Mark Decena
Introduction (2-3 lines)
Raised by an immigrant single mother, Mark spent his formative years softening hard adobe clay soil with compost. Besides keeping him in line, it infused Decena with a love of growing things– to date: feature films, television shows, and short film series.
Mark Decena is a writer, director, and producer of award-winning feature films, television programming, web and brand films. He is a three time Sundance alumni whose work spans from narrative features to documentaries and shorts. Mark’s first feature, Dopamine, won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize in 2003 at Sundance, and since then Decena has built a body of documentary work that spans themes of social justice, sustainable design, and the environment. His previous work includes the Redford Center film, Watershed, executive produced and narrated by Robert Redford; the Gates funded Stand Up Planet, using stand up comedy to look at serious global development issues; and Not Without Us, following grassroots activists to the UN climate talks in Paris. Decena’s latest film, Farming While Black, premiered at the 2023 Mill Valley Film Festival as part of the Active Cinema Program. In addition, Mark is the founder of Kontent Films, a boutique production company based in San Francisco, housing a Kollective of award winning filmmakers, producers and creatives.
