Reach Film Fellowship

Yoni Brook led a “Pre-production Preparedness Assessment” workshop along with producer Susan Leber.  Yoni directed the documentary short, A Son’s Sacrifice, which won Best Documentary Short at the Tribeca Film Festival and the International Documentary Association (IDA) Awards. The film was broadcast in 2008 on PBS’ Independent Lens series. The documentary Bronx Princess, which he co-directed with Musa Syeed, premiered on P.O.V. on PBS. He and Syeed are currently co-directing a film called The Calling for national ITVS/PBS broadcast. Yoni has also worked as a photojournalist at The New York Times and The Washington Post, among other publications. His work has received highest honors at the Pictures of the Year International and Best of Photojournalism competitions. He was named national College Photographer of the Year by the Missouri School of Journalism and was the youngest ever to be selected for Photo District News’ “30 Photographers to Watch”. He is an alumnus of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and was selected to attend the CPB/PBS Producers’ Academy and the Berlinale Talent Campus.

Tze Chun led a workshop titled “Working with Child Actors.”  Tze’s debut feature Children of Invention premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and is currently on the festival circuit.  In the last six months, the film has won Grand Jury Prizes at the Independent Film Festival Boston and the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, as well as Special Jury Prizes at the San Francisco Asian American, Sarasota, Nashville, and Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festivals.  In 2007, Chun was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film” for his short film Windowbreaker, an official selection of Sundance and over 30 other international festivals.  He is currently reteaming with producer Mynette Louie (Children of Invention, Ayiti Ayiti) on his second feature You’re a Big Girl Now.

Dan Cogan is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Impact Partners, a fund and advisory service for investors and philanthropists who seek to promote social change through film. Since its inception two years ago, IP has been involved in the financing of over 25 films, including: Freeheld, which won the 2008 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film; The Garden, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2009; and The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, which won an Emmy in 2007 for Best Documentary Special. Mr. Cogan received his B.A. from Harvard University, Magna Cum Laude, and attended the Film Division at Columbia University’s Graduate School of the Arts.

Nekisa Cooper led an “Intro to Audience Building and Distribution Strategy” workshop with Dan Cogan and Leah Sapin.  Nekisa, a 2008 Sundance Institute Creative Producing Fellow, has produced several projects, including the critically acclaimed narrative short Pariah. In January, she was selected to represent IFP at the 2009 Cinemart/Rotterdam Producing Lab. With business partner, Dee Rees, Nekisa recently completed the documentary feature, Eventual Salvation, which will premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in July and will air on the Sundance Channel in October 2009. Nekisa also recently wrapped production on the narrative short, Colonial Gods, which was a US/UK co-production. Nekisa is currently in development on the feature version of Pariah, which was a finalist for the Netflix FIND Your Voice Competition and on the feature documentary, La Muñeca Fea, a Creative Promise Award winner from the 2009 Tribeca All Access Program and a 2009 IFP Market Spotlight on Documentaries selection.

Cara Cusumano is a festival programmer based in New York City. She has served as a Programmer for the Hamptons International Film Festival, where she programs feature, documentary, and short films, including the festival’s signature Conflict & Resolution sidebar and its Oscar-qualifying shorts program. She has also programmed for the Brooklyn International Film Festival, and is currently an Associate Programmer for the Tribeca Film Festival. She holds a BA in Film from Barnard College and an MA in Cinema Studies from New York University.

Felix Endara is an Ecuadorian-born filmmaker and independent programmer living in New York City. His films have screened at festivals including Berlinale and the Mill Valley International Film Festival. Before joining Arts Engine, he was a media educator at Global Action Project, co-facilitating a program for immigrant and refugee youth. Currently, he manages Arts Engine’s fiscal sponsorship program and the monthly documentary screening series DocuClub.

T. Griffin led a workshop titled “Working with a Composer.”  Griffin is a songwriter, composer and producer working in Brooklyn, New York. Alone and with his band The Quavers he has released four critically acclaimed CDs of songs in a homespun electronic style that’s been described as ‘porch techno’. He has scored films for Tze Chun (Children of Invention, 2009), Landon Van Soest (Good Fortune, 2009), Michael Almereyda (New Orleans, Mon Amour, 2008), Cynthia Lester (Slamdance Jury Prize Winner My Mother’s Garden 2008) Kim Reed (Telluride sensation Prodigal Sons, 2008), Esther B. Robinson (Berlin Teddy Award Winner, A Walk Into The Sea, 2007) as well as shorts for Peter Sillen and Jem Cohen and others. He wrote original songs and a full score for avant-garde theater director Anne Bogart’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and has created and performed live soundtrack shows for Jem Cohen, Brent Green and for an international tour of the late Danny Williams’ Warhol Factory films. As a producer and player he has worked with musical luminaries including Vic Chesnutt, Patti Smith, Tom Verlaine and members of godspeed you! black emperor, Fugazi and The Ex. Griffin was a 2008 fellow at the Sundance Institute Composer’s Lab.

Ryan Harrington is the Director of Documentary Programs at the Tribeca Film Insititute where he runs the Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund and develops other initiatives and programs that support non-fiction filmmaking. Independently he has produced the films 21 Below, Entre Nos, P-Star Rising, and the upcoming Hungry in America (Kristi Jacobson & Lori Silverbush), Radio Unnameable (Paul Lovelace) and The Chameleon (Ben Steinbauer). Ryan managed production for A&E IndieFilms, the theatrical documentary arm of the A&E Network, for four years. Throughout his time there he championed the Oscar-nominated films Murderball and Jesus Camp, and the Sundance hits My Kid Could Paint That and American Teen. Other films include Barbara Kopple’s Bearing Witness, Annie Sundberg & Ricki Stern’s The End of America, Le Cirque: A Table in Heaven and Alexis Arquette She’s My Brother.

Ingrid Kopp is Director of Shooting People – an international networking community for independent filmmakers. She began her career in television in the Documentaries department at Channel 4 Television in the United Kingdom. While there she worked across both original commissions and documentary acquisitions and ran a series of workshops for young filmmakers. She moved to New York in 2004 to work as an Associate Producer for a number of independent production companies before taking her current post at Shooting People. She also works as a documentary programming consultant and writes and teaches about the intersection of film, technology and social media.

Susan Leber led a “Pre-production Preparedness Assessment” workshop with filmmaker  and photojournalist Yoni Brook.  Susan was named one of Variety’s 10 Producers to Watch 2004. Her first feature production, Ilya Chaiken’s Margarita Happy Hour, had its world premiere at Sundance 2001. After working with Scott Saunders on shorts, Susan and Jim Calabrese produced his feature The Technical Writer, which debuted at Sundance in 2003 and starred Tatum O’ Neil and William Forsythe. She produced the critical darling Down to the Bone, which premiered at Sundance 2004 and won two awards, Best Director for Debra Granik and a special jury prize for actress Vera Farmiga. She co-produced Alfredo DeVilla’s Adrift in Manhattan which premiered in competition at Sundance 2007. She also co-produced Ed Radtke’s (The Dreamcatcher) The Speed of Life, which premiered at Venice Days at the Venice Film Festival 2007. Most recently Toe to Toe, which she produced, was nominated for a 2009 Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and will be released by Strand this winter.

Jeff Marcello led a workshop on “Strategizing Post Production Workflow.”  Jeff is a New York based editor and post supervisor. Recent credits include: Toe to Toe (editor/post supervisor), the feature narrative that premiered at Sundance 2009 and will be distributed in 2010 by Strand Releasing in the US and Regent Releasing worldwide. Planet B-Boy (editor/post supervisor), which had a successful theatrical run worldwide in 2008 and can now be seen on DVD and on MTV. Jeff has edited many television shows for Discovery Channel, TLC, Travel Channel, Style Network, Spike TV and Nickelodeon. He is currently editing the feature documentary Cultures of Resistance which looks at contemporary conflicts around the world and creative solutions by local artists and peace activists.

Paola Mendoza was named one of Filmmaker Magazine 25 Fresh Faces to watch for 2009. She made her directorial debut with Autumn’s Eyes, a feature length documentary, which premiered at the 2006 South by Southwest Film Festival. Paola co-wrote Entre Nos, which was an official selection at the 2007 IFP Market, and where it won the Grand Jury Prize for the Panasonic Digital Filmmakers Award. The film was an official selection at Tribeca All-Access and was awarded Honorable Mention at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival. Entre Nos also received the Audience Award at the Newport International Film Festival. She recently produced a feature documentary called Without the King, which took home the Special Jury Prize at HotDocs Film Festival. As an actress, she starred in the 2004 critically acclaimed film, On the Outs for which she received a nomination for Best Supporting Actress from the Method Film Festival. She also starred in the 2007 Sundance Grand Jury Prize winning film Sangre de mi sangre.

Esther Robinson led a workshop titled “Financial Sustainability for Filmmakers.”  Robinson has worked on behalf of America’s artists for over 14 years in many capacities, including as a foundation program officer, television and film producer, and technology entrepreneur. In 1998, Robinson produced the feature documentary HomePage with acclaimed filmmaker Doug Block, which screened in competition at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, SXSW, and more. It aired domestically on HBO/CINEMAX and ZDF/ARTE in Europe, and was broadcast in over a dozen countries internationally. Robinson holds a Film and Television degree from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.  In 2006, she was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 to Watch.” Her film, A Walk into the Sea: Danny Williams and The Warhol Factory won top prizes at the Berlin, Tribeca and Chicago film festivals in 2007 and is in international theatrical release. Robinson is the founder of ArtHome, a non-profit business that helps artists and their communities build assets and equity through financial literacy and home-ownership.

Leah Sapin led an “Intro to Audience Building and Distribution Strategy” workshop with Nekisa Cooper and Dan Cogan.  Leah has freelanced in independent film & television production and post-production in NYC, London and Manchester (UK). She has worked for BBC Television, Radical Media, and Guns For Hire Productions (among other companies) on television documentary projects and feature length narratives including Welcome to Tehran, Iconoclasts, Novacaine and Pop Life. Leah was also recently Associate Producer for two one-hour documentaries for Al Jazeera English and is the Producer of a work-in-progress feature documentary. Leah is the Festival & Outreach Manager for the Media That Matters Film Festival at Arts Engine, where she works on international outreach and distribution for the festival’s films and manages partnerships with organizations such as Tribeca Film Institute, Creative Commons, Miro, GOOD Magazine and HBO’s Reel Works Teen Filmmaking.

Director of Photography Michael Simmonds led a cinematography workshop.  Michael studied cinematography at The School of Visual Arts in NYC where he received his BFA, after which he shot two films for world-renowned filmmaker, Amir Naderi, Marathon (2002) and Sound Barrier (2005).  Simmonds went on to collaborate with critically acclaimed award-winning writer/director Ramin Bahrani, and shot Man Push Cart (2005) and Chop Shop, which premiered at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. Both earned him an Independent Spirit Award Nomination for Best Cinematography (2007, 2009). Goodbye Solo, his third film with Bahrani, screened at Venice Film Festival where it received the FIPRESCI Prize. Simmonds lensed 2009 Sundance Grand Jury nominee Big Fan by writer/director Robert Siegal. Recently, Simmonds collaborated with Bahrani on the short film Plastic Bag, which screened opening night at Venice, and also at the Telluride and New York film festivals. Aside from his narrative fiction work, Simmonds has worked with many notable documentarians, including Margaret Brown on The Order of Myths, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and went on to win many awards including Cinematic Vision Award at Silverdocs Documentary Festival and the Truer Than Fiction Award at the Independent Spirit Awards.

Cameron Yates is a documentary programmer and filmmaker. He is currently the Documentary Film Programmer for NewFest: The New York LGBT Film Festival, and a Documentary Programming Consultant for The Hamptons International Film Festival. He has worked for Sundance, The New York Film Festival, Albert Maysles, Zeitgeist Films, and contributes to indieWIRE. His first film 14 and Payrolled a portrait of four teenagers working as Pages for the Virginia House of Delegates, premiered on PBS in 2003, and he is currently in post-production on a feature documentary about a New Orleans madam and her family entitled The Canal Street Madam.

Past advisors of the program have included: award-winning documentary filmmaker Edet Belzberg (Children Underground, The Recruiter); Joshua Blum, founder and president of Washington Square Films/Arts; renowned cinematographer and director Ellen Kuras (The Betrayal (Nerakhoon), Blow, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind); and 2008 Nicholl Fellowship finalist and filmmaker Afia Nathaniel (Neither the Veil, Nor the Four Walls).