meet our team
Poet and short story writer. Her books, Mural and Barge Wood ,include poems on the social issues of labor, racism, war, and the environment. She received a San Francisco Arts Commission Social Equity grant for a poetry project on San Francisco women labor organizers, many of the poems published in Giving Voice, a LaborFest Writers group anthology.
She has acted and sung in local groups, and has given writing and drama workshops at the Mendocino Environmental Center, and for Seniors.
Peter Wong reviews films and the occasional graphic novel for the online publication Beyond Chron. In addition, he previews films and occasionally writes about politics for Broke-Ass Stuart’s website.
David Frias has been Campaign Co-director of the San Francisco Living Wage Coalition since 2011. He has been the producer/editor of the Comcast Channel 29 TV show “It’s Time for a Living Wage. He received a BA in Broadcasting in 2006. He is Latino American born and raised in San Francisco. His work experience in theaters include Sundance Cinemas from 2010 to 2016 and Landmark Embarcadero from 2018 to 2020.
Rodger Scott was born in 1936, the last of nine children in a family of Texas farmers and ranchers who moved into town because they couldn’t survive working other people’s land. Rodger was a juvenile delinquent in junior high, and in high school was suspended or expelled six times in five semesters, but loved college and received a B.A. in foreign languages from Texas Tech at 20. He has an M.A. in English also from Texas Tech and a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of New Mexico.
Scott has been a teacher for 48 years in five states of the U.S. and in Japan, China, and Colombia (as a Peace Corps volunteer). He served two years in the U.S. Army between the undeclared wars in Korea and Vietnam. He has held union posts for over 40 years and was president of the American Federation of Teachers Local 2121 at San Francisco City College. He is a writer, photographer, and documentary film maker.
S.E.J. MEDIA TEAM
Kaylah Marin is Executive Co-director of the S.E.J. Film Festival. Kaylah has worked with the Dolores Artist for Literacy, Women of Color Resource Center, Black College Expo, Youth Art in Action, and Recently was apart of Ron Dellum’s Memorial. She has also worked with the Garifuna International Indigenous Film Festival to bring attention to Indigenous cultures and land rights and was awarded Ambassador of Music for 2017 and 2018. Kaylah has also worked in the music industry and been a billboard charting artist.
Madelyn Swanson joined the festival committee as a student intern last January and has since been assisting the festival in the operating and expansion of our social media platforms as well as creating graphics. Last May, Madelyn earned her B.A. in Communication Studies with a minor in Human Sexuality Studies from San Francisco State University. She is currently studying for the LSAT in preparation for law school applications with the hopes of someday joining the Lawyers Network for the Center for Reproductive Justice.
Solomon “Shlomo” Prather joined the festival committee as a Youth intern and has conducted numerous interviews with Filmmakers and Directors. He is a high school student at Tamalpais High in Mill Valley, CA. He honors his complex identity as both Arab-Egyptian and Eastern European Jew by exploring the intersections of history and his own intimate relationship to both. He is passionate about the various discourses of law, politics, geo-politics and religious study, and music. Shlomo has participated in the Model United Nations, Cross-country running, Track, Drama, and Chorus. He studied To rah in Jerusalem the summer of 2021 following a semester-long legal internship with Jalila Bell, esq.