Oprah’s Soul Series. As an editor and writer, Andrew’s work includes Killer Poet, an independent documentary selected for Hot Docs and winner of multiple Best Documentary awards, as well as Circus Without Borders and Beyond the Wall, for America ReFramed.

Andrew has been Creative Director on multimillion-dollar projects for museums and visitor centers including the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, the National World War II Museum, and the Canadian Museum of History, among others. His work has been featured on NPR, PBS, The New York Times, OWN, History Channel, Hulu, and Netflix.

Jenny Phillips, Producer

Jenny Phillips was a filmmaker, cultural anthropologist, and psychiatric nurse whose work focused on the lives of incarcerated individuals and the transformative potential of mindfulness and emotional literacy programs within prisons. With more than fifteen years of direct teaching experience inside prisons and jails, she brought both professional expertise and deep compassion to her filmmaking.

Jenny directed and produced the award-winning documentary The Dhamma Brothers, which followed inmates inside a maximum-security prison as they participated in a Vipassana meditation course, as well as Beyond the Wall, exploring the challenges faced by returning citizens after release. She was also the author of Letters from the Dhamma Brothers: Meditation Behind Bars, a collection of letters and interviews from inmates who took part in the meditation course. Her work consistently sought to illuminate the human stories within incarceration and to foster greater understanding of the social and emotional barriers confronting those reentering society.