Artistic Director and founding member of Kartemquin Films, Gordon Quinn has been making documentaries for over 50 years. Roger Ebert, of the Chicago Sun Times, called his first film Home for Life (1966) "an extraordinarily moving documentary." With Home for Life Gordon established the direction he would take for the next four decades, making cinéma vérité films that investigate and critique society by documenting the unfolding lives of real people. 

Jerry Blumenthal, one of the founding partners of Kartemquin Films, was a director, producer, editor and sound recordist with Kartemquin from 1967 until his passing on November 13, 2014. His most recent completed work was as Editor on Kartemquin's 2010 documentary, Prisoner Of Her Past. Blumenthal's previous film, Golub: Late Works are the Catastrophes (2004), co-produced with Gordon Quinn, revisited the great American artist thirteen years after the award-winning Golub (1988) and was a selection at the 2004 IDFA.

Steve James' affiliation with Kartemquin began in 1987 with the start of production of Hoop Dreams, for which he served as director, producer, and co-editor. He has since then become one of the most acclaimed documentary makers of his generation, with noted works being Stevie, The New Americans, The War Tapes, At the Death House Door, The Interrupters, and most recently, Life Itself.