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THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE
R.J. Cutler
Documentary filmmaker R.J. Cutler's credits include the feature documentaries "The War Room," "A Perfect Candidate," "Thin," and "The September Issue" (which premiered in competition at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and won the Grand Jury Prize for Outstanding Cinematography.) For television his credits include "American High," "Freshman Diaries," "The Residents," "Military Diaries," "American Candidate," "Flip That House," "Black/White," "Making Dazed," "Shays' Rebellion," "30 Days" and "Return of the War Room." Cutler has won the Emmy, Peabody and Academy Honors awards, and has been nominated for an Academy Award and an Independent Spirit Award, among others. He is the founder and president of Actual Reality Pictures, a production company specializing in non-fiction projects for film and television.
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AMERICAN TEEN
Nanette Burstein
Nanette Burstein's producing and directing credits include a collaboration with Brett Morgan, "On the Ropes," a low-budget documentary that follows the fates of three young boxers and their trainer. The film, shot mainly on BetaSP, was nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary (feature length), won Special Jury Prize for Documentary at Sundance, and won the Director's Guild of America's award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary, among other awards. In 2002 she and Morgen teamed up again for the Robert Evans biography "The Kid Stays in the Picture." The film was very positively reviewed and won the International Press Academy, Boston Society of Film Critics, and Seattle Film Critics award for Best Documentary. In 2004, she produced a documentary television show "Film School" for IFC with Jordan Roberts, following four film students at their alma mater, Tisch. In 2007 Burstein was executive producer and writer on the VH1 Rock Doc "NY77: The Coolest Year In Hell" which showcases the rise of hip hop, punk, disco, and graffiti in New York City in 1977. She also executive produced the doc American Shopper.
Her latest documentary "American Teen" was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. For the project, she lived in the small town of Warsaw, Indiana for 10 months, filming daily. She ended up with 1000 hours of footage, which took a year to edit.
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MY KID COULD PAINT THAT
Amir Bar-Lev
Bar-Lev's directorial debut, "Fighter" (2001) was named one of the top documentaries of the year by Newsweek, The Rolling Stone, The Village Voice and several other major publications. It won 6 international awards. "Fighter" was released theatrically in the fall of 2001, and aired on the Independent Film Channel. After "Fighter" and before beginning "My Kid Could Paint That," Bar-Lev served as a creator and Executive Producer on several pilots, including "Remix," a DJ competition show for SpikeTV, and VH1's "Party Crashing in Cannes," which saw his "Fighter" partner, Alex Mamlet (aka Kid Protocol) joining Nicole Kidman on the Cannes Film Festival's famous red carpet. Bar-Lev also produced and helped develop VH1's "Fabulous Life" and the Weather Channel's series, "It Could Happen Tomorrow." The pilot episode focused on the hurricane danger facing New Orleans and was shot only a few months before Hurricane Katrina.
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JESUS CAMP
Heidi Ewing
As the co-owner of the New York-based production company, Loki Films, Heidi has taken on a wide range of subjects that includes the inner workings of Scientology, ritualistic body piercing in Sri Lanka and the labyrinth that is the criminal justice system in the Bronx. Previously, she delved in the dramatic world of Cuban politics with "Dissident," a film about the struggle of Havana-based Nobel Peace Prize nominee Oswaldo Paya - a film that was made clandestinely and has been shown around the world. She recently co-directed "The Boys of Baraka," the critically-acclaimed documentary feature that is currently playing in cities across the United States.
Rachel Grady
The co-director of "The Boys of Baraka," Rachel is a private investigator turned filmmaker. She has produced and directed numerous non-fiction films for The Discovery Channel, A&E and Britain's Channel 4. She has directed several films that focus on mental illness including "Mad Justice," a verite documentary that looks at the troubling fate of mentally ill parolees and "Ward 2 West," shot on location at the Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Hospital on New York's famed Ward's Island. She also acted as Series Producer for "TX" an eight part series for VH1 filmed entirely in a drug rehab. She is the co-founder of Loki Films.
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STREET THIEF
Malik Bader
Director Malik Bader was born in Chicago and credits growing up on Chicago's gritty South Side for his sense of urban realism. Malik is making his feature film debut with "Street Thief." Since premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival, Street Thief has screened at film festivals the world over and has won in competition at Chicago International and Buenos Aires International. His prior work, which includes numerous short films and music videos, has screened at various film festivals including IFP, New York Independent, Los Angeles Shorts Fest, and LA International Underground. Among his short films, is the award-winning "Ground Chuck" which was awarded best of fest at The 2002 IFP film festival in Chicago. Malik is currently working on a number of new projects in development.
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MURDERBALL
Dana Adam Shapiro
Dana Adam Shapiro is a former senior editor at SPIN, and a contributor to The New York Times Magazine and other publications. His first novel, The Every Boy, will be published by Houghton Mifflin in July. The movie is in development at Plan B. "Murderball' is his first film.
Henry Alex Rubin
As a documentary filmmaker, Rubin made the award-winning "Who is Henry Jaglom?" (PBS, First Run Features, w/ Candice Bergen, Dennis Hopper) and "Freestyle" (w/ Mos Def, The Roots, J5), which was recently picked up by Palm Pictures after winning Best Documentary at the Woodstock and Urbanworld Film Festival. Additionally, he directed the second-unit on several films including "Cop Land" and "Girl Interrupted." He is currently directing a mockumentary starring Winona Ryder.
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ROCK SCHOOL
Don Argott
Argott has been a Producer and Director of Photography for eight years, working on numerous productions across the country, with such clients as ESPN, Fox Sports, MTV/VH1 and TLC/Discovery. Currently, he owns and operates 9.14 Pictures, specializing in cutting edge documentaries and music/concert videos. In addition to his accomplishments as a filmmaker, Argott is also a successful musician, with two well received cds entitled Pornosonic, most recently licensed for Dreamworks' "Old School" and Fox Searchlight's "The Girl Next Door." "Rock School" is Argott's first documentary feature.
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ABUSED
Chuck Braverman
Chuck Braverman is one of the few successful dramatic film directors who also has extensive experience producing and directing documentary films. Chuck has been nominated four times by the Directors Guild of America and won the coveted award in 2001 for "High School Boot Camp." Also in 2001 Chuck was nominated for an Academy Award® for his documentary "Curtain Call" about the Actors Fund home. In addition Chuck's directing credits include a feature film and several two hour movies for television with Keanu Reeves, Kiefer Sutherland, Mark Harmon, Kirstie Alley, and more. Among his many episodic directing credits are "Northern Exposure," "Melrose Place," "Beverly Hills 90210," "Sledge Hammer," and "St. Elsewhere."
In the last couple years Braverman has produced and or directed projects for The Discovery Channel, TLC, Discovery Health, The History Channel, Animal Planet, and A&E. Some of the titles are; "Children of the Court," "Making Marines," "Bottom of the Ninth," "When Planes Go Down," "Sextuplets," "Broken Wings," "Prison Medical(in HD)," "Biography of Oscar®," "Debutantes," and more.
Chuck has a degree in Cinema from the University of Southern California where he teaches directing part time.
Marilyn Braverman
Marilyn Braverman has had a career as a professional still photographer and has worked as a sound person on many of the Braverman productions. Last year she produced and photographed "A Pug’s Life: The Dogumentary" which has been picked up by many PBS stations. Then she produced and photographed "Homeless In Paradise" for The Discovery Times Channel. Marilyn is working with her husband on a documentary tentatively called "I Remember Me."
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BEARING WITNESS
Barbara Kopple
Barbara Kopple ('Steamfitters Local Union 638'), a two-time Academy Award® winner, recently completed directing the documentary feature "Shut Up and Sing." Kopple's other films include "Havoc," "The Hamptons," "A Conversation with Gregory Peck," "My Generation," "Wild Man Blues," "Fallen Champ: The Untold Story of Mike Tyson," "American Dream" and "Harlan County USA." She also directs episodic television and commercials, and actively participates in organizations that address social issues and support independent filmmaking. Kopple has been awarded the DGA for Outstanding Directing, LA Film Critics Award, National Society of Film Critics Award, National Board of Review Award for Best Documentary, New York Women in Film & Television Muse Award, and the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize and the Filmmakers Trophy & Audience Award, among other honors.
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ONE STRONG ARM
Tiller Russell
Tiller Russell began making movies by chasing cockfighters through the American southwest, directing and producing the award-winning documentary Cockfight with Loren Mendell while still in film school. Since then, he's shot crab fishermen in the Bering Sea, vigilantes and smugglers on the US/Mexican border, coal miners in Appalachia, electronica artists in Japan, baseball players in the Dominican Republic, itinerant circus performers, Texas lawmen, a half-paralyzed arm wrestler and numerous convicted murderers. His work has appeared on A&E, CBS, PBS, Discovery, Showtime, VH1, CMT, FX, Court TV, GAC and at film festivals around the world. Most recently, he co-directed the feature documentary "Bad Boys of Summer" with Loren Mendell, which premiered at the 2007 Slamdance Film Festival and won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Pacific Palisades Film Festival, as well as two music videos for Ray Wylie Hubbard. He is currently in pre-production on a feature film called "The Last Rites of Ransom Pride." He is a member of the Director's Guild of America and a graduate of USC's School of Cinema-Television.
Loren Mendell
Loren Mendell is an award-winning filmmaker who began his career as an assistant at Creative Artists Agency and then spent two years working for feature film director Harold Becker. He has directed, produced and shot projects for A&E, History, PBS' award-winning series Frontline/World, ABC, CBS and Discovery. Loren produced the Academy Award-nominated short film "Our Time is Up" and co-founded the independent documentary production company Angry Young Ranch, whose slate of films includes "One Strong Arm," the IDA Award nominee "Cockfight" (PBS), "Change Up" (Discovery) and most recently the feature "Bad Boys of Summer." He is currently directing a feature about Petey Greene, an ex-convict who became America's first shock jock during the civil rights era. Loren has taught filmmaking at the University of California, Santa Barbara and volunteers for School on Wheels, a non-profit working to enhance educational opportunities for homeless children. He earned his MFA at the University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television and his BA at the University of Pennsylvania.
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ZEN AND THE ART OF COMPETITIVE EATING
Danielle Franco
Danielle France (co-director/producer) grew up in Newton, Massachusetts and attended the University of Michigan where she won the Best Film Award for "Louise," which she wrote and directed. In 1999 she moved to New York and worked on such feature films as "Dirty Dancing 2," "Brown Sugar" and "Unfaithful." She spent the summer of 2001 working in Francis Ford Coppola's development office. Most recently Dani directed the short film "The Rest" which was featured at the New York 2003 RIPFest.
Chris Kenneally
Chris Kenneally (co-director/producer) grew up in Marlborough, Connecticut. He directed several short films while living in Boston ("Just Like Yo Momma" and "Dead End"). In 1998 he moved to New York where he worked as a post production supervisor on such films as "You Can Count Me," "Nicholas Nickleby," "Undefeated," "Lift" and "Chinese Coffee" and was a producer on ESPN's The Season: St. John's Basketball. Chris is the lead singer and guitarist for The Knobs and runs a musical showcase - Doctor Jellyfinger's Paradise Jam - every Tuesday night in the East Village.
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ALEX ARQUETTE SHE'S MY BROTHER
Matthew Barbato
Director Matthew Barbato is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker who has produced many hours of documentary and verité-style programs for cable and network television, including "A Cook's Tour" (The Food Network) and "Airline" (AENT). "Alexis Arguette: She's My Brother" is his first feature documentary.
Producer Nikki Parrott previously produced "Transit," a feature film shot in America, Mexico, Russia and Kenya for MTV Networks, and co-produced the award-winning feature documentary "37 Uses For A Dead Sheep" for BBC Storyville and ARTE France.
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