Nia Dinata was born on March 4, 1970 in Jakarta, Indonesia. She graduated with a Mass Communications degree from Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. Nia then participated in special programs on film production at New York University. Since returning to Indonesia in 1995, Nia has worked on various projects, mostly for television. In 1998 she won an award in The Indonesian Film for TV Festival for Best Picture and Best Drama for a 90-minute television drama entitled Mencari Pelangi(In Search for the Rainbow). Since then, Nia has directed various TV programs, TV ,commercials and music videos.

Nia’s first feature film debut was a semi colossal epic titled Ca Bau Kan (The Courtesan) which was produced in 2001. Ca Bau Kan is a film based on the novel by a prominent Indonesian writer, Remy Sylado. Ca Bau Kan is the first movie that revolves around the Chinese community in Indonesia after the Indonesian reform era. For Ca Bau Kan, Nia won an award for Best Promising New Director in the Asia Pacific Film Festival, Seoul, Korea in 2002. The film also won Best Art Director in the same festival. In 2003, Ca Bau Kan was selected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences to be screened for a candidate of Foreign Film nomination at the Oscar.

In April 2002, she produced a film titled Biola Tak Berdawai (or The Stringless Violin). This film is a debut by an independent Indonesian woman director, Sekar Ayu Asmara.

In 2003, Nia directed Arisan! (The Gathering), a satirical comedy with a screenplay written by Nia herself and Joko Anwar. Arisan! received countless rave reviews around the world for its boldness in portraying gay characters in Indonesia (the largest Muslim country) and has won audiences’ heart for its heartwarming sincerity. The film won numerous awards in film festivals in Indonesia. In the Cinemasia Film Festival in Amsterdam 2004, Arisan! won Best Film. In the Asian American International Film Festival in New York 2004, the film was nominated for the Annual Emerging Director Award. The film was officially selected at the Vancouver International Film Festival and the Turin International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, among others. At the MTV Indonesian Movie Awards in 2004 the film won Best Picture, Best Director and Most Favorite Supporting Actor. In the Indonesian Film Festival (FFI) in 2004, the film won Best Film, Best Editing, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor. Arisan! Has been screened in more than fifty film festivals around the world.

In May 2004, for the 20th anniversary of Fonds Sud Cinéma, together with the French Foreign Affairs Minister and festival de Cannes; Nia was invited to join the Cannes Young Directors Program. In June 2004, Nia was selected as one of the jurors for the French Film Festival in Indonesia.

In April 2005 she produced a feature film titled Janji Joni (Joni’s Promise). The movie was released in April 2005. This is the debut for Joko Anwar (co-writer of Arisan!) as a director. Besides her passion in directing, Nia also believes in the potential of other young Indonesian filmmakers. With an independent production company she owns, Kalyana Shira Films, Nia has a commitment to developing interesting scripts and producing more quality Indonesian films. “Janji Joni” has won several awards, including Best Movie at the MTV Indonesia Movie Awards and Best Editing in the Asia Pacific Film Festival. It has also screened in many film festivals around the world, including the Asian American International Film Festival, Pusan International Film Festival, and an upcoming screening at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

With her latest film, Love for Share (Berbagi Suami, 2006), Nia prooves herself to be the leading Indonesian woman director who is bravely tackling sensitive issue such as polygamy in the country with the largest Muslim population in the world. The film was in competition for Best International Narative Feature in the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival, New York. Love For Share won the Halekulani Golden Award for Best Pictures in Hawaii International Film Festival 2006. At the 2006 Cannes festival, Love for Share was chosen to be one of the films from the Asia Pacific region to be sponsored for its market screening by The French Foreign Ministry, in conjunction with the Cinema du Sud pavillion. Nia won Best Director for Love For Share at the 34th International Independent Film Festival Brussels in 2007.

Nia’s produced a dramatic comedy Quickie Express in 2007 and also produced four short films by first-time women film directors (including one of her own) Chants of Lotus (Perempuan Punya Cerita) in January 2008. Nia’s producedSoccer Trouble (Gara-Gara Bola) in 2008 with Happy Ending Pictures, a new division of Kalyana Shira Films.

Nia’s latest production is a documentary feature Pertaruhan (At Stake). It’s the first Indonesian documentary to be selected at the prestigious Panorama section at the Berlin International Film Festival. She is commited to continue producing narrative and documentary feature to give more choices for the Indonesian audience. She also founded KidsfFest, an International Film Festival for children which will be launched in July 2009. As for her passion in writing screenplay and directing, she is in the process of developing her new feature film. Besides being a film maker, Nia has written various columns in major news paper about social and political issues, including Kompas, and has her own “Apolitis” column in Kompas where she shares her thought about democracy and the coming election.

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Jonathan Stack is a multiple Emmy Award-winning and two-time Academy Award® nominated documentary filmmaker. During his career Jonathan has written, produced and directed over 25 films and 50 television programs including THE FARM: LIFE INSIDE ANGOLA PRISON, which was honored with the Sundance Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize. His films have been distributed through HBO, BBC, A&E, Channel Four, the Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel, and many others in 20 countries.

Jonathan Stack began his documentary career as a co-curator at the Margaret Mead Film Festival. In 1991, he started his own company, Gabriel Films, and began making documentaries with filmmakers and international television partners. His first film, “One Generation More,” which he produced with the BBC, examined the resurgence of Jewish culture in Estonia. Stack has gone on to produce over 20 films, all of which have been broadcast on major television networks both in the United States and abroad. His film, THE FARM: ANGOLA, USA (1998), was nominated for an Academy Award® and won Grand Jury Prize at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival, two Emmy® Awards, the National Film Critics Award for Best Non-Fiction Film and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Documentary. Other recent credits include THE WILDEST SHOW IN THE SOUTH: THE ANGOLA PRISON RODEO (1999, also nominated for an Academy Award), NO ESCAPE: PRISON RAPE and 900 WOMEN (both 2001), JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE (2002), “Liberia: An Uncivil War” (2004, TV), and “Youth Authority: California” (TV), IRON LADIES OF LIBERIA and DEAR TALULA (all 2007).

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.

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 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).

Tamuira Reid is a writer and educator living in New York City. Since receiving her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College in 2003, she has been teaching in both traditional and non-traditional classrooms, from India to a state penitentiary and now full time at NYU. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications and anthologies, including 2004’s America Meet Modernism: Women of the Little Magazine Movement, published by Great Marsh Press/Cervantes Institute. In 2003, Tamuira placed third in the Atlantic Monthly’s Writing Contest for Nonfiction, and in 2007 received the SuRaa award for short fiction. Her first feature-length screenplay, Luna’s Highway, a dark comedy about family secrets, earned her a finalist position in the 2009 American Zoetrope Screenwriting Contest, judged by Francis Ford Coppola, and a 2010 semifinals finish in the internationally esteemed Nicholl Fellowship Competition, sponsored by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Tamuira was the recipient of a Vermont Studio Center residency in 2009, and was chosen as one of twenty-four screenwriters to participate in the Squaw Valley Screenwriting Workshop. Tamuira is currently at work on a new script, a drama set in rural Kentucky. In April of 2011, she will serve on the faculty at the inaugural Global Social Change Film Festival & Institute in Ubud, Bali.

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 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.

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).