Documentary director Laura Gabbert's critically acclaimed films deploy full measures of humor and drama to unflinchingly put a human face on such difficult social issues as aging, the environment, and AIDS. NO IMPACT MAN, which the Los Angeles Times called "terrifically entertaining, compelling and extremely funny.” premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, and played theatrically in over 30 cities. Her previous film SUNSET STORY won multiple awards, including prizes at Tribeca and Los Angeles Film Festival. About it, New York Times critic Manohla Dargis wrote, "Perfect of its kind…Sunset Story may break your heart, but it will also make your day." Other credits include the PBS documentary THE HEALERS OF 400 PARNUSSUS, the ITVS feature film TARANTELLA starring Mira Sorvino, and the Sundance Competition and Venice Film Festival feature, GETTING TO KNOW YOU.
Most recently, Laura directed and produced the feature length documentary CITY OF GOLD about Pulitzer Prize winning Los Angeles Times food writer Jonathan Gold. The film premiered in competition at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.
About CITY OF GOLD, the New York Times said, “…the film does as much to demystify and yet romanticize Los Angeles as any Chandler novel.” IFC/Sundance Selects bought the film at Sundance and it will open theatrically in March, 2016.
Laura has served on many committees and panels including the Independent Spirit Awards, the IDA Awards, the San Francisco Film Festival Documentary Jury, and the Cinema Eye Awards. She received her MFA from UCLA’s School of Theater Television and Film. Laura lives in the Mt. Washington area of Los Angeles.
Holly is a producer, director, and creative consultant. Her producing projects include CITY OF GOLD, plus Peter Mattei’s genre-bending thriller, THE FOLLOWER. She recently produced THE SOURCE FAMILY, a doc about a 1970’s-era utopian community, which premiered at SXSW, and was distributed by Drag City and Gravitas Entertainment. She is also making a documentary about the Vancouver-based Eastside Story Guild.
In 2007-08, Holly was a production consultant for UK-based Film4. Just prior, she was SVP of production for Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, where she supervised Ira Sach’s MARRIED LIFE, Jon Poll’s CHARLIE BARTLETT, and others. Holly joined SKE after serving as VP of production and development for IFC Entertainment for six years. At IFC, Holly was executive producer on Miranda July’s ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW, Aric Avelino’s AMERICAN GUN, Todd Graff’s CAMP, Michael Showalter’s THE BAXTER, Michael Almereyda’s THIS SO-CALLED DISASTER, and lots of others. She also supervised production on Patrick Stettner’s NIGHT LISTENER, John Crowley’s INTERMISSION, Peter Hedges’ PIECES OF APRIL, and many more.
While at IFC, Holly produced an independent anti-nuke film called ORIGINAL CHILD BOMB, which won Silverdocs, and played on the Sundance Channel.
Holly has been a programmer for the Los Angeles Film Festival (2010), and the Seattle International Film Festival (1997, 98, 99). She has held many creative jobs in arts institutions in New York and elsewhere, including: talent consultant for Next Wave Films, creative consultant for the Sundance Institute, co-producer of the Reading Room Series for Lincoln Center, and curator of performing arts and film at Mass MOCA.
Holly lives in Los Angeles with her husband, director Dermott Downs, and their young daughter, Tallulah.
Andrea Lewis is a Los Angeles-based documentary director and producer. She graduated from Indiana University in 2011 where her first short documentary 'A House, A Life' premiered on PBS. During her time there she also was an Associate Producer on the feature documentary MEDORA, about a basketball team in rural Indiana. Upon moving to LA she began working for Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering on their Oscar nominated documentary THE INVISIBLE WAR.
Most recently she co-produced director Laura Gabbert's film about LA Time's food writer Jonathan Gold, CITY OF GOLD, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. She currently resides in Echo Park, CA but has a constant eye out for the right mobile home. She also thinks about being a tornado chaser a lot.
Jamie Wolf is a journalist, editor and photographer who is also an executive producer of films. She’s been actively involved for many yearswith PEN Center USA, the western branch of the world-wide writers’ organization PEN International, first as a member of the Board and now as the vice president of the Center. One of the original group of editors at The Washington Monthly, she has written about politics and other subjects for that magazine as well as for Harper’s; The New Yorker; New West; American Film; Los Angeles Times Magazine; Los Angeles Magazine, for whom she was a contributing writer; and LA Weekly, for whom she covered the Howard Dean campaign; and also for motherjones.com.
Wolf’s essay dealing with parenthood and grown children, “The Shoes in the Hall,” appeared in the anthology “The Empty Nest,” published by Hyperion in 2007. Her photographs of urban landscapes have been published in DoubleTake magazine and exhibited in Washington, D.C., and in Los Angeles.
She’s a member of Impact Partners, a documentary producing consortium. Independently, she has executive-produced “Open Secret,” a documentary about a childhood deception by Steve Lickteig, which aired several times on Al Jazeera America in the fall of 2013, and “Born This Way,” by Shaun Kadlec and Deb Tullman, a film about the LGBT underground in Cameroon, which won the Best Documentary prize at Los Angeles’ Outfest film festival in July of 2013, with the following citation: “For its elegant camera work, sound design and narrative structure, its quietly beautiful depiction of the textures of its subject’s lives, and its achievement in articulating contradictions while maintaining a sense of hope, the 2013 Outfest Grand Jury Award for Outstanding Documentary Feature Film goes to BORN THIS WAY.”
Braxton Pope is feature film and television producer who maintained a production deal with Lionsgate. His newest film The Trust starring Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage and Elijah Wood is currently in post production. Pope recently produced The Canyons written by Bret Easton Ellis, directed by Paul Schrader and starring Lindsay Lohan. The film generated national press because of the innovative way in which it was financed and produced and was the subject of a lengthy cover story in the New York Times Magazine. It was released theatrically by IFC and was selected by the Venice Film Festival and was named as one of the year’s best by the New Yorker. He produced the Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions feature film Shrink starring Kevin Spacey, Robin Williams and Gore Vidal which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and received a national theatrical release. He also produced The Take, which was released theatrically by Sony Pictures to rave reviews and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival where it was touted as a “must see film.”
He produced the feature film The Bondage which made its North American premiere at SXSW. He also produced horror and science fiction films for MGM and Lionsgate. He Executive Produced Pete Smalls is Dead starring Peter Dinklage and the feature film Life is Hot in Cracktown, starring Kerry Washington. He Executive Produced the feature documentary The Source Family which premiered in competition at SXSW and Sundance competition documentary City of Gold on Pulitzer Prize winning food critic Jonathan Gold which IFC bought and is theatrically releasing. He is developing projects with Gus Van Sant, Gaspar Noe, Will Self, Denis Johnson and Sarah Silverman. In television he Executive Produced the Showtime pilots What’s Not To Love and Hedonism and a Lionsgate/FX comedy pilot Sweat Shop.
He Executive Produced visual content for Kanye West’s Yeezus and is collaborating with West on multiple projects and cast the Beyonce & Jay Z video Run starring Sean Penn, Jake Gyllenhaal, Blake Lively, Don Cheadle and Emmy Rossum. He produced the Drake and Makonnen music video Tuesday and Constant Conversations and Carried Away for electropop band Passion Pit. Carried Away was nominated for three MVPA awards as well as “Best Alternative Video” at the UK Music Video Awards and an MTV Woodie Award for “Best Music Video.” He also produced the award nominated MGMT video Cool Song No 2 that featured Michael K. Williams and was acclaimed by Vice as “the best music video of the year.” It was also selected by SXSW and named in many blogs as one of the year’s best. He produced a music video for the Dum Dum Girls, Are You Okay? in association with Vice and MOCAtv. In 2013 he produced a contemporary art video for Yoshua Okon and an art film for Milan fashion week for Roberto Cavalli as well Tribeca selection “Two Points of Failure” about Jean-Luc Godard.
Pope began his career at Artisan Entertainment and was Director of Acquisitions, tracking films, attending film festivals and working on co-productions. He received his B.A. from Cornell University and was a Telluride Scholar and was the recipient of the Cornell Book Award. He was selected by the Hollywood Reporter for their Next Generation issue’s “35 under 35.” Pope is a member of the Producers Guild of America and Film Independent and a board member of Cornell in Hollywood. He has been featured at the National Association of Broadcasters super session and was an invited speaker at the Writer’s Guild of America, Bloomberg Finance Summit, San Francisco International Film Festival, American Film Market and Sundance Film Festival. He has appeared on Huffington Post Live and TMZ and has written about film for Vanity Fair and Paste Magazine and was also the author of a pseudonymous entertainment column for the online literary site of McSweeneys Quarterly.
Greg is a film editor with over a decade of experience in documentary and narrative features, shorts, television, experimental films, music videos, and non-profit promos. His work has appeared at such festivals as Hot Docs, Edinburgh, Ann Arbor, Rooftop Films, deadCenter, and Brooklyn Film Festival, and aired on The Documentary Channel, Netflix, and Canal Poland TV. Greg is also a multi-disciplinary artist, having directed his own films, exhibited widely as a painter and video artist, and worked as a video projections designer for live theatre.
His music video “Glass Sun” (with LA band HOTT MT) recently won the Grand Prize and award at the 2013 “On Location” festival, presented by New Filmmakers LA. His award-winning feature documentary Our House (co-directed with David Teague) received its world premiere at Hot Docs 2010, and enjoyed a robust festival run. His dance film “chloes” (co-created with choreographer Lea Fulton), premiered at the 2010 Dance on Camera Film Festival at the Lincoln Center in New York.
He directed the 14-part experimental film cycle Rotating Mirror in collaboration with the band rachel’s, which received a Jerome Foundation Media Arts Grant. Greg toured with rachelʼs for twelve years, and created numerous films to accompany their live performances. As a video projections designer for theater, he has worked with acclaimed directors Anne Bogart of SITI Company (Hotel Cassiopeia, featured at the 2007 BAM Next Wave Festival), and Lear deBessonet (Bone Portraits, The Eliots).
He lives in Silver Lake, Los Angeles with his wife Ashley and five-month-old son Gabriel, who recently enjoyed watching Godfrey Reggio’s film Koyaanisqatsi for the first time with his father.
William Haugse has been nominated in editing categories for both an Oscar (“Hoop Dreams,” Fineline) and a national Emmy ("Assassinated," Turner), and has received the American Cinema Editors top award among other honors. He has edited scores of doc features, and television films, including “Stevie” (Steve James, Lionsgate) and “Sunset Story” (Laura Gabbert, ITVS/PBS). His credits also include sixty or so shorter films as director and/or editor, including the short feature "Breakfast in Bed" starring John Ritter, shown in festivals here and in Europe. He worked directly with Orson Welles and John Cassavetes on multiple projects, including extended length trailers for their films "Opening Night" and "F For Fake."
He has worked on location as producer and/or editor in New York, Geneva, Cairo, Bali, Rajasthan and more; he is now based in Los Angeles. For five years in the '90s he taught editing and general filmmaking at the USC Cinema School. He also makes paintings, some exhibited, and poems, some published.
Recent work includes "Gore Vidal: United States of Amnesia (2013 Tribeca" “superb” Hollywood Reporter.) His work is represented in two films at 2015 Sundance, "In Football We Trust," and "City of Gold."
Jerry Henry is a Los Angeles-based cinematographer who received his MFA degree from UCLA's prestigious Production Program with an emphasis on Documentary, Cinematography and Digital Media. During the tragedies of 9/11, Jerry was in a rural village in Kenya documenting HIV positive orphans which resulted in his award-winning short documentary I Promise Africa. I Promise Africa has premiered in over 100 film festivals around the world and has won many prestigious awards, among them being a Directors Guild of America Student Award. Jerry was awarded the Gordon Parks Emerging African American Filmmaker Award at the 27th annual IFP Market and he also received the Media That Matters Film Festival Tolerance Education Award for his film Something Other Than Other. Jerry’s visual talents have taken him to Sao Paulo, Brazil to shoot the film BRASILINTIME by renowned photographer B+, director of KEEPINTIME.
His cinematography credits also include the 2011 Oscar nominated documentary Exit Through The Gift Shop directed by Banksy and American Revolutionary which premiered on the PBS documentary series POV. His credits also include Producer/ Cinematographer for numerous documentaries and doc-reality series for MTV News & Docs, National Geographic, A&E, Bravo, VH-1, NBC, OWN, Pivot and the Discovery Channel, to name a few. He also Produce/ DP's branded content under his production company Cactus Eyelash, INC for clients Ford, Reebok, Nike, Honda, and MasterCard. He is currently serving as a board member of U Create Youth Workshop a non-profit organization providing youth opportunities to learn and explore the digital arts and related art forms in Highland Park, CA. He continues to explore the beauty of filmmaking while ardently working to create a better future for the kids of his community.
Goro Toshima is an award winning documentary filmmaker and cinematographer. His film, A Hard Straight, received the jury award for best documentary feature at the South by Southwest and Santa Barbara Film Festivals. In addition to screening at dozens of festivals, A Hard Straight broadcast nationally on PBS’ Emmy award winning series, Independent Lens. The Village Voice called the film “riveting...an honest and intimate film packed with much needed answers.” Variety said “it’s a dramatic and up-close look at the temptations and frustrations faced by three parolees.... It won’t be hard for this documentary to gain global festival and tube exposure.”
Broken Doors received a best documentary short nomination from the International Documentary Association. It also received the jury award for best documentary short at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival and New Orleans Int’l Film Festival, and screened at numerous festivals throughout the U.S. and Europe.
As a cinematographer, Goro’s work has aired on HBO, PBS, the Sundance Channel and Bravo. He has DP’ed numerous documentaries and docu-reality shows.
Composer/multi-instrumentalist Bobby Johnston’s recent credits include scores for directors Charlie Kaufman, Larry Clark and Stuart Gordon. His approach to composing utilizes organic and acoustic instruments, which he usually plays himself, sometimes complemented by featured soloists.
Johnston has been called “a new voice in film” by Film Score Monthly and his score for King of the Ants earned him critical praise in film music circles.
Subsequent works include scores for the films Wristcutters: A Love Story, Edmond, Stuck, Mother’s Day, No Impact Man and Crazy Eyes.
His composition I’m Leaving You was featured on the soundtrack to the 2013 film The Lone Ranger. Johnston’s music has often been heard on the radio program This American Life and has been included on two of the show’s greatest hits CDs.
