About Us

Emergence Pictures, founded in 2006 creates documentary content that amplifies our shared humanity.

Artistic Director/Founder

3-time Emmy Award winning producer, and 2010 McKnight Filmmaking Fellow, Dawn Mikkelson’s work has broadcast and screened internationally. Festival screenings include: the Galway Film Fleadh, Cinequest, DOC NYC, Heartland Film Festival, Newport Beach Film Festival, and Mill Valley Film Festival. Broadcast includes PBS and the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). Mikkelson has completed seven award-winning independent feature documentaries, Minnesota Mean (2023), Finding Her Beat (2022), Risking Light (2018), The Red Tail (2009), Green Green Water (2007), THIS obedience (2003), and Treading Water: a documentary (1999).

Mikkelson recently became an Cultural Envoy for the US State Department through their American Film Showcase program, in collaboration with USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, representing Finding Her Beat.

A former television news reporter at an ABC affiliate, Mikkelson has taught Documentary Film as Adjunct Faculty at Ottawa University in Kansas, as well as at Film North. Most recently she served as Broadcast Content Manager at PBS North in Duluth, MN. Over her time at PBS North the station and its productions quadrupled their Upper Midwest Regional Emmy Award Nominations including the coveted Governor’s Award, and received national acclaim by NAJA (Native American Journalist Association). 

Based in Lake City, Minnesota, Mikkelson is a proud member of the Film Fatales Minnesota Chapter and the DPA (Documentary Producers Alliance), as Co-Representative of the Midwest Region and Member of the Ethics Committee.

AWARDS AND ACCOLADES

2023: Finding Her Beat awarded Best Music Documentary by Film Threat and invited to participate in the American Film Showcase by the US State Department and USC School of Cinematic Arts.

2023: Minnesota Mean awarded Best of Fest at Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, before going on to a robust fall festival run including the Florida Film Festival, Cinequest Film Festival, Sunscreen Film Festival, Centre Film Festival, Topaz Film Festival, New Jersey Film Festival (Honorable Mention), and Duluth Superior Film Festival (Northern Voices Award).

2023: In addition to a North American Theatrical Run that resulted in Oscar Qualification, Finding Her Beat won over a dozen festival awards including Audience Award (Deep in the Heart Film Festival, DisOrient Asian American Film Festival of Oregon, & Frozen River Film Festival), Jury Prize (Satisfied Eye International Film Festival), Best Documentary (Mystic Film Festival, DisOrient Asian American Film Festival of Oregon and DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival), Best Music Documentary (Melbourne Documentary Film Festival), andBest Minnesota Film (Frozen River Film Festival & Minnesota Film Festival). It continued it’s screening tour to over 50 festivals including: Doc Edge (New Zealand), Bentonville Film Festival, Cleveland International Film Festival, Outfest Fusion QTBIPOC Film Festival, Sonoma International Film Festival, DOXA Documentary Film Festival (Vancouver), Queer Screen’s 30th Mardi Gras Film Festival (Australia), Seattle Asian American Film Festival, Durango Independent Film Festival, Oxford Film Festival, Salem Film Fest, and Minnesota Film Festival.

2022: Finding Her Beat World Premiered at Mill Valley Film Festival, kicking off a dozen festival fall tour including Opening Night Film Screening at Sound Unseen (Austin, TX), Centerpiece Screening at Sound Unseen (Minneapolis, MN), Grand Jury Honorable Mention at the Seattle Queer Film Festival, and packed houses at DOC NYC, Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, Heartland Film Festival, Doctober, Newport Beach Film Festival, Hawai’i International Film Festival, Key West Film Festival, Cucalorus, and Tucson Film Festival.

2020: Risking Light acquired by APT (American Public Television) for broadcast on PBS affiliates across the United States and the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) series The Passionate Eye, under the name Forgiving the Unforgivable.

2019: Risking Light selected of the 2019/2020 “On Screen/In Person” Film Tour of the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation for spring of 2020.

2018: Nature: Walking with Emerson & Thoreau awarded Midwest Regional Emmy. Produced by Dawn Mikkelson, in collaboration with TigerLion Arts, Twelve Plus Media, and Twin Cities PBS.

2018: Risking Light Awarded “Audience Favorite” at Big Lake Film Festival.

2018: Risking Light Selected for "Best of Fest" at Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival.

2018: Risking Light World Premiere in Competition at the 2018 Cinequest Film & VR Film Festival. Listed in Top 10 Films at Cinequest by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Mercury Sun. Listed as Top 3 films at Cinequest by KQED.

2016: Risking Light selected for Big Vision Empty Wallet's #KickstartDiversity Program! The program encourages diversity in storytelling at the independent level by supporting projects written, directed, and/or produced by Women, People of Color, and Members of the LGBTQ Community.

2015: Mikkelson awarded Midwest Regional Emmy for producing Late Life: Language of Health for Twin Cities PBS. Also nominated that year, Planting Creativity: Artists, Place & Transit, produced in collaboration with Twin Cities PBS and Springboard for the Arts.

2015: Shaping the Public awarded Best Documentary Short Film, WIFTI Short-Case (Women in Film & Television International Short Film Showcase. Additional festival screenings at Flyway Film Festival and MSPIFF (Minneapolis/St. Paul, International Film Festival).

2012: Short film, Invested Official Selection of Flyway Film Festival.

2011: Short film, SMOOCH wins International Pachamama Award by the Possible Futures Film Contest out of a field of 317 Applicants from 44 countries.

2011: Mikkelson awarded first “The Reel Spotlight” by SnagFilms.com

2010: Mikkelson receives McKnight Artist Fellowship for Filmmakers.

2009: The Red Tail Premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh, Ireland. Additional festival appearances include DOK Leipzig Market, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), Sheffield Doc/Fest Videotheque, Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, Reel Work May Day Labor Film Festival.

2008: Green Green Water airs on Public Television & screens at international water conference in Zaragoza, Spain.

2006: Green Green Water World Premiere at imagineNative Film Festival in Toronto and US Premiere at the American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco.

2006: Hope for Recovery: Understanding Mental Illness. Eric Sevareid Award by the Northwest Broadcast News Association (NBNA). Produced in collaboration with PBS Twin Cities  (TPT) and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill of MN (NAMI-MN).

2005/2006: Green Green Water invited to screen as a work-in-progress at the Washington DC Environmental Film Festival, the City Pages: Get Real Documentary Film Festival, and the Yukon International Film Festival.

2005: Green Green Water Vlog (Video Blog) selected by iTunes as one of its Featured Podcasts.

2005: THIS obedience picked up by American Public Television for national broadcast distribution on PBS.

2004: Mikkelson named to AV Multimedia Producer’s Top Producer Showcase, a national list of 30 producers who are “creative and doggedly resourceful pros who make what they do seem effortless”

2003: THIS obedience . Audience Award for Best Feature Documentary at the Central Standard Film Festival.

2003: Saints and Reformers Award from Lutherans Concerned/Twin Cities for THIS obedience .

2002: Treading Water: a documentary . Grand Jury Prize for Best Feature Documentary by an Emerging Filmmaker at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival.

2002: THIS obedience . Awarded a Women in Film Fund Finishing Grant. Only Midwestern selection.