Elliat Graney-Saucke (she/they) is an award-winning documentary director/producer, cultural curator, business owner and educator in the Coast Salish Territories with 20 years of experience in ethics, leadership and marginalized cultural identity storytelling. Elliat has produced media across three continents, including work in Germany, Denmark, England, Poland, Serbia, Italy, Spain, Canada, and Israel/Palestine. Their current production is the feature documentary Boys on the Inside, a 17-year project following three formerly incarcerated Latinx butch/transmasculine individuals and their addiction recovery journey.

After spending nearly a decade in Berlin, Germany, Elliat returned to serve as the first Executive Director of Seattle Documentary Association, founding a documentary cohort program, portrait series, new equity mission statement and a geographic equity-focused industry gathering partnering with the Wenatchi Tribe and Washington Filmworks. They went on to work with the Washington State Arts Commission on arts leadership and their Creative District program and currently serve as an instructor for their Change Leader Institute.

Seasoned in working with communities and organizational stakeholders locally and internationally, Elliat has produced and curated over 10 culturally specific creative arts festivals and conferences encompassing over 45 nationalities, including Innovate Heritage (2014 Berlin / 2024 Rome). Elliat has been the recipient of the Artist Trust Fellowship, Gap Grant and Millay Artist Retreat, grants from King County 4Culture, Seattle Office of Arts and Culture and been a guest artist in residence at the Universities of Vienna, Saarbrücken, Minnesota and Washington.

Elliat teaches Ethics of Storytelling and Foundations of Documentary Storytelling in the Communication Leadership (CommLead) master’s program at UW.

Research and industry focus areas:

–       Documentary Ethics and Storytelling (documentary film production/editing, documentary media industry trends and distribution/community impact, storytelling ethics, relational interviewing principles, oral history and intergenerational knowledge exchange, power within relationships/self)

–       Leadership, Power and Justice (decolonizing practices, embodiment within cultural, racial, and geographic equity/justice, sustainable non-profit and for-profit leadership, relationship to power within leadership, eco-feminism/earth ethics, hope strategies within the polycrisis, new and ancient technologies, queer/LGBTQAI+ culture and theory, building relational cultures)

–       Cultural Heritage, Policy and International Diplomacy (intangible/tangible, natural/cultural, living and uncomfortable heritage -contested or difficult cultural legacies-, international diplomacy through UNESCO and World Heritage Convention, local and national creative economies and cultural policy advocacy)