diana whitten

(Director, Producer, Camera) is a filmmaker with a decade of professional film/TV direction, production and design experience, including work with On the Leesh Productions, Naked Angels, Pterodactyl Films, Little Airplane Production Company for Disney Children’s Programming, Nickelodeon, and the Noggin Channel, B-Productions, for British MTV, and for comedian Mike Myers.  She has directed and designed films that appeared over 25 international film festivals.   A graduate of Tufts University (BA), the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (BFA), and the Newschool Program in International Media (MA), she was a Fulbright Fellow to Indonesia in 2000 documenting the political use of shadow theater.  

mitchell block

(Consultant) has handled the distribution and marketing of hundreds of documentary, live action and animated short films and documentary features, which have won 24 Oscars and have received 49 nominations from the Motion Picture Academy, of which he is also a member. He conceived, co-created and was an Executive Producer on the 10-hour national Emmy Winning PBS documentary special and companion theatrical documentary feature CARRIER produced in partnership with Icon Productions. His newest feature documentary STEALING AMERICA opened in NY and Los Angeles this August. It has played over 100 dates as part of its theatrical release.  He is the managing director of Direct Cinema, Limited, and worked under contract in Los Angeles consulting on nonfiction projects for Sheila Nevins, President (non-fiction programming) of HBO/Cinemax for seven years as well as on numerous independent productions worldwide. He executive produced the Academy Award winning documentary film BIG MAMA for HBO in 2001. He has been an adjunct faculty member at USC since 1978 and his class in the Peter Stark Producing Program is required of all students.

elissa brown

(Co-Producer) Associate Produced “By the People: The Election of Barack Obama,” released on HBO in November, 2009.  Prior work includes serving as assistant editor on “Bi the Way” which premiered at Austin’s SXSW film festival, research and development for a documentary about evangelical Christians, marketing and distribution work for THINKFilm, and directing a short film about Providence.  She completed her undergraduate work at Brown University and post-grad coursework at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies.

anita schillhorn van veen

(Co-Producer) has made documentary and experimental films that have screened in festivals around the country as well as in Japan and Indonesia. She has assisted on various PBS documentaries, and her short documentary "Little Surabaya" was shown on public television. She has taught video production with UNESCO in Indonesia, with Temple University in Philadelphia, and with WITNESS for human rights activists around the world in Canada. Her research and writings on film and culture have been presented at conferences around the world and have been published in Asian Cinema, Gridskipper, Popmatters and various online magazines. She currently manages online programs for The JED Foundation, a suicide prevention organization.  Anita’s work has been shown at WYBE television in Philly, Designfesta in Tokyo, ARPA Film Festival in LA,  Festival Film Dokumenter in Yogyakarta, InHabit exhibition in Philadelphia, Subterrane exhibition in Philadelphia, and Gallery One in Philadelphia.

danielle bernstein

(Outreach Coordinator) spearheaded a comprehensive outreach campaign for her film WHEN CLOUDS CLEAR, which included festival participation, website development, educational tours, a grassroots screening series, and developing a sustainable project that includes the subject community in DVD sales as a source of income for their struggle. She is currently designing and filming the outreach campaign for Drink Well Do Good, International Society for Africans in Wine, who work to being awareness and assistance to transformative socially progressive projects within the South African wine industry. 

katie conkling

(Production Intern) is a recent college graduate with a demonstrated passion for engaging herself and others about reproductive rights.  Her passion for learning as much as possible about reproductive rights has lead to different corners of the globe – from working with a midwife in Senegal to interviewing Franco-American women in Maine about the role of childbirth in their community.  While in Maine, she found her calling in researching the role of anesthesia in childbirth and labor in the U.S.   She currently works for GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) as a research assistant. 

sovereignty productions

was formed as a forum to use video and new media to explore how sovereign spaces, those offshore and of exile, can be isolated and charged by activist agendas that challenge accepted frameworks in the name of social change.