Sylvia Frances Films
Sylvia Frances Films is an independent, Los Angeles-based storytelling collaboration between documentary filmmakers Joanna Sokolowski & Kate Trumbull-LaValle, who are dedicated to crafting intimate, compelling, character-driven films and storytelling projects. In addition to documentary films, we also produce story-driven content for commercial and community projects.
Joanna Sokolowski
Joanna Sokolowski is an Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker and podcast producer. Most recently she was the senior producer on the Spotify original podcast "An Oral History of the Office", and "Vote! The Podcast". She directed/produced the "Artist and Mother" (2017) and "City Rising" (2017) for KCET with filmmaking partner Kate Trumbull LaValle. Both films went on to win LA Press Club Awards, including best Gender/LGTBQ Reporting and Best Activism Journalism. She and Kate directed/produced “Ovarian Psycos” (2016), which premiered at SXSW and was broadcast on PBS Independent Lens (2017). She has produced for Netflix, Spotify, independently, and commercially. She teaches at Chapman University, and holds an MA in Social Documentation from University of California, Santa Cruz, where she was the recipient of the Human Rights Center Fellowship.
Kate Trumbull-LaValle
Kate Trumbull-LaValle is an award-winning independent documentary filmmaker who first began in the field of social justice media as an educator and media maker. Kate is best known for her directorial debut, Ovarian Psycos (2016), which premiered at SXSW 2016 and had a national broadcast in 2017 on the Emmy winning series, Independent Lens. Most recently she co-produced two episodes for the Peabody winning PBS series, Asian Americans (2020). In 2018 Kate directed two one hour broadcast films for KCET, Artist and Mother (Artbound) and City Rising: The Informal Economy, both titles were nominated for an LA Area Emmy, and both won LA Press Awards. Previously she was associate producer and assistant editor for Renee Tajima-Peña’s Emmy-nominated documentary, No Más Bebés (2015), which profiles the history of Mexican-origin women coercively sterilized at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center during the late 1960s and 1970s. Kate’s a UC Berkeley Human Rights Fellow (2010) and graduated with an M.A. from the Social Documentation Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She teaches film and documentary at Cal State Long Beach.
Jimmy LaValle
Jimmy LaValle is best known as The Album Leaf, known for his distinctive, dreamy, cinematic soundscapes featured on five full-length albums, in film, television, and commercials. LaValle composed original music for Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s recent films, Synchronic (2020), The Endless (2017), (Spring (2014), as well as the feature documentaries, Ovarian Psycos (2016), Before You Know It (SXSW, 2013), Wonder Women! The Untold Story of Female Superheroines (2012), among many others. Music from The Album Leaf frequently appears on NPR, podcasts, commericials and television, like ABC's Scandal and FX's Sons of Anarchy.
Michael Raines
Michael Raines is a self-taught cinematographer, music video director and photographer. His music videos have premiered on NPR and NOWNESS. He is the DP for the SXSW documentary “Ovarian Psycos” (2016) and his work has been heralded by the Hollywood Reporter: “Cinematographer Michael Raines gets in close without feeling intrusive; throughout the film, he and the directors are in sync with interpersonal dynamics and a sense of place." His corporate video clients include TED, Verizon Wireless and General Electric and is currently in pre-production for a new short narrative titled “Role Play”.