“Action!”

MARK DECENA | Founder, Director

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 feature films, shorts, television programming, and brand films. A three-time Sundance alumni, Mark's first feature, Dopamine won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at Sundance. Decena's turn to documentary work spans across themes of social justice, sustainable design and the environment. 

Mark wrote and directed the Redford Center film, Watershed, a one-hour documentary on water use in the Colorado River Basin, executive produced and narrated by Robert Redford. He was also a writer and producer on Stand Up Planet, a Gates Foundation project looking at global development issues through the lens of stand up comedy. His feature film, Not Without Us, followed seven global grassroots activists to the United Nations climate talks in Paris. Mark’s latest film, Farming While Black, premiered at the Mill Valley Film Festival and is currently on its run in over 50 film festivals and counting. 

Mark is also the founder of Kontent, a boutique production company based in San Francisco, housing a Kollective of award-winning filmmakers, as well as producers and creatives. He has directed and produced 5 feature length films and over 20 short films to date. Decena’s films have screened worldwide and now stream on various digital platforms.