Journey of the Universe - (c) Creative Commons
Dr. David Adamski, who will provide children with various activities after the screenings of the four D.C Public Library Programs, has been an entomologist with the Systematic Entomology Laboratory, USDA, Smithsonian Institution, for nearly 20 years. He previously studied business administration and taught related courses and coached high school ice-hockey in his home town of Easthampton, Massachusetts before engaging in a second career of studying insects. In addition to his entomological responsibilities, he teaches science to the kindergarten at the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center at the National Museum of Natural History where he works.
Stephanie Ayanian is a senior producer/director for Penn State Public Broadcasting and has served as lead producer for the film Liquid Assets. Her work as an independent producer led to a 2005 Superfest Best of Festival award and a 2006 Black Maria Film Festival Second Place award. Ayanian also was chosen to create the 2006 Philadelphia International Film Festival opening trailer.
Mickey Babcock will speak at the screening of Don't Fence Me In. Inspiring and encouraging women is at the heart of Mickey Babcock's life and work. After matriculating as a non-traditional student at the age of forty-four at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, she completed her Bachelor's degree in Anthropology and Sociology in 1998. This followed a challenging and successful career as an entrepreneur and interior designer and opened the door for what Mickey has called "her true place and purpose in the world"…philanthropy. As a 50th birthday present to herself she started The Equipoise Fund with a mission to energize, enrich and encourage the visibility, vision and voice of the women and girls of Wyoming.
Laura Belsey will speak after the screening of her film Katrina's Children. When she left her birthplace New Orleans (to move to Switzerland) at the age of six, Laura Belsey, along with her two sisters, sobbed so hard that their father drove 75 miles in the wrong direction. Belsey returned permanently to the United States to attend New York University Film School. She is an award-winning director, whose commercials and short films have won numerous international honors, including a Cannes Gold Lion. Her New York, New York spot for the Coalition for the Homeless, hailed by the New York Times as "one of the most remarked on, and remarkable, examples of the puissance of public service advertising", is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.
Christine R. Bird, M.D., is Executive Producer for Secrets of the Reef (2008). She was the production manager for the National Geographic Channel films Sharks: Deep Trouble (2005), Sharks: Masters of Survival (2006) and The Silent Wrecks of Kwajalein Atoll (2004). She is also the Executive Producer for the national public television series, "Jonathan Bird's Blue World". Her professional experience as a family medicine physician has been useful during film projects to help manage minor accidents and mishaps and keep the project on schedule.
Jonathan Bird will speak about his film Secrets of the Reef after its screening. He is a professional underwater cinematographer and photographer. His films have appeared all over the world, on networks such as National Geographic Channel, PBS, ABC, USA Network, Discovery and even the SciFi Channel. He has won two Emmy Awards and two Cine Golden Eagles for his work. He is the author of seven books of underwater photography and the host of his own program on American public television "Jonathan Bird's Blue World".
Although Ramón Bonfil, who is speaking after the screening of the film Great White Odyssey was born in Mexico City, he fell in love with the sea very early in life. He studied marine biology at the University of Baja California, and then he began studying sharks working for the National Fisheries Institute in Mexico. Since that time Ramón has dedicated his life to understanding and saving sharks. As a conservation scientist with a clear focus in sharks he worked with the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) from 2001 to 2005. There he was the founder and leader of several research and policy initiatives to help to bring the great white shark back from the brink of extinction. He set up the first satellite-tagging studies of white sharks in South Africa and New Zealand to try to find out how they use different marine habitats, where they migrate and where are their critical mating and breeding grounds.
Sam Bozzo produced, directed, and edited Blue Gold: World Water Wars, his second feature documentary which he shot in nearly a dozen countries. His first documentary focuses on computer hackers and is produced by TriggerStreet Productions and narrated by Kevin Spacey. An Art Center College of Design Alumnus, Sam wrote, directed, and edited three international award winning short films. Holiday on the Moon, distributed by Doug Liman's Hypnotic Films, winner of the TriggerStreet.com Short Film competition held at the Toronto International Film Festival. The Shadowed Cry was created as a Top 10 Director assignment for Project Greenlight, run by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. For Which It Stands was screened in the Sundance Film Festival. As a writer, Bozzo has written a dozen screenplays and his horror screenplay The River to Havilah was purchased by Stephan J. Cannell. Bozzo is also a published novelist with his book "Sweet and Sour", a dark comedy based on his script of the same name.
Nick Brandestini was born in Zurich, Switzerland and is the producer of the film legacy of the Great Aletsch. He holds a master's degree in Business & Economics from the University of Zurich. Starting in 1999, Nick worked for three years as a producer and editor for the music television channel VIVA. He joined the financial consulting firm Fincoord in 2002. In 2006, Nick's film Return to Florence played at numerous film festivals. In 2007, Nick produced H.R. Giger's Sanctuary together with Steve Ellington.
Dr. Bruce W. Bunting is President of the Bhutan Foundation and the Hon. Consul General for Bhutan in Washington, DC. Dr. Bunting was the managing director and vice president of World Wildlife Fund’s Special Programs and Strategic Partnerships. He first visited Bhutan in 1986 and has been a long time advisor to the Bhutanese government on a variety of issues including the establishment of Bhutan’s national park system, the Bhutan Trust Fund for Environmental Conservation, the world’s first such trust fund, and the Bhutan Health Trust Fund. He has authored several articles, including “Bhutan, Kingdom in the Clouds” for National Geographic magazine. He received a B.S. in zoology and a doctorate in veterinary medicine from Michigan State University.
Vermont-based writer Tom Butler is the author of the book "Wildlands Philanthropy: The Great American Tradition" an d the film by the same name, a collaboration with nature photographer Antonio Vizcaino. Butler is the editorial projects director for the Foundation for Deep Ecology, and a long-time conservation activist focused on wilderness and biodiversity. He is a founding board member and current president of the Northeast Wilderness Trust. His book "Wild Earth: Wild Ideas for a World Out of Balance" collected essays from the conservation journal Butler edited from 1997–2005.
For EFF 2009, Sandy Cannon-Brown produced Nora! (directed by Joan Murray) and Potato Heads and Corn Dogs (written, directed and edited by Larry Engel). She also produced an animated short Clean?Coal (directed by Murray, written by Murray and Dan Gallagher, and animated by Dick Cronin). Sandy Cannon-Brown is president and founder of VideoTakes, Inc., and an award-winning writer, producer, and director of programs that educate, inspire and enlighten. Sandy Cannon-Brown is also an adjunct professor and an associate director of the Center for Environmental Filmmaking at American University. Students in her Environmental and Wildlife Production course won the Student Emmy in 2008 for the program they produced under her tutelage: EcoViews: The Chesapeake Bay. Cannon-Brown’s peers in ITVA (now TIVA) honored her with Special Achievement Awards for Directing Non-professional Talent, Script Writing and Directing. Women in Film & Video honored her with its highest honor, the Woman of Vision award, for a "career that successfully combines the spirits of public service, journalistic integrity and artistic expression."
Ian Cheney, who will discuss his film The Greening of Southie, grew up in Milton, Mass. and attended Milton Academy, where his parents teach photography and physical education. Ian graduated from Yale College in 2002 and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies in 2003, and spent three years creating King Corn with colleagues Curt Ellis and Aaron Woolf. Ian has also created the short film Two Buckets. An avid Red Sox fan and amateur astrophotographer, Ian currently resides in South Boston, Mass.
Ian Connacher will discuss his film Addicted to Plastic after the screening. For more than 10 years, Ian Connacher has been documenting solutions to environmental issues. He has written for various newspapers and magazines including "Shift", "Canadian Geographic" and "The Globe and Mail". He also co-founded Earth Change Productions, which distributed a documentary on climate change solutions to schools and libraries in 2000. In 2001, Ian produced segments for CBC's Sunday show and then spent 5 years producing segments for the science show "Daily Planet" on Discovery Canada. In 2005, Ian founded Cryptic Moth Productions and produced a short film entitled Alphabet Soup, which chronicles a scientific voyage to an ocean vortex where plastic debris accumulates. This was the inspiration for Addicted to Plastic.
David Conover will be present to dicuss his works Cracking the Ocean Code and Songs of Sunrise Earth. After graduating from Bowdoin College in Maine, David worked as a professional seaman and he spent five years designing and teaching sea courses for kids age 14-18 at the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School in Maine and in Florida. This was followed by a Master's Degree in Education at Harvard, where he became a Kennedy School teaching fellow in leadership studies. In 1987, he directed and produced his first documentary, Outward Bound, which aired on National Geographic Explorer. David's subsequent early film experiences took him to a river in Kamchatka on a project for Channel 4/PBS, and he also worked on a film about measuring Mt. Everest for PBS NOVA. An additional early project for PBS NOVA introduced him to the changing commercial fisheries, an interest he maintains to this day. His relationship with PBS programming continued with a six-show stint as a producer on the outdoor how-to series Trailside.
Cousteau is the co-founder and president of Earth Echo International, a non-profit environmental organization that seeks to inspire individuals to become better stewards of the planet. Cousteau is Chief Ocean Correspondent for Discovery's Animal Planet Channel, where he is creating a series of ocean documentary programs. He is currently producing a series of radio adventures for Living on Earth, National Public Radio's weekly environmental program. Cousteau served as executive producer, co-director, and writer for a documentary film on the Everglades, which garnered him a National Education Award nomination. He has written articles for numerous magazines, and has lectured at institutions such as The United Nations, Harvard University, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Cousteau holds a master's degree in history from St. Andrews University.
Charlie Craighead, who will discuss the films Don't Fence Me In and Arctic Dance: the Mardy Murrie Story, has worked for Allied Film Artists, National Geographic, Wolfgang Bayer Productions, Nature, Discovery, and others. His nature cinematography appears in dozens of films. He co-produced and was the director of photography for the documentary film Arctic Dance: The Mardy Murie Story. His work includes filming and producing Storyteller, a video about award-winning children's author Jean Craighead George. He is currently documenting the recollections of old-timers of Jackson Hole, and making a documentary on the career of best-selling children's author Ken Thomasma.
Luke Cresswell, director of Wild Ocean, is a self-taught percussionist from Brighton, UK. His session work as a drummer and rhythm programmer includes Beats International, Bette Midler, Elvis Costello and Bryan Ferry. After working for several years as a street musician and performer, he first created Stomp in 1991. His work as a performer in Stomp includes the Oscars, the Emmys and Quincy Jones' album, Q's Jook Joint. He has directed, with Steve McNicholas, several award-winning commercials and short films. He received an Oscar nomination for the film Brooms, an Emmy nomination for Stomp Out Loud and co-directed the award winning giant-screen film, Pulse: a Stomp Odyssey. He has also received a special achievement award from the Chicago Human Rhythm Project. More recently he and Steve McNicholas have created the Lost and Found Orchestra, which explores found sound on an orchestral level.
For EFF 2009, Wade Davis will discuss his work after the screenings of In Search of One RIver, Light at the Edge of the World-Polynesia: the Wayfinders and Ancient Voices/Modern World: Colombia. An ethnographer, writer, photographer, and filmmaker, Davis holds degrees in anthropology and biology, and received his Ph.D. in ethnobotany, all from Harvard University. Mostly through the Harvard Botanical Museum, he spent over three years in the Amazon and Andes as a plant explorer, living among 15 indigenous groups in eight Latin American nations while making some 6,000 botanical collections. Author of ten books, including "The Serpent and the Rainbow", "One River", and "Light at the Edge of the World", he is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Lowell Thomas Medal (Explorers Club) and the Lannan Foundation $125,000 prize for literary nonfiction. In 2004 he was made an Honorary Member of the Explorers Club, one of 20 so named in the 100-year history of the club.
Andy Dehart, who will discuss the film Sharkwater, is the Director of Biological Programs for the National Aquarium in Washington, DC. Andy has helped open the Kingdom of the Seas Aquarium at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo, and worked 15 years for the National Aquarium in Baltimore. He relocated to the National Aquarium in Washington, DC when the facility partnered with the National Aquarium in Baltimore. Andy oversees the Husbandry, Animal Health, Conservation and Facilities operations of the National Aquarium in Washington, DC and helped lead the renovation of the Nation’s oldest aquarium. Andy earned a B.S. in Biology from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. His life long passion has been sharks and rays, and he has worked with them for nearly 20 years. He has worked on a number of publications including authoring two chapters of the "Elamobranch Husbandry Manual", a resource documenting the care of sharks and rays in captivity. Andy also works as the Shark Advisor to the Discovery Channel and has worked on four Shark Week productions. He has been involved in many print, radio, and television broadcasts regarding sharks. Of special interest to Andy is the tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier). He serves as a member of the Board of Trustees for REEF (Reef Environmental Education Foundation), an organization committed to getting recreational divers involved in citizen science, through active surveying of fish abundance and diversity.
Julie A. Dunfey is a co-producer of The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. She is a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and Dartmouth College, and received her M.A. in history from Stanford University. She began her association with Ken Burns and Florentine Films in 1986 as a co-producer of The Civil War and Thomas Hart Benton. Thomas Hart Benton, which was broadcast in 1989, received a CINE Golden Eagle and a Blue Ribbon at the American Film Festival. The Civil War, for which Julie received an Emmy and a Christopher Award, premiered in 1990 and became the most highly rated series in PBS history. Through the 1990s and the first few years of this century, Julie stayed at home with her three children. She was a consultant on Mark Twain; Jazz; Not For Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony; Horatio’s Drive; and The War, all Florentine Films productions. During this time she also served on the boards of several environmental and educational nonprofits, including eleven years as a trustee at Phillips Exeter Academy, the last four as vice-president.
Ginny Durrin's current project is Bombs in Our Backyard, about the deadly contamination of a prominent Washington DC neighborhood from buried WWI chemical weapons. She has been documenting the story in her neighborhood for over 15 years, and the show is now in post production. She is the president and owner of Durrin Productions, Inc., has received national and international recognition for her distinctive stylistic documentaries, including an Academy Award nomination for Promises to Keep about Mitch Snyder and the homeless that was shown on PBS. Broadcast credits include Homegrown: Islam in Prison, about radical Islam in our prisons, (Part of the PBS series, "America at a Crossroads"), Poisons and Plagues for the Ted Turner PBS series "Avoiding Armageddon", Gulliver's Travels and Walden, for the DISCOVERY/TLC "Great Books" Series, Daughters of Time, Hard Work, and Worker to Worker and Can't Take No More all on PBS. Ginny Durrin has received many awards, including an Academy Award nomination, an Emmy, four Blue Ribbons in the American Film and Video Festival, numerous CINE Golden Eagles, three First Prizes in the National Council on Family Relations Festival, and the Woman of Vision Award from Women in Film and Video.
Dave Eckert, director of RiverSmart, will premiere his film at the 2009 EFF. He has produced digital videos and events for the past 15 years with Virgnia Village Productions. His films primarily concentrate on local water issues and they have played a key role in inspiring local clean water action throughout the U.S. Other films focus on general environmental or cultural issues. Eckert's event management background aims at building community through celebration.
Steve Ellington, co-director of the film Legacy of the Great Aletsch, is an independent director from the United States. He has worked on numerous short films, music videos and documentaries including the Academy Award winning documentary Mighty Times: The Children's March. Steve holds a Degree in Film and Video Production from the Brooks Institute of Photography.
Larry Engel, MFA, director of of the film Potato Heads and Corn Dogs: Keepers of the Crop, is a producer, writer, director, and cinematographer with nearly 30 years of documentary filmmaking experience spanning all seven continents. He was adjunct professor of film at Columbia University's film division in the School of the Arts, where he had taught since 1976. He also taught at Barnard College. In 2003, he received a Columbia University Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching. He helped establish Panasonic Kid Witness News, a world-wide outreach program that empowers disadvantaged youth to use new technology to explore their world. Larry has been honored with a host of nominations and awards, including a Daytime Emmy for Best Cinematography, a AAAS-Westinghouse Science Journalism Award for excellence in science writing for television, and the Mountain Spirit award from Mountainfilm in Telluride.
Barbara Ettinger will be at the screening of her film A Sea Change, co produced by Sven Huseby. Her first film Martha and Ethel screened at the Sundance Film Festival and was distributed theatrically by Sony Pictures Classics. Her most recent film, Two Square Miles, also co-produced with her husband, Sven Huseby, aired nationally on PBS's Independent Lens in November 2006 and again in January 2007. Sven and Barbara bring to this project a similar story-telling style, the same film values seen in their earlier work.
Michael W. Fincham, director of Who Killed Crassostrea Virginica: the Fall and Rise of the Chesapeake Oyster, is a science writer and a documentary producer who focuses on the environment, science, social justice and sports. He currently develops film and television projects through the University of Maryland Sea Grant College. In earlier lives he was an English teacher at the University of Minnesota in Duluth, then a skier, sailor, science writer, journalist and film critic. A native Washingtonian, he graduated from Gonzaga High School and studied literature, philosophy, the history of science and film at the University of Maryland, the Institute of European Studies, the University of Vienna and the University of Iowa.
Fine Films is an award winning film production company based in the Washington DC area. The company was created by Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine, directors of Built for the People: the story of TVA, in 2003, the same year they were married. For the last decade, Sean and Andrea have been producing, directing and shooting documentaries in over thirty countries, from dangerous war zones to the Arctic Circle, to bring unknown human stories to the screen. The Fines most recent documentary feature War/Dance was nominated for the 2008 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The direction, cinematography, and story was honored with more than eighteen awards, including the Sundance Film Festival’s award for Best Documentary Direction. Sean and Andrea are currently directing a documentary film about women of courage featuring Mariane Pearl, while developing several documentary projects ranging from the impact of the AK47 to powerful stories of fatherhood around the globe. The Fines are also planning scripted feature projects ranging from the life story of a boy who escapes child slavery in India, to chronicling the United States’ most prolific drug dealer.
Wenonah Hauter is the executive director of Food & Water Watch and will speak with filmmaker Sam Bozzo after Blue Gold: World Water Wars. She has worked extensively on energy, food, water and environmental issues at the national, state and local level. Experienced in developing policy positions and legislative strategies, she is also a skilled and accomplished organizer, having lobbied and developed grassroots field strategy and action plans. From 1997 to 2005 she served as Director of Public Citizen’s Energy and Environment Program, which focused on water, food, and energy policy. From 1996 to 1997, she was environmental policy director for Citizen Action, where she worked with the organization's 30 state–based groups. From 1989 to 1995 she was at the Union of Concerned Scientists where as a senior organizer, she coordinated broad–based, grassroots sustainable energy campaigns in several states. She has an M.S. in Applied Anthropology from the University of Maryland.
Maryam Heniein, director of Return of the Honeybee, has more than fifteen years experience working as an investigative journalist, a documentary and television producer and professional researcher. Her credits include producing documentaries for the BBC, Discovery, Robert Greenwald and Morgan Spurlock. As a journalist she has written for publications such as "The Los Angeles Times", "Science & Spirit Magazine", and "The Cairo Times". The former Montrealer gained notoriety by breaking a story about Dodi Fayed’s imposter, who duped hundreds across North America and set a precedent in Canadian legal history. Working in front of the camera, Maryam co-wrote and hosted a program for TLC about the Ark of the Covenant. Following a near death experience several years ago, Maryam delved into the science of nutrition and alternative ways of healing. She also became more conscious about the environment and went on to produce a piece on the Exxon Valdez Oil spill for Robert Greenwald and The Sierra Club. She has worked developing numerous documentaries on topics ranging from Creationism to Family Annihilators.
Scott Hamilton Kennedy will discuss his Academy Award nominated film The Garden, about the country's largest urban garden in Los Angeles, and winner of the SilverDocs' Sterling U.S. Feature Award in 2008. His debut documentary, OT: Our Town, was an official selection and won awards at some of the top film festivals in the world. In it’s theatrical release, OT garnered rave reviews, was selected for several ‘best of’ lists (including Kenneth Turan of the LA Times), and was nominated for Best Documentary by the IFP Independent Spirit Awards. Currently Scott is developing a narrative adaptation of OT: Our Town. His feature script Up River, an urban adventure movie set on the Los Angeles River, went through the highly competitive IFP/FIND Directors Lab.
Bonnie Kreps presents the Washington, D.C. Premiere of her new film Don't Fence Me In. She has made most of her films in Canada with the Canadian Television Network and then as an independent filmmaker with the acclaimed National Film Board of Canada. Her many films about women include: After the Vote: A Report From Down Under, Portrait of My Mother, This Film Is About Rape, No Life for a Woman, This Borrowed Land and Arctic Dance: The Mardy Murie Story. Her films have been shown internationally.
George, who directed Return of the Honeybee, has produced, directed and filmed documentaries on such diverse topics as the teenage environmental group Generation Earth, Holistic Therapies for AIDS, 16th Century Philosopher Giordano Bruno, Modern Dance Theatre and live performances of bands like the White Stripes, Train and Devo. His award-winning short film Breezeway premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was broadcast on HBO, PBS, and Canal +. As a cinematographer, his work has been seen on ABC’s 20/20 and the Warner Brother’s Short Circuit DVD piece on Rufus Wainwright. His work behind the camera includes feature length documentaries on the Austin music scene, a short documentary featuring Nobel Prize winning scientists, award winning stop motion animation and a lot of bees. George has edited several narrative feature length films, documentaries and music videos. He worked as a staff writer for the Channel 4’s Armstrong and Miller sketch comedy show and wrote the screenplay for the feature film Cake, which garnered the audience award for best feature from The Other Venice Film Festival.
Danny Ledonne, on the panel following the screenings of the Student Environmental Film Festival, is a graduate of Emerson College's film program in Boston. He has been exploring the power of the moving image since 1998 and has created a biopic on the work of director Stanley Kubrick, a Lego-animated political satire entitled Ship of Fools. Danny's interest in wildlife filmmaking fostered the production of Wild Animals, Domesticated Humans: The Zoo and Modern Society. The film explores the purposes and challenges of zoological parks and is distributed through the National Film Network. Danny has worked as director of photography on the award-winning short KiskaDEE, editor for the feature-length experimental documentary An Awakening Journey, and shot and edited a documentary in the wilderness of east Africa entitled Kenya Hidaya. In 2007, he produced and edited the full-length documentary, Playing Columbine: a true story of video game controversy, confronting the video game/real world violence debate as well as exploring the future of interactive media's potential to confront serious issues. Danny enrolled in the MFA film and electronic media program at American University. He is the owner of Emberwilde Productions and currently lives in Washington, DC.
Kaiulani Lee, the main actress in the film A Sense of Wonder, has more than 30 years of experience in theater, film, and television. She has starred in over a dozen plays on and off Broadway, and has won the OBIE Award for outstanding achievement off Broadway. She has guest-starred in a number of television series including Law & Order, The Equalizer, Tales from the Dark Side, and The Waltons. Her film credits include The Seduction of Joe Tynan, The Fan, Garp, Cujo, and Compromising Positions. Lee starred as Martha Ballard in the critically acclaimed PBS film A Midwife's Tale. She holds an honorary doctorate from Bowdoin College for her contribution to the performing arts.
Lucas Mackey is the Producer and Marketing Manager for Dygra Films, the creators of the animated film Spirit of the Forest. Lucas holds a masters degree in Direction of Audiovisual Enterprises from the Instituto de Empresa in Madrid and a PhD in Film and TV Production from the Instituto de Cine, also in Madrid. Before Dygra films, he worked in several TV, Film and publicity productions. He was the person in charge of International Sales at Lolafilms.
Steve McNicholas, co-director of the IMAX film Wild Ocean,has worked as an actor, singer, musician, and writer with various theatrical and musical groups, starting out with the Bradford Theatre Group in 1973. Through the eighties he worked with Cliff Hanger, Covent Garden Community Theatre and Pookiesnackenburger. Despite also being an original member of the accapella group, the "Flying Pickets" and a final appearance in Mr Bean, Steve no longer performs. He shares directorial credits with Luke Cresswell on Stomp-based films and commercials and their new show, the Lost and Found Orchestra. With Luke, he composed the soundtrack to the Showtime movie,Riot, and shares the Oscar and Emmy nominations for his work on Brooms and Stomp Out Loud and co-directed the award winning giant-screen film, Pulse: a Stomp Odyssey.
Louise Meyer is the Co-Founder of Solar Household Energy, Inc.(SHE), a DC-based NGO. Louise managed SHE's Mexico projects: EPA’s Partnership for Clean Indoor Air (PCIA) researching how using the HotPot solar oven improves health by elimating smoke and the World Bank’s Development Marketplace grant for the pilot "HotPot Initiative". Her interest in solar cooking began 20 years ago developing small business enterprises in Ivory Coast for the International Labor Organization (ILO). She later gained field experience as a volunteer trainer for Solar Cookers International (SCI) in East African refugee camps. She co-designed and launched the website AfricanCraft.com. Ms. Meyer holds an MA in French and German Language and Literature and spent many years teaching. She obtained a graduate degree in International Development from the African Institute in Geneva, Switzerland.
Russell Mittermeier is a prominent primatologist, herpetologist and wildlife conservationist with more than 30 years of field experience in Central and South America, Africa and Asia. He hosts the film Hotspots. Having served as Conservation International (CI) president since 1989, he is the only active field biologist to head an international conservation organization. Mittermeier's fieldwork has been on primates, protected areas and other conservation issues in more than 20 countries. His areas of expertise include biological diversity and its value to humanity, ecosystem conservation, tropical biology and species conservation. Mittermeier's publications include 10 books and more than 300 papers and popular articles on primates, reptiles, tropical forests and biodiversity. His work has been recognized by a number of institutions and national governments, and he is the recipient of many awards, including the Order of the Golden Ark from His Royal Highness Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands (1995), the Grand Order of the Southern Cross from the President of Brazil (1997), and the Grand Sash and Order of the Yellow Star from the President of Suriname (1998). In 1998, he was also selected as one of Time magazine's "EcoHeroes for the Planet."
Jeremy Monroe directed RiverWebs his first feature film, which offers a unique glimpse into the intricacy of river ecosystems, the passion of those who study them, and the life of a remarkable ecologist who truly embodied the spirit of science. Monroe hopes this film opens more minds to the complexity of rivers, while opening more hearts to the beauty and interconnectedness of our world. Jeremy Monroe came to educational filmmaking from a background in freshwater biology, and through a motivation to share the vibrant aquatic worlds that have always inspired him. Through the nonprofit organization Freshwaters Illustrated, Monroe works to produce images and stories about freshwater ecosystems, which are among the most diverse and threatened on earth.
Martin Ostrow, who will discuss his film Renewal, has been a producer, writer and director for public, commercial and cable television for more than 25 years. His award-winning films include the acclaimed 90-minute documentary America and the Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference, about the Holocaust, for the PBS series "The American Experience". In addition to history, Marty has made many films about science, for NOVA, PBS's "Discover the World of Science", and the Discovery Channel. He was a producer for the ground-breaking documentary series "Race to Save the Planet", the first large-scale PBS effort to bring environmental issues to national consciousness.
Catherine Pancake will present her documentary Black Diamonds: Mountaintop Removal & the Fight for Coalfield Justice about the mountaintop removal project of the coal companies in southern West Virginia and its resulting environmental and humanitarian consequences. She is an American filmmaker and musician, based in Baltimore, Maryland since ca. 1993. A native of West Virginia, she is a relative of the writers Breece D'J Pancake and actor Sam Pancake. Following her move to Baltimore, she co-founded the Red Room Collective and High Zero Foundation, became a self-trained improvising percussionist and began making films, which ranged from short, experimental meditations to feature-length narratives and documentaries. She also is a founding member of the Charm City Kitty Club (GLBT Performance Series,) and the Transmodern Festival (Live.Art.Action.)
Nora Pouillon will be present to discuss the film Nora! premiering in the Festival about her commitment to nutritionally wholesome food, balanced eating and sustainable living that is based on the premise that you are what you eat, drink and breathe, and that it is important to take responsibility for one’s own health. She opened Restaurant Nora,in Washington, D.C. in 1979 and was immediately recognized for creating not only healthy, but delicious organic dishes. In 1999, twenty years later, the restaurant became the nation's first certified organic restaurant. Nora was instrumental in creating the organic certification standards for restaurants that guarantee at least 95% of all food served originates from certified organic sources. Celebrating her restaurant's 30th birthday in 2009, Nora Pouillon embodies healthy sustainable living. "The Washington Post" named Nora one of the dozen “Power Chefs” in the city. Over the years, she has received numerous awards from the International Association of Culinary Professionals, the Organic Trade Association, New Hope Natural Media, the American Horticultural Society, Campaign for Better Health, and others. Nora started her own consulting firm, Nora’s Organics, LLC and developed her first line of certified organic salad dressing for food service. She and her partners also founded Changing Seas, a sustainable aquaculture business.
Carole Rifkind will present her film Naturally Obsessed: the Making of a Scientist. An educator, author and activist, her books include Main Street: Face of Urban America, A Field Guide to American Architecture and A Field Guide to Contemporary American Architecture. She has directed outreach programs for the Hudson River Museum, the Municipal Art Society of New York, and Partners for Livable Places. She was teacher and curriculum specialist in elementary and secondary school and an Adjunct Professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture. She serves or has served on the boards of directors of the Municipal Art Society, Independent Feature Project, Film Forum, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, East River Waterfront Conservancy and the New York Landmarks Foundation. She has worked as a filmmaker since 2000, and directed the film Vanishing Venice about the environmental difficulties of the city of Venice.
Richard Rifkind will present his film Naturally Obsessed: the Making of a Scientist. Now Chairman Emeritus, he was from 1984 to 2000 Chairman and Chief Scientific Officer of the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research. Previously, he served as Professor of Medicine and of Human Genetics at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons. As Lila Acheson Wallace Member of Sloan-Kettering Institute, he directed a research laboratory focused on the control of gene expression during cellular differentiation. He has authored some 250 scientific papers, culminating in the development of a new and potent anticancer therapeutic. He was the founding Chairman of the New York Structural Biology Center. Concerned with public understanding of science, he has served on the boards of directors of the New York Academy of Medicine, the New York Academy of Science and the New York Hall of Science. On retirement from laboratory research in 2003, he took up documentary filmmaking in association with his wife, Carole.
Jamie Ross presents the Washington, D.C. premiere of the first episode of the series "Appalachia: A History of Mountains and People".
As a producer, writer, interviewer and editor, Jamie Ross has played an integral part in the James Agee Film Project for over twenty-five years. Her talent for sparking new ideas and her ability to raise funds to
pursue them have been invaluable assets to the films. Jamie Ross began her work with the JAFP in 1981 when she edited the fifty-five minute version of AGEE, an Academy Award nominated feature biography of the writer James Agee. She was producer of Long Shadows: the Legacy of the Civil War.
At the Festival, David Rothenberg performs live music with David Conover's sunrise films program, Songs of Sunrise Earth. David Rothenberg is the author of Why Birds Sing, published in six languages and turned into a feature-length BBC program in 2006. Rothenberg has also written Sudden Music, Always the Mountains, and edited many anthologies on nature and culture. As a clarinetist he has six CDs out under his own name, including On the Cliffs of the Heart, named as one of the top ten CDs of the year by Jazziz Magazine. He has performed and recorded with Peter Gabriel, Scanner, Ray Phiri and the Karnataka College of Percussion. His latest book is Thousand Mile Song, about making music with whales. This year Rothenberg will release his first CD on ECM Records, a duet with pianist Marilyn Crispell.
David E. Simpson has crafted award-winning films for twenty-five years; he will be present to discuss his film Milking the Rhino about wildlife conservation in Africa. David co-produced and directed When Billy Broke His Head, a documentary about disability culture that won the Sundance Film Festival’s “Freedom of Expression Award,” along with major prizes at dozens of other festivals. He co-produced and edited Forgiving Dr. Mengele, about an Auschwitz survivor’s controversial campaign of forgiveness, which won the 2006 Slamdance Grand Jury Prize for documentaries. David directed Refrigerator Mothers, about a generation of mothers who raised autistic children under the shadow of professionally-promoted mother-blame. The film won top honors at the Florida, Indiana, and Sedona film festivals and aired on the PBS series P.O.V. David produced and directed Halsted Street, USA, a multi-award-winning snapshot of America through the prism of one multi-cultural street. His experimental narrative, Dante’s Dream, a re-working of Dante’s cosmology, earned five First-Place festival awards. When not producing-directing his own work, David edits long-form documentaries. His credits include Kartemquin Films’ recent Terra Incognita: Mapping Stem Cell Research, which aired on PBS’ Independent Lens; the PBS/Kartemquin series "The New Americans"; the Emmy-nominated NOVA: Mysterious Crash of Flight 201; Frontline/Marian Marzynski’s Shtetl (grand prix, Cinema du Reel); Kartemquin Films’ 5 Girls and Vietnam Long Time Coming; and an episode of "The People's Century" for BBC/PBS.
Hedrick Smith, Pulitzer Prize-winning former New York Times reporter and editor and Emmy Award-winning producer/correspondent, is one of America's most distinguished journalists. He has covered Washington and world capitals for The New York Times, authored several best-selling books and created 20 award-winning PBS prime time specials and miniseries on Washington's power game, Soviet perestroika, the global economy, education reform, health care, teen violence, terrorism and Wall Street. PBS viewers saw Mr. Smith for 25 years as a principal panelist on Washington Week in Review and have also seen him as a special correspondent for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Mr. Smith has received six honorary doctorate degrees.
Ross Spears presents the Washington, D.C. premiere of the first episode of Appalachia: A History of Mountains and People.
Ross Spears has been making documentary films for more than twenty-five years and is considered one of the most accomplished documentary filmmakers now working in the United States. He has won such prestigious awards as a Lyndhurst Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Tennessee Governor's Awards in both the Arts and Humanities, and an Academy Award Nomination for Best Feature Documentary. William Sloan of the Museum of Modern Art wrote that "Spears has made a lasting and significant contribution to American film. All of his works possess a rare vigor and discipline that is unique." The films of Ross Spears deal primarily with the history and culture of his native region, the American South.
Strobe Talbott assumed the presidency of the Brookings Institution in July 2002 after a career in journalism, government and academe. His immediate previous post was founding director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization. Before that, he served in the State Department from 1993 to 2001, first as Ambassador-at-large and special adviser to the Secretary of State for the new independent states of the former Soviet Union, then as Deputy Secretary of State for seven years. Mr. Talbott entered government service after 21 years with "Time magazine". As a reporter, he covered Eastern Europe, the State Department and the White House, then was Washington bureau chief, editor-at-large and foreign affairs columnist. His newest book, The Great Experiment: The Story of Ancient Empires, Modern States, and the Quest for a Global Nation, published in January 2008, combines historical and political analysis with personal reflection on efforts to forge a peaceful community of nations. His past books include: Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy and the Bomb and The Russia Hand. He has also written for "Foreign Affairs", "The New Yorker", "Foreign Policy", "The Economist", "The Financial Times", "The New York Times", "The New York Review of Books", "The Washington Post" and "Slate". Mr. Talbott has been a fellow of the Yale Corporation, a trustee of the Hotchkiss School and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a director of the Council on Foreign Relations and of the North American Executive Committee of the Trilateral Commission. Born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1946, he was educated at Hotchkiss, Yale (B.A., ’68, M.A.Hon., ’76) and Oxford (M.Litt., ’71).
Michael Tobias is a global ecologist, author, filmmaker, and President of the Dancing Star Foundation, a California non-profit public benefit corporation devoted to animal welfare, international biodiversity conservation and environmental education. He will present his film Hotspots. Tobias has specialized in an interdisciplinary approach to critical environmental issues involving historical, scientific, ethical and philosophical frameworks for policy research and documentation, demographic analysis, ecological anthropology, biodiversity conservation, art history, comparative literature, the history of ideas, sustainability issues, animal protection and non-violence activism. In 1996, Tobias received the “Courage of Conscience Award” for his commitment to animals. Tobias has written, directed, and produced well over 100 films–including TV series, documentaries and dramas, most pertaining to environmental, cultural, social or scientific issues. Some of those works include the 15-part series A Parliament of Minds, the 28-part series A Parliament of Souls and the ten-hour dramatic miniseries Voice of the Planet.
Artistic director of Dance Films Association (DFA), Deirdre has been editing the Dance on Camera Journal for DFA since 1982. She began directing the Dance on Camera Festival in 1995 and became the director of DFA in 1998. She has written for over twenty publications on the subject of dance on camera and flamenco, served on the juries of Dance Screen, Grand Prix de Video Danse, International Emmys, and American Dance Festival, and worked on multiple films about music produced by Peter Rosen. As a dancer, she has performed at a wide variety of venues including the Rainbow Room, The Plaza, le Cirque and most recently The Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Peter Norton Symphony Space. She taught a flamenco history course for six summers in Sante Fe for Maria Benitez' Institute of Spanish Arts which also co-produced her participatory production of Dancing with Bulls. A graduate of Kirkland/Hamilton College with a masters in arts administration from NYU, Deirdre also spent an invaluable semester studying dance and drumming in Ghana through the Experiment in International living.
Engi Wassef, director of the film Marina of the Zabbaleen was born in Cairo, Egypt, on July, 1980 and lived there until the age of seven. Her family then immigrated to the U.S. and settled in New York City. She attended Harvard University, where she received a B.A. degree magna cum laude in Government with a minor in Arabic. Engi worked on Wall St. at the investment firm of Goldman Sachs before pursuing her MFA in film at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Program. Marina of the Zabbaleen is Engi’s first feature film, a documentary about a young girl living in the hidden village of Christian garbage collectors in Cairo. The film was selected by the Tribeca Film Institute’s prestigious All Access Program in 2006, when it was still in production, and had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in Spring 2008.
Hal and Marilyn Weiner will present their film The State of the Planet's Oceans. Through their Washington, DC production company (Screenscope), Marilyn and Hal Weiner have produced, written, and directed over 225 documentaries and four public television series (Journey To Planet Earth, Women At Work, Faces Of Man and The World Of Cooking). They have also produced three feature films (Family Business, The Imagemaker, and K2). The Weiners have won Emmy Awards for The Earth Summit Pledge, commissioned by the United Nations to open the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, and Streets of Sorrow, an NBC documentary about a support group formed to help people cope with the violent death of a family member. They are recipients of the National Academy of Television Arts and Science's Silver Circle Award for "outstanding contributions to the television industry." Marilyn Weiner is the winner of Women-In-Film's "Women of Vision Award" for creative excellence. In a contest sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, Hal Weiner won first prize at the 18th annual Larry Neal Writers' Competition for his dramatic screenplay, The Jerusalem Syndrome. Mr. Weiner also won first prize in the Washington DC Screenwriting Competition for his feature film script Shadows. The Weiners have also won over 130 top international awards, including 39 CINE Golden Eagles. Their films have been shot on location in more than 30 countries on five continents, translated into numerous languages and broadcast throughout the world.
Denise Zmekhol will screen her film Children of the Amazon, an ITVS co-production about the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and its hope for the future. A Sao Paulo native, Zmekhol studied social communication and journalism in Brazil, and completed her studies in photography, film and broadcasting at San Francisco State University. She speaks Portuguese, Spanish, French, and English. Early in her career, Zmekhol was Associate Producer on the acclaimed documentary Landscape of Memories. When she returned to Brazil in 1987, Zmekhol assisted on numerous documentaries filmed in the Amazon. In addition to her film work, she photographed extensively, producing the photo exhibition "Children of the Amazon", and shooting the last photographs of the renowned rubber tapper and environmental activist Chico Mendes before his assassination. Her photos of Mendes appeared in "Time Magazine" and other publications worldwide. During the 90s, Zmekhol worked as a freelance producer for various Sao Paulo production companies. In 1998, Zmekhol returned to the United States to co-produce and co-direct Digital Journey, an Emmy award winning public television series exploring emerging technologies in their social, environmental and cultural contexts. She is currently producing a video with Google Earth Outreach to train Indigenous Amazonian tribes to use Google Earth to create maps to record cultural traditions and to monitor the forest against illegal logging.
Dan Stone will discuss At the Edge of the World, his first feature film, about the Sea Shepherd Society's attempts to prevent illegal whaling in Japan. Previously, he completed a documentary short, The World Away, about the Apollo 11 mission and filmed the tragic back story of the space program. He just finished writing a feature narrative, The Three Worlds, which he will be directing as well and which should arrive in theatres sometime next year.
Marilyn Weiner was appointed by Mayors Anthony Williams and Marion Barry to serve as a DC Commissioner for the Arts and Humanities for six years. She is on the Board of Directors of Filmfest DC. Ms. Weiner served on the Board of Directors of the Committee To Promote Washington, DC, the Washington Urban League, Women-In-Film and the Woolly Mammoth Theater Company. She has been President of the Washington Film Council, Vice-President of Women-In-Film, consultant to the National Commission on Working Women, Chairperson of the Advisory Committee to the Washington Office of Motion Picture Development, and Panelist for both the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
© 2012 Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital
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