DRIVER

After losing everything, Desiree Wood takes a second lease on life as a long-haul truck driver. Alongside an irreverent group of women truckers, she fights for a life on the road. Using an intimate and observational lens, DRIVER captures the experience of Desiree and her fellow drivers within a system that routinely promises and denies them the safety and autonomy that they desire. The film follows Desiree as she struggles to balance the demands of being a working driver with her ambitions as the head of a driver-led movement run from her truck, which is constantly at risk of being repossessed. In a rapidly disappearing American labor landscape, Desiree and her sisterhood of truckers rally against the crushing forces of an industry that is indifferent to their survival.

Nesa Azimi
Director/Writer/Producer/Editor

Nesa Azimi is a film director, producer and editor. She started out at The Maysles Documentary Center and has been on staff as a producer for Rain Media, PBS FRONTLINE, FAULT LINES on Al Jazeera, National Geographic, and the Ciné Institute of Haiti. Three films she helped produce for FRONTLINE were recognized with Emmy Awards. Her first feature documentary, DRIVER, about a long-haul truck driver and her community of women drivers, premiered at the Tribeca Festival in 2024. Nesa is a past fellow with the Sundance Institute, NYFA, Firelight Documentary Lab, and the Points North Institute. Her work has been supported by Catapult Film Fund, Doc Society, Tribeca Film Institute, the International Documentary Association, SFFILM Fund, and more.

Nicolas Borel
Writer/Producer/Editor

Nicolas is an artist, filmmaker, designer and educator based in New York City and Istanbul. He graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, and teaches at Parsons and Pratt Institute in New York.

Ines Hofmann Kanna
Producer

Ines is an independent filmmaker with more than 25 years of production experience. She produced Sonia Kennebeck’s Emmy-nominated NATIONAL BIRD (Berlinale 2016) ENEMIES OF THE STATE (TIFF 2020) and REALITY WINNER (SXSW 2021) as well as Cecilia Aldarondo’s LANDFALL (Tribeca 2020) and YOU WERE MY FIRST BOYFRIEND (SXSW 2023). She began her career at Boston’s PBS station, WGBH, where she worked on the hit series ANTIQUES ROADSHOW for ten years. She also worked as a Supervising Producer for ITVS, where she guided more than thirty filmmakers from production to broadcast.

Qutaiba Barhamji
Consulting Editor

Qutaiba is a film editor and director. He has edited more than 60 films in 22 languages, including FOUR DAUGHTERS, by Kaouther Ben Hania (CANNES, 2023), SMOKE SAUNA SISTERHOOD, by Anna Hints (SUNDANCE, 2023), HOW TO SAVE A DEAD FRIEND, by Marusya Syroechkovskaya (VISIONS DU RÉEL, 2022), LITTLE PALESTINE, DIARY OF A SIEGE, by Abdallah Al-Khatib (VISIONS DU RÉEL, 2021), and STILL RECORDING, by Saeed Al Batal and Ghiath Ayoub (VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM CRITICS’ WEEK, 2018). As a director, his work includes GEVAR’S LAND (CINÉMA DU RÉEL, 2020), and the fiction short WARDÉ (2016). Qutaiba also serves as an editing consultant and trainer for IDFA Project Space, DFI Qumra, First Cut Lab, Visions du Réel Rough Cut Lab, and Eurodoc. In addition, he has been a juror for various festivals and funds, including the Sundance Documentary Fund, IDFA Bertha Fund, Eurodoc, and Arab Culture Fund for Arts, among others. Qutaiba is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Carissa Henderson
Director of Photography

Carissa is an Emmy-nominated documentary cinematographer based in New York City. After earning a BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Carissa spent three years as a staff cinematographer for VICE on HBO’s Emmy award-winning nightly news show. In recent years she has worked on documentaries for The New York Times, VICE News Tonight, and Al Jazeera English. She recently served as DP on three feature vérité documentaries: SUE BIRD: IN THE CLUTCH (Sundance, 2024), DRIVER (Tribeca, 2024) and a film following a team of athletes as they strive to make a historic all-Black summit on Mount Everest (for release in 2024). She is currently working on a long-term documentary project following NASA’s Artemis Program for National Geographic.

Victor Tadashi Suárez
Director of Photography

Victor is an Emmy-winning filmmaker based in Los Angeles. He is best known for his work on the FX Hulu series, THE NEW YORK TIMES PRESENTS, for which he was awarded the Edward R. Murrow Award from The Overseas Press Club as well as an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Video Journalism (COLLISION) and, in 2021, Outstanding Documentary Cinematography (THE SICARIO). He was the cinematographer for CONTROLLING BRITNEY SPEARS, which was nominated in 2022 for a Primetime Emmy. He was also the DP for the ESPN 30 for 30 feature film, INFINITE RACE, and the PBS FRONTLINE film, COVID’S HIDDEN TOLL, which was shortlisted for a Peabody Award in 2021.

Anne Balay
Advisor

Anne graduated with a PhD from the University of Chicago, after which she promptly became a car mechanic. Though she later returned to academia as a professor both at the University of Illinois and Indiana University Northwest, she never lost her interest in blue-collar work environments. Dr. Balay moved to Gary, Indiana, to teach and immediately became interested in the steel industry of the region. She subsequently wrote STEEL CLOSETS, a book about the LGBT workers within the mill community. Anne then attended commercial truck-driving school, got her CDL, and drove over the road. Oral histories of truck drivers she pursued in 2016 have led to her new book, SEMI QUEER. Anne is now an organizer for SEIU working with adjunct faculty in Boston.

Jessica Green
Impact Producer

Jessica is an independent film curator and impact producer. She is currently curating film, speaker and performance-focused programs for the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Museum of the City of New York. She is also working with several independent non-fiction filmmakers on impact strategies for their films. Jessica served as the Artistic Director of the Houston Cinema Arts Society from 2019-2022 and the Houston Cinema Arts Festival. She was the Cinema Director of the Maysles Documentary Center in Harlem from 2008-2018. Jessica is also a former founder, owner and Editor-In-Chief of the independent Hip-Hop magazine Stress (1994-2001), as well as the former Executive Editor of BET.com.

Maxyne Franklin
Executive Producer

Maxyne is one of the co-Founders of Doc Society, a non-profit whose five leaders are either female or gender queer identified and share executive power. Doc Society exists to support independent non-fiction storytelling through editorial expertise and film funding, narrative change strategies and field building. Maxyne also EP’s films across the slate including WHILE WE WATCHED, Cow, THE EDGE OF DEMOCRACY, VIRUNGA and MAYOR to name a few.