Ali Cotterill is a filmmaker and editor from Brooklyn, NY. Her music videos and documentaries have screened internationally at festivals, as well as on Logo TV and Current TV. Her latest non-fiction short, LOSING 1983, won 2nd place at the Next Frame Film Festival and toured internationally throughout 2008-2009. She also works as an editor and is currently editing BEBE, a documentary feature about Bebe Zahara Benet, the winner of Ru Paul’s Drag Race on VH1/Logo.

Contact: Ali(at)AstroFilms(dot)com
www.AstroFilms.com

Amelia Hanibelsz began her career at the age of 17 when she started working for a Norwegian media NGO supported by the UN. Her television experience is as diverse and as well traveled as she is . Having been based in Asia for 6 years producing, and shooting for Discovery Channel Asia and International, HBO, AXN, The Asian Civilizations Museum and Fremantlemedia, she has had the opportunity to work in China, India, Australia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Sri Lanka. After moving to New York five years ago, she joined the ranks at Pangolin Pictures and is now a Staff Producer and the Director of Development. 

Contact: Amelia(at)PangolinPictures(dot)com
Editor’s note: Amelia took Thom’s Documentary film class at NYU 5 years ago!

Amy Nicholson is a documentary filmmaker based in New York City. After making her living for years as an advertising creative director, Amy shot her first documentary in 2002. BEAUTY SCHOOL, a portrait of the New York School of Dog Grooming, aired on The Short List and The Documentary Channel after screening at Hot Docs, The Atlanta Film Festival, The Woodstock Film Festival and Edinburgh International.  In the winter of 2003, Amy’s dad invited her to a beauty pageant at a muskrat skinning competition and the idea for her first feature-length film was born. MUSKRAT LOVELY premiered at the Hamptons International Film Festival and was broadcast on the 2006/2007 season of the award-winning PBS series Independent Lens. Amy is currently in post-production on LAST DAY OF THE ZIPPER, a project that chronicles the rezoning of Coney Island.

Contact: AmyBNicholson(at)Mac(dot)com

Anne Checler is a film editor with over 10 years experience in documentaries and shorts.  A native of France, she moved to New York City to pursue her film studies at the School of Visual Arts and has been committed to telling stories ever since.  She edited SISTERS IN RESISTANCE, an award-winning documentary about four French women in the Resistance during WWII.  Other credits included BOUND BY PROMISES, a film about slave labor in Brazil produced by WITNESS, the organization funded by musician Peter Gabriel, and more recently PLANET UN, a film co-produced with the United Nations that points to the challenges the organization must face in the 21st century.  Anne is also a regular editor at the Criterion Collection where she has worked on bonus segments for films by Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut,  Agnès Varda, Luis Bunuel, Costa-Gavras and Arnaud Desplechin.  She is fluent in French, Portuguese and Spanish and plays drums in a Brazilian percussion group in her spare time.

Contact: AChecler(at)Yahoo(dot)com

Annie Berman is currently finishing her first feature THE FAITHFUL: THE KING, THE POPE, THE PRINCESS, and ME exploring the enduring phenomenons of pop-icons Elvis Presley, Pope John Paul II, and Princess Diana, and one filmmaker’s quest for meaning in a consumer-driven, image culture. A recent transplant from Cambridge, MA (via a year in Buenos Aires), Annie is thrilled to have returned to NY (the city of her birth). The first thing she did upon her arrival was purchase a pass to the legendary STF series, and it has not disappointed! Annie has taught film and animation workshops, screened her work at universities and art galleries, programmed film series and programs, worked for public television and independent producers, and served as Director of Creative Content for New Media Company Vert, Inc. She continues to serve on the board of directors of Women in Film and Video New England. Abandoning the third person she writes, “I look forward to the rest of the season and getting to know each of you.”

Contact: Annie(at)The-Faithful(dot)com
twitter.com/Annie_Berman; twitter.com/thefaithful; Facebook group
www.the-faithful.com; www.fishinhand.com

Barbara Rick is a Peabody & three-time Emmy Award-winning filmmaker and journalist based in New York City. She is president and founder of Out of The Blue Films Inc., a 501(c)3 production company creating exceptional documentaries on important social issues that ignite positive action and promote dialogue.  Recent acclaimed films include ROAD TO INGWAVUMA (ing-wah-VOOM-ah) chronicling a unique delegation of some of America’s most respected artists and their families to post-apartheid South Africa; IN GOOD CONSCIENCE, the story of one American nun’s battle with the Vatican over the rights of gay and lesbian Catholics (shot by Albert Maysles); and SHE SAYS/Women In News (PBS, 2001) examining women’s impact on journalism and the culture. ENVY: The documentary - a bold, insightful, and humorous exploration of the causes & consequences of the most corrosive human emotion - is the latest project-in-progress from Out of The Blue Films, Inc., in keeping with the company’s longstanding mission to tell the most inspiring stories that explore, articulate, and celebrate humanity.
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Contact: BRick(at)OutOfTheBlueFilms(dot)com
Folks can fan OUT OF THE BLUE on facebook.com/OutofTheBlueFilms
On Twitter: @brickdoc @OuttaTheBlu @ENVYthedoc

Beth Kruvant began her career as a criminal attorney in Newark, NJ. Her award winning films focus on reconciliation of disparate cultures and stories of hope and social change. HEART OF STONE has garnered rave reviews and won multiple awards including the Audience Award at Slamdance 2009 and Kaiser Permanente Thrive Award for telling a story that thrives in the face of adversity. It is now the subject of “Campaign Kinship” and being screened by communities around the country to focus on best practices in transforming urban schools and revitalizing urban communities. Kruvant’s first documentary BORN IN BUENOS AIRES on the the Argentine Jewish community during the political and fiscal crisis of 2001 won the Directors Award at the Detroit Jewish Film Festival and appeared on cable television. The film was the center of a panel discussion including the Argentine Ambassador to the United States in DC. Her second film THE RIGHT TO BE WRONG was featured on PBS affiliates nationwide and chronicles an Israeli and Palestinian friendship that brought their peace party from Israel to Kansas City. HEART OF STONE can now be seen on VOD and i-tunes.

Contact: Beth(at)GoodFootageProductions(dot)com
www.GoodFootageProductions.com

Cathryne Czubek is a photographer, videographer, and photo editor who made a 180 degree turn away from a career in international relations and politics eight years ago to pursue a professional life in the arts. Her passion for documentaries ignited while exploring a particularly provocative photo project in Maine with a group of young teenage girls who shoot guns. Several art forms and years later, Cathryne is now in post-production on her debut feature documentary, A GIRL AND A GUN, an exploration of the rising armed female population in the US.

Contact: CatCzu(at)Gmail(dot)com
www.CathryneCzubek.com

Cheryl Dunn is a NYC based documentary photographer and filmmaker. She started her career shooting for magazines such as Raygun, Spin, Vogue, Dazed and Confused. Her films from 1997 on include: “sped” a docu-drama about 6 artists coming from the worlds of skate and graffiti, that premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival. BACK WORLDS FOR WORDS - a short film featuring skateboard legend Mark Gonzales, BICYCLE GANGS OF NEW YORK premiering at Tribeca Film Festival, COME MUTE created as part of the “Beautiful Losers” touring museum show. Excerpts from her first feature length documentary CREATIVE LIFE STORE appear in the documentary BEAUTIFUL LOSERS. The film in its entirety is on a dvd in her second book entitled “Some Kind of Vocation” distributed by DAP in 2007. She is currently in production on a feature documentary that centers around the Creative Growth Art Center, a school in Oakland, California for artists with disabilities.

Contact: Shirky7(at)Mac(dot)com
www.cheryldunn.net

Emily Branham is currently finishing her first feature-length documentary film about the extraordinary Cameroonian drag queen (and newly crowned winner of reality TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race), BeBe Zahara Benet: www.bebedocumentary.com. Originally from Minneapolis, Emily earned a degree in Radio/TV/Film from Northwestern University in 2002. From there, she moved straight to New York City where she cobbles together a living freelancing variously as a post-production supervisor, line producer/production manager and editor on commercials, music videos, and motion graphics projects. She has directed music videos for artists including Jonatha Brooke, Eleni Mandell, Jeff Litman, and the Muckrakers, and has made several short films that have screened on Current TV, the Had to Be Made Film Festival DVD series, and at the New Haven Film Festival.

Contact: Emily(at)WorkAndServe(dot)com

Glenn Glasser is a New York City based photographer. He first became enchanted with photography on a 6th grade field trip when he was suspended for documenting the truth or dare game in the back of the bus. He took up photography professionally after completing a degree in anthropology and ethnography from Brown University. Glenn currently resides in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn with his Newfoundland mix, Yogi.

Contact: Glenn(at)GlennGlasser(dot)com
www.GlennGlasser.com

Hernan Rozenfeld is currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate and Professor of Physics at CUNY and Visiting Scholar at NYU.  Hernan studies the structure and topology of biological, technological and social networks in the framework of statistical physics and complex networks, using techniques from random walks and percolation (and he doesn’t mean coffee). He also investigates population dynamics employing ideas from Renormalization Group Theory. In his spare time, he enjoys website design and Flash, and also researching High Temperature Superconductivity.

Contact: HernanRozenfeld(at)Gmail(dot)com

Howard Weinberg helps other documentary filmmakers improve their films as a script-doctor. An award-winning independent documentary filmmaker, he educates and mentors students at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. His PBS documentary credits include SPORTS FOR SALE, FIRST THINGS FIRST, ONE PLUS ONE and net.LEARNING. An innovative television journalist, he was a Founding Producer of The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Executive Producer of Listening to America with Bill Moyers; and a producer-writer for CBS Sunday Morning & CBS Sixty Minutes.  As an educator, he also has taught at NYU and Dartmouth and created a documentary film series at Columbia. The Daily News called the subject of his film SID AT 90 the “undisputed star” of the 2003 New York Jewish Film Festival. Weinberg also has served as on-camera host and narrator for his documentary Ethics in Sports – a CBS Religion Special broadcast nationally on CBS television stations. As a talent developer, he discovered Rose Ann Scamardella for WABC-TV Eyewitness News in New York. He is president of The New York Film/Video Council, a non-profit serving the independent media community.  His current major documentary project is TV LAB: LICENSE TO CREATE – an inspirational, educational feature about an innovative era of public television from 1972-1984.

Contact: HoWeinberg(at)Earthlink(dot)net
www.howardweinberg.net / www.script-doctor.net

Ilana Gordon arrived in the Los Angeles film industry in the spring of 1999 after having studied film and communications at Boston University. Ilana’s true passion lies in media that creates social awareness and change. This passion lead her to Participant Media in 2004 where she contributed to the development and production of AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH and THE WORLD ACCORDING TO SESAME STREET.  She has worked professionally on a vast array of projects in both development and physical production. In the summer of 2008 Ilana relocated to New York City with the ABC television series “Ugly Betty” (her day job) and continues to find a way back to her truth of Documentary.

Contact: IlanaMGordon(at)Gmail(dot)com

Jasmine Dellal is an award-winning documentary director and producer. She founded Little Dust Productions to make artistic and entertaining films that, in some small way, may help make the world a better place. Her feature documentaries AMERICAN GYPSY and WHEN THE ROAD BENDS… TALES OF A GYPSY CARAVAN both had successful theatrical, TV and DVD releases around the world. Jasmine was raised in England, but also spent much of her childhood with a grandmother in India. She began making films under the wing of the iconic filmmaker Marlon Riggs.  Now based in New York and London, Jasmine is involved in all aspects of independent film, from creation to distribution and extensive social outreach programs. She is also producing with Sam Green on his film UTOPIA IN FOUR SEASONS (about to premiere at Sundance 2010).

Contact: Dellal(at)LittleDust(dot)com

Jill Woodward is an editor/filmmaker/journalist. She recently started a new company, Generator Pictures, with partner Malcolm Linton, which aims to make films about the work of non-profit organizations and philanthropic groups worldwide. Jill worked for 16 years at CNN where she shared two Emmy awards. She edited the full-length documentary TRAIL OF FEATHERS: THE MISSILE DICK CHICKS TAKE ON AMERICA. Current projects include a short film for Mount Sinai School of Medicine’s Traumatic Brain Injury Research Center, and an independent short documentary, “passTRESpass” which explores racism and border issues from the perspective of immigrants to Greece from Africa, Afghanistan, & Albania.

Contact: Jill(at)JillWoodward(dot)com

Jonathan Goodman Levitt is a documentary filmmaker who also works as a cameraman, editor, journalist, and teacher. In Spring, 2010, he will finish FOLLOW THE LEADER, a coming-of-age story about three conservative teenage boys growing up during a time of “change” in America, for Channel 4, VPRO, & SVT. His company Changeworx has a second film currently in production for ZDF/Arte, REBEL WITH A CAUSE, about the Chilean eco-conservation work of American former clothing magnate (founder of Espirit & North Face) Doug Tompkins. Jonathan’s last film, SUNNY INTERVALS AND SHOWERS (2006), played festivals including Sheffield, Chicago & One World; aired on BBC and other European channels; and was nominated for Grierson & Mental Health Media Awards. Other credits include consulting on Best Documentary Emmy-winning BBC Series “The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive” featuring Stephen Fry, effects editing on art installations, and short films. Jonathan studied psychology, painting & political theory at Stanford before a Fulbright Scholarship allowed him to attend the UK’s National Film and Television School (NFTS) in 1999. Native to New Jersey, he moved “home” to New York from London in 2008.

Contact: JGL(at)ChangeWorx(dot)com

Josh Carter is a multi-hyphenate artist who has worked as a playwright, photographer, projections designer, editor, producer, and director. He majored in Classics at Princeton University and still loves the ancient world. This year he is completing his first feature-length documentary, THE VALLEY OF HIDDEN WATERS, about a small town in West Texas. He resides in Brooklyn with his beautiful wife and three young sons.

Contact: Josh(at)PhiloFilm(dot)com

Joshua Z Weinstein is a director, cinematographer, and now the official Stranger Than Fiction photographer!  Besides hobnobbing with the bigwigs every Tuesday night at the IFC center, he also directed the film FLYING ON ONE ENGINE about the irreverent humanitarian Dr. Dicksheet.  His cinematography has aired on BBC, PBS, Discovery, and was given the highest Estonian honor by its President Toomas Hendrik Ilves. Joshua would love to shoot your next project or give you a bicycle tour around one of New York City’s boroughs.

Contact: JoshuaZWeinstein(at)Gmail(dot)com
www.WeinsteinFilm.com / www.twitter.com/WeinsteinFilm / www.flikr.com/JoshuaZWeinstein

Laura Hadden is a media and communications associate at The Moth, a non-profit storytelling organization, by day and an independent documentary filmmaker and radio producer by night. She recently moved to New York from San Francisco, where she served as a member of the AmeriCorps Digital Arts Service Corps at The Center for Digital Storytelling, an organization dedicated to assisting people in using digital media to tell meaningful stories from their lives. Previously, she worked as a community outreach coordinator for the documentary film INLAWS & OUTLAWS, promoting a nationwide campaign to increase dialogue about LGBT rights and marriage equality. She graduated with a degree in documentary media and gender studies from The Evergreen State College in 2007, where she produced A Problem Like Maria, a video documentary featuring the stories of nuns struggling to achieve gender equality within the Catholic Church. She is also a graduate of KPFA’s First Voice Apprenticeship Program with whom she co-produced a weekly community radio magazine and is thrilled to be a part of the Stranger Than Fiction community

Contact: Laura.Hadden(at)Gmail(dot)com
www.laurahadden.com

Marshall Leaman is a filmmaker currently working for Talking Eyes Media, a documentary production company run by Julie Winokur and her husband, photojournalist Ed Kashi. Marshall very much enjoys taking his camera to beautiful places like emergency rooms in South Central, the streets of Camden, NJ, and 7-mile in Detroit. Social issues arise. When not running around for TEM, Marshall likes documenting bands, playing soccer, taking photos, and losing his passport in foreign countries.

Contact: MarshallJLeaman(at)Gmail(dot)com
http://MarshallJLeaman.com

Matt Groff is a documentary filmmaker based in New York. After graduating from Brown University, he moved to Brooklyn and was hired to work as assistant editor and post-production supervisor on SID BERNSTEIN PRESENTS…, a moving portrait of the music industry innovator who brought the Beatles to America. At IDFA 2009, he premiered his feature length directorial debut, U.N. ME, an exposé of the United Nations’ institutional failures to obey its own Charter.

Contact: Matthew.Groff(at)Gmail(dot)com

Melissa Hibbard is a filmmaker and photographer. She earned her BA in Moving Image Arts in 1996 from the College of Santa Fe where she studied documentary filmmaking.  Upon graduation, she moved to Los Angeles and worked in the film industry as an art director on feature films for five years.  Over the last ten years, she has produced four documentaries under Fictionville Studio, a production company she co-founded with partner, Hamid Rahmanian: BREAKING BREAD (2000), which premiered on PBS and SIR ALFRED OF CHARLES DE GAULLE AIRPORT (2001).  Both have been well received by the media and worldwide audiences. SHAHRBANOO (2002) premiered on PBS station WNET where it received among the highest ratings for an independently produced documentary. THE GLASS HOUSE (2008), produced in association with the Sundance Channel, premiered at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam in November 2008 and the Sundance Film Festival in 2009, and received the Human Rights Award (OSCE, Docufest) and Best Feature Documentary (Dallas Video Fest).  In 2003, she co-established a non-profit organization – ARTEEAST - its mission statement to promote the arts and cultures of the Middle East and it’s worldwide diasporas in the United States; she was a board member and the ArteEast Online Director through 2007. In 2009, Melissa founded Fictionville Media, a documentary distribution service aimed at helping filmmakers self-distribute their own works.

Contact: melissa(at)fictionvillestudio(dot)com

Ruth Somalo graduated in Communications at the Complutense University of Madrid and completed Ph.D. courses in Film and European Studies at European University of Madrid. She has has studied with documentary film directors such as Dick Fontaine, Marc Isaacs, Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzman, Michael Rabiger, Javier Corcuera and Jose Luis Guerin and directed and produced several documentaries and shorts. While living in London she founded Horns and Tails Productions and worked for Spanish TVE and Canal+ as a correspondent. Her feature length doc 200Km was awarded Best Screenplay at The Golden Gate Fiction and Documentary Festival in San Francisco (2005).  Her most recent doc TILL YOU’RE TOLD TO STOP won Best International Documentary at the Rincon International Film Festival (2009), as well as Best Director and Best Documentary at the Tenerife International Film Festivals (2009).

Contact: Ruthy(at)HornsAndTails(dot)com

Yoni Brook is a film director and photographer.  His documentary film BRONX PRINCESS (with Musa Syeed) about a teenager becoming an African princess, broadcast nationally on the PBS P.O.V. series and premiered at the Berlinale and IDFA.  His first documentary, A SON’S SACRIFICE, about a halal slaughterhouse, broadcast on the PBS Independent Lens series, and won Best Documentary Short at the Tribeca Film Festival and International Documentary Association Awards. Yoni is a co-director of the upcoming PBS series ‘The Calling’, following clergy students of different faiths.  After training as a photojournalist at The New York Times and The Washington Post, he has photographed news, such as Hurricane Katrina for Fortune magazine, and advertising campaigns for clients including Target. Yoni was the youngest ever to be selected for Photo District News’ “30 Photographers to Watch”.

Contact: YoYoni(at)Gmail(dot)com