Michael Nash

Faculty Director- Youth Film Project ‘Through their Eyes’

Michael Nash is a Irish/American filmmaker who was recently an honored recipient of the Global Innovation Award, Senator Boxer’s 2010 Conservation Champion Award and the 2010 Neiman Marcus Environmental Visions Filmmaker Award. Michael Nash’s current documentary, the multi-award winning Climate Refugees was the only film screened by the United Nations at the recent IIEA Copenhagen Climate Change Conference for world leaders and policymakers. Nash has served on various panels as an expert on climatic migrations, the human face of climate change, climate security issues and green solutions. Climate Refugees had its world premiere at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, and was noted by Robert Redford in the NY Times “as an agent for social change.” Michael is currently traveling with WGA (Writers Guild of America) illuminating climate and health to storytellers around the world. Nash’s first feature, the critically acclaimed film titled “Fuel,” won top feature film honors around the globe. Nash has created a digital-video exploration montage for the Getty Museum, been involved in television programming development, and music video production. Currently Nash has three television shows in development/pre-production, with Fremantle (American Idol and America’s Got Talent), the second is package by William Morris and in partnership with music producer Red One (U2 and Lady Gaga’s) and the third is with the non-profit ORBIS, “The Flying Eye Hospital”. Michael Nash is represented by Mosaic Media.

Laura Gabbert & Caroline Libresco

Laura Gabbert and Caroline Libresco have been collaborating creatively for 10 years. Together they made the feature documentary, SUNSET STORY, which won prizes at the Tribeca, Los Angeles, and Miami Film Festivals, and aired on PBS’s Independent Lens. They also co-teach an Introduction to Documentary Film class at Film Independent in Los Angeles. In addition to SUNSET STORY, Laura directed the documentaries NO IMPACT MAN (Sundance FF, Oscilloscope) and HEALERS OF 400 PARNASSUS (PBS). She is also a feature film producer whose credits include GETTING TO KNOW YOU (Sundance FF, Venice FF), TARANTELLA (PBS), and the forthcoming HABEAS. She recently served on the documentary selection committee for the 2011 Independent Spirit Awards. In addition to SUNSET STORY, Caroline produced the feature film FANCI’S PERSUASION, the Student Academy-Award-winning BARRIER DEVICE, THE GRACE LEE PROJECT (Sundance Channel), and associate produced CAT DANCERS (HBO). Since 2001, she has been Senior Programmer for the Sundance Film Festival, where she selects features films in all sections of the festival, acts as conduit between artists and industry, and serves on the leadership team of the Sundance Creative Producing Initiative. A consultant to Harvard’s Kennedy School, she serves on the board of Women Make Movies and appears widely on panels and juries internationally. Both Laura and Caroline earned their MFA degrees from UCLA Film School.

James V. Hart

Jim will participate in the distribution panel and hold a special session. His body of work includes HOOK, BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA, CONTACT, TUCK EVERLASTING, MUPPETS TREASURE ISLAND, and SAHARA. Most recently, Hart has received screenwriting credit for THE LAST MIMZY and AUGUST RUSH.

Dee LaDuke & Mark Alton Brown

Mark Alton Brown and Dee LaDuke recently completed eight seasons as Consulting Producers on CW’S hit series, “Girlfriends”. They served as Executive Producers for the first two seasons shepherding Mara Brock Akil, the show’s creator. They created and were the Executive Producers of REUNITED, a comedy series starring Julie Hagerty with Castle Rock for UPN. Their produced pilots include NBC’s, “Dangerous Women with Bad Attitudes” and “Gabby”. They’ve worked on half-hour series, most notably as Supervising Producers on “Designing Women” where they wrote more than twenty episodesincluding the award-winning, “Suzanne Goes Looking for a Friend.”

LaDuke & Brown wrote and produced the cult classic, comic mock-documentary film, JACKIE’S BACK for Lifetime. Their feature, RUDELL was sold to Jonathan Demme. They have also have written BEFORE AND AFTER for USA Network and several original features including VENTURA BOULEVARD, TOO HIP and THE WHOLE TRUTH.

Debbie Brubaker

Debbie is a seasoned producer in the world of “indie” feature films and ‘godmother’ of the San Francisco Bay Area independent movie arena. One of her recent production successes, an audience pleaser at Sundance 2009, was co-producing Peter Bratt’s (soon to be released) movie La Mission. She has also done many other feature narratives such as Finn Taylor’s The Darwin Awards , Dopamine (Producer), directed by Mark Decena, which was also a big hit at the Sundance Film Festival 2003, Unflinching Triumph: The Phillip Rockhammer Story , directed by J.R. McCord, aka, Mark Decena, Swing , directed by Martin Guigui, Teknolust, directed by Lynn Hershman Leesom, Bartleby , and The Californians by Jonathan Parker, and line produced Cherish, directed by Finn Taylor. Currently Debbie is working on a documentary with Jennifer Seibel Newsom, Miss Representation, and an indie comedy/horror pic, All About Evil, now in post, directed by Joshua Grannell. In addition, she is Executive Producer of Neon Sky, a dramatic feature.

Debbie is the Executive Vice Chair of the Directors Guild of America- Northern California Coordinating Committee. She was recently selected as a San Francisco Film Commissioner.

Gillian Gordon

Award winning producer Gillian Gordon has been working in the UK for the past 20 years as a Television Executive and Producer. After graduating from NYU film school she began her career in Los Angeles. Experienced in every aspect of film and television production Gordon brings a knowledge of working in Hollywood film development as well as hands on responsibility for ground breaking music videos, commercials and films. She has recently been the MA Producing Film and Television Course Director/Senior Lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Gillian Gordon’s credits include: Boogeyman (1982), Get Outta My Room (Cheech and Chong 1985), Swell Party (1992), Call Red Series Creator and Producer (ITV), Sunny’s Ears (RTS winner) Ragazzi, The Loop, Seesaw (ITV), Greatest Store in the World(BBC) (BAFTA nominee) 22 episodes Star Street (ITV), Green Eyed Monster (BBC), Bond Girls Are Forever (USA/ITV) and Amnesic Borders.

Gillian Gordon is a qualified psychodynamic psychotherapist and runs workshops on her research interest: “Dreams, the Unconscious and Screenwriting”. She continues to develop film and TV projects.

Gillian is Chair of the International Media Producing Programme at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Tisch Asia in Sinagore.

She is a long standing board member of Filmaid International and has recently started an Asian branch of Filmaid in Hong Kong to support their work with Burmese refugees on the Thai- Burma border.

Morrie Warshawski

Morrie Warshawski is a consultant, facilitator and writer who has spent 30 years specializing in the nonprofit sector. His work is characterized by a commitment to the core values of creativity, thoughtfulness, tolerance and transparency. Warshawski works with nonprofits that are having difficulty achieving their goals. He helps them reach their dreams through strategic planning.

Warshawski’s clients represent an eclectic mix of agencies large and small, throughout the US. Recent assignments have come from: Habitat for Humanity San Francisco, President’s Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission, The National Endowment for the Arts, National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, Mississippi Arts Commission.

His writing/editing credits include: A STATE ARTS AGENCY PLANNING TOOLKIT (National Assembly of State Arts Agencies); creation of LESSONS LEARNED: A PLANNING TOOLSITE for the National Endowment for the Arts; SHAKING THE MONEY TREE: HOW TO GET GRANTS AND DONATIONS FOR FILM AND VIDEO, and THE FUNDRAISING HOUSEPARTY; and articles in a number of publications (Grantmakers in the Arts Newsletter, San Francisco Examiner, Foundation News and many others).

Tracey Becker

Tracey Becker began her career as an actress and producer in NYC after training at Wright State, The American Academy of Dramatic Arts and with Sandy Dennis @ HB Studios. In addition to appearing in over thirty plays, she made frequent guest appearances on TV networks like A&E, Comedy Central and Showtime performing sketch comedy. As a producer, she developed and produced industrial videos and a direct-to-video concert featuring kid’s recording artist, Raffi. She also co-wrote and produced a ½ hour comedy/reality hybrid pilot for the Food Network.

Tracey then launched Birnam Wood, a theater and film production company dedicated to developing works by new and established writers including Murray Schisgal and Christopher Durang, among others. She produced the highly successful Off-Broadway run of Doris Davis’ “Summer Share” that NBC TVs Jeffery Lyons called “Must-See Theater!” She then partnered with Dustin Hoffman to develop the one-hour TV drama pilot “44 Wall”. Birnam Wood optioned Allan Knee’s play “The Man Who Was Peter Pan” which David Magee adapted into the screenplay “Finding Neverland”. Tracey produced the film for Miramax which starred Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet with Marc Forster directing, which was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, winning for Best Score.

In 2004, Tracey established Beachfront Films and moved her family to Venice, California. There she has worked developing a series of short films for “Glamour” Magazine, featuring the directing debuts of Jennifer Aniston and Bryce Dallas Howard and Julianne Moore. She developed the feature film script “Chrysalis” with Academy Award winning actor/director Alan Arkin, and has been hired as a consultant on many feature film scripts, both in production and in pre-production.

Because of her long involvement with the New England Seacoast while developing the upcoming “Losing Jerry” which features a soundtrack by The Grateful Dead, she was asked to sit on the Board of Directors for the New Hampshire Film Festival, where she has been integral in attracting top-level talent and films, as well as organizing lectures and panels for this fast-growing, prestigious festival. In addition, her two most recent films, Mitch Ganem’s “Killing Dinner” and Chase Bailey’s “Crooked Lane” both played in competition in 2009’s festival, with “Crooked Lane” winning for NH’s Best Film.

She is currently in pre-production on “Hysteria”, a romantic comedy set in Victorian, England directed by Tanya Wexler (“Ball in the House”), and starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hugh Dancy , Rupert Everett, Jonathan Pryce and Ashley Jensen which will shoot in the UK later this summer.

Mara Alper

Mara Alper is an award-winning media artist and documentary maker, with themes focusing on social issues, as well as older traditions. Her work has screened on PBS, The Learning Channel, Kanal-4 Germany, and at the Museum of Modern Art/NYC, Kampo Museum/Kyoto, Folkwang Museum/Düsseldorf, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Dallas Museum of Art. Johnson Museum of Art, Walker Art Center, Duke University Institute of the Arts, Dance Theater Workshop, National Arts Club and national and international festivals, art galleries and on the Today Show and Good Morning America.

Concerns about current water issues led Mara to create an online interdisciplinary course called “Water = Life,” offered through Ithaca College. Public talks on water include: ”Re-Imagining Water,” “Media & The Environment: Water Issues,” and a segment on water for “Media for Social Change.”

Her grants and honors include National Endowment for the Arts/Rockefeller Foundation Inter-Arts Grant, Sundance Institute Finalist, artist-in-residence fellowships at the MacDowell Art Colony, Yaddo, Millay Art Colony, Experimental Television Center and a New York State Council on the Arts Distribution Grant. She is an Associate Professor at Ithaca College, where she teaches video production, post-production, motion graphics and animation.

Her independent works to date include: Silent Echoes (experimental dance video, 1990), Stories No One Wants To Hear (documentary, 1993), Maria Mitchell: Explorer of the Stars (documentary, 1993), Moving On (experimental video, 1996), Close to the Bone (video-sound installation, 1999), To Erzulie (experimental video, 2002), Lost Voices (video-sound installation, 2002), Toro (installation, 2005), Forgiveness (documentary, 2006), Visions of the Huichol (documentary, 2008), Street Beats New Orleans (documentary, 2009), Protect Our Drinking Water (Political Action, 2009).

Robert West

Robert West is Co-founder and Executive Director of Working Films; co-founded by Peabody Award-winning filmmaker and organizer Judith Helfand.

West, as curator of film and video at the Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte NC, from 1985 – 1999, directed a well known and highly respected media program that included a national independent film festival and national touring film programs, including Conflict & Peace: Recent Israeli and Palestinian Film. West was curator of Recollections: Lumbee Heritage; a unique traveling exhibit on NC Native Americans, that continues to tour the Southeast.

West has been a guest lecturer at the University of North Carolina, at Duke University, at New York University and at the NC School of the Arts. West was a board member of the Paul Robeson Fund for Independent Media, a funder of progressive social justice media, for four years; and a member for 2 years of the nominating committee for the Rockefeller Media Fellowships. He was a panel member of Visions: University of North Carolina Center for Public Television; and a panel member of the Media Arts Fellowship Program of the NEA, Creative Capital, the NC Arts Council, the Radziwell Documentary Fund and The Independent Television Service, a production arm of PBS. In 2004, West was a juror at the Full Frame Film Festival. He is a board member of the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture (NAMAC).

In 2006, West was a panel member at the Sundance Film Festival, From the Multiplex to the Living Room: Marketing on the New Documentary Landscape, and the moderator for Making Your Documentary Matter: Public Engagement Strategies that Work at the Center for Social Media in 2006 and 2007.

Christy Moore

Christy Moore is a 6th generation Texan. Although she has lived in Austin for many years, she still claims as home the tiny Texas town of Roby, where her great-grandparents from every angle on the family tree settled and turned the prairie into farms. She teaches writing at the University of Texas at Austin. She has two scripts that are in the process of revision: one, A Borrowed Line, a black-comedy, murder-mystery takes place in a small West-Texas town; the other, Broken Song, is about an aging, second-tier country western singer who falls in love with a young songwriter. She wrote and directed the short film, Far-fetched Promises, a romantic comedy which is the foundation for a full-length script that is currently in development. A songwriter as well as a screenwriter, Moore writes songs, six of which are featured in Broken Song. Two of her songs have been finalists in the annual Austin Song Contest and she was one of four songwriters selected to perform at the 2010 Austin Songwriter Symposium. A sample of her songs are showcased at www.myspace.com/christymooretexas. Through competitive submissions, Moore was chosen to attend the 2009 Squaw Valley Community of Writers workshop where she studied with prominent screenwriters such as Tom Ricker, Eugene Corr, and Judy Rasco. She is currently featured in a supporting role in independent filmmaker, Andrew Bujalksi’s, third film, Beeswax which was included in MANOHLA DARGIS of the NY Times Best of The Year List (Dec. 17, 2009).

Nevada McPherson

Originally from Georgia, Nevada McPherson received her BA in Creative Writing and MFA in Screenwriting at Louisiana State University-Baton Rouge. Nevada currently teaches screenwriting and film studies in the Media Arts Program at Tulane University’s School of Continuing Studies in New Orleans. She also teaches English, literature and screeenwriting at Nunez Community College in nearby St. Bernard parish, where she is the director Pelican d’Or Short Film Festival. Nevada has written over a dozen feature length screenplays, several of which have won or placed in national and international competitions. Her award-winning original screenplay, Piano Lessons, was a first place winner in the One-in-Ten Screenwriting Competition, which is dedicated to the positive portrayal of gays and lesbians in film, and most recently won first place in the the Honolulu/ Waikiki Film Festival Screenwriting Competition. Piano Lessons also was a selected project for the Summer 2009 Screenwriting Program at the Community of Writers Conference in Squaw Valley, CA. In addition, Nevada wrote, directed and acted in her first short film, “Route of All Evil,” which won the Landmark Theatres Festival Scholarship at the 2008 Big Easy Shorts Film Festival (now Big Easy International Film Festival).