Anayansi Prado  ·  Elease Lui  ·  Lisa Y. Garibay

ANAYANSI  PRADO
Founder & Executive Director

An award-winning documentary filmmaker, Anayansi Prado was born in Panama and moved to the United States as a teenager. She later attended Boston University where she received a B.A. in Film. Her debut documentary, Maid in America, about the lives of Latina immigrant women working as domestic workers in Los Angeles, CA, screened nationally on the PBS Independent Lens series and in over 40 film festivals in the U.S. and around the world including The Full Frame Film Festival, The Los Angeles Film Festival and The Havana Film Festival in Cuba.

In 2008, Anayansi completed her second independent production, Children in No Man’s Land, about the 100,000 unaccompanied immigrant minors crossing the US/Mexico border every year, which screened at the Guadalajara Film Festival, United Nations Association Film Festival, The Muestra de Derechos Humanos (Human Rights Film Festival ) in Spain and The Los Angeles Latino Film Festival. Children in No Man’s Land is being distributed by New Day Films. In 2007, Anayansi served as an executive producer on the Discovery en Español series Voces de Cambio, about humanitarian issues in the Latino community, which featured Carlos Santana and Edward James Olmos.

Anayansi has received a Rockefeller Media Fellowship and is the recipient of two Media Grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, as well as grants from Creative Capital, the Paul Robeson Media Fund, Pacific Pioneer Fund, Independent Television Services (ITVS), The Fledgling Foundation, Chicken & Egg Pictures and was named one of three up-and-coming Latina filmmakers in the United States by Latina Magazine.

Anayansi is also the founder of Impacto Films, a production company geared toward the production of documentaries with a social impact. Continuing with the vision of film as a powerful tool for social impact, she recently founded The Impacto Foundation.

Anayansi is currently in production of Give Us Your Retired, Your Rich, Your Americans, a documentary that explores the growing phenomenon of American retirees migrating to Latin America, specifically to Panama, and the effects and challenges faced by both the retirees and the local Panamanian communities in which they live.

Ms. Prado is a member of The International Documentary Association (IDA) and National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP). She resides in Los Angeles, CA.

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ELEASE LUI
Co-Founder & Managing Director

Elease Lui was born and raised in Philadelphia, PA. After completing her B.S. degree in Film & Television Production at Boston University, she moved to Los Angeles, California.

Her industry experience began at Women Make Movies, a non-profit media arts organization which facilitates the production, promotion, distribution and exhibition of independent films by and about women. In 2001, Elease went to work for Black Entertainment Television (BET/Viacom) on various episodic programs, ranging from music trivia to comedy and talk shows. She left the network in 2002 as an Associate Producer.

For the next several years, Elease worked as a Production Coordinator on a large scale, live events such as the American Music Awards, Daytime Emmy Awards and the Golden Globes. She has also freelanced on numerous nationally broadcast shows produced by MTV Networks, Dick Clark Productions, Ken Erlich Productions, and Lyn Goldfarb Productions.

Throughout her academic and professional life, Elease has been an enthusiastic and outspoken advocate for environmental awareness and social change. After several years of work in television, she decided to vigorously pursue this passion, ultimately leading to her current position as an Associate Producer at BlackLight Films, an award-winning documentary production company.

Additionally, Elease has worked on a volunteer basis with many non-profit organizations including The Nature Conservancy, Visual Communications (an Asian Pacific American filmmakers association) and The Big Picture Alliance, which partners with schools, community centers and arts organizations to educate disadvantaged and underserved youth in developing self-expression, life and job skills through the collaborative process of creating media art.

Currently, Elease is in production on a feature nature documentary, Naked Beauty, under Walt Disney Pictures’ new wildlife and environmental production banner, DisneyNature.

She is a member of Film Independent and the Producers Guild of America.

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LISA Y. GARIBAY
Co-Founder & Associate Director

Lisa Y. Garibay was born and raised in El Paso, Texas, attended Amherst College in Massachusetts, and is now based in Los Angeles. She produced the feature film Robbing Peter, which world premiered in competition at the 2004 Los Angeles Film Festival and received four 2005 Independent Spirit Award nominations. Garibay has also consulted on film projects including acclaimed experimental filmmaker Jon Reiss’ Bomb It and Anayansi Prado’s Children in No Man's Land. She is also producing and directing the documentary Sisters y Santos, focusing on the causes behind and battles against violence on the U.S-Mexico border.

Garibay’s nonprofit experience began in her hometown with the El Paso Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, for which she was Convention & Tourism Coordinator from 1992–1995. In 1996, Garibay began a longstanding relationship with Film Independent (formerly IFP/LA), the nation's largest organization supporting independent filmmaking. Garibay managed the organization’s corporate fundraising, marketing and Project:Involve minority mentorship program while editing their monthly publication and website. For Film Independent’s Los Angeles Film Festival, Garibay served as Publicity Coordinator, Filmmaker Liaison and Associate Programmer. From 1999¬–2003, Garibay was Marketing Manager for NATPE (National Association of Television Program Executives), overseeing online and print communications for the industry's largest nonprofit association of TV industry professionals.

As a journalist, Garibay's writing on music, film and Latino culture appears regularly in Back Stage weekly, Dazed and Confused magazine, Filmmaker magazine, Helio magazine, Mean Street magazine, Newspaper Tree, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, SOMA magazine and What's Up El Paso. For her work, Garibay was awarded a fellowship with the Sundance Institute's Arts Writing Program. She is also founder of ThenItMustBeTrue.com, an alternative outlet for journalists, filmmakers and musicians to discuss their crafts. Participants who have contributed discussions to TIMBT include filmmakers Lars Von Trier, David Cronenberg, Pedro Almodóvar, Michel Gondry, and Walter Salles, and musicians Gustavo Santaolalla, Radiohead, The Mars Volta, Peter Murphy, Dave Navarro, and Underworld, among many others.

In 2002, Garibay created LARGetc. to provide effective grassroots publicity and management for independent musicians and filmmakers. Clients have included bands Helen Stellar, Siva and The Section Quartet as well as Impacto Films, The Aaron Sims Company and White Rock Lake Productions.

In 2004, Garibay partnered with noted film consultant Peter Broderick to create FilmsToSeeBeforeYouVote.org. She the founder of CineMás, a non-profit initiative linking film with education and community development among Latino populations, and co-founder of Grassroots Screening, which aims to connect social issues films with activist organizations and niche audiences to affect change.

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Lyn Goldfarb ·   Victor Mares  ·   José Luis Benavides  ·   Peter Holderness 

LYN GOLDFARB
PRESIDENT
Documentary Filmmaker, Lyn Goldfarb Productions

Academy-Award nominated filmmaker Lyn Goldfarb has a unique portfolio of innovative media productions for a diversity of venues, from museums and educational institutions to public and cable television.

Lyn Goldfarb has produced and directed 13 long form PBS documentaries, and was a creator and Executive Producer of 3 major PBS national prime time series: JAPAN: MEMOIRS OF A SECRET EMPIRE (Director, Writer and Producer); THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE FIRST CENTURY (Director, Producer); and THE NEW LOS ANGELES: CALIFORNIA AND THE AMERICAN DREAM. (Director and Producer).

She also served as the Executive Producer for Business Communications: Tools for Leadership an award winning 12 hour Distance Learning series, also broadcast on PBS. She was awarded a fellowship to the prestigious Directing Workshop for Women at the American Film Institute where she directed a short narrative feature.

Lyn Goldfarb’s work embraces new forms of media. She is a central part of the team that produced PUBLIC BROADCASTING IN PUBLIC PLACES, a model for interactive kiosks funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and awarded a Golden Plaque for best interactive “Visitor Center’s Presentation” in the Chicago International Film Festival’s INTERCOM Competition. She was selected to be part of American Film Institute’s Enhanced Television Workshop to develop a new media digital prototype for her series THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE FIRST CENTURY.

In 2006, the J. Paul Getty Museum commissioned Goldfarb to produce HOLY IMAGE, HALLOWED GROUND, a ten-minute documentary, which was a central part of their major exhibit ICONS FROM SINAI.

Lyn Goldfarb’s awards include: an Academy Award nomination, 2 Emmy Awards, 2 DuPont-Columbia Awards, Peabody, Producers Guild of America Kodak Vision Award, IDA Distinguished Documentary Award, a Golden Mike, a CINE Golden Eagle, and top awards from the American Film Festival, Mannheim International Film Festival, Festival du Cinema Portugal, London International Film Festival and Nyon International Film Festival. She also received an IMAGEN nomination, 2 Bronze Telly awards, and an Excellence in Distance Learning Teaching Award.

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VICTOR MARES
VICE PRESIDENT
Director of Photography / Photographer

Born in Lima, Peru, Mares was educated in Costa Rica, Canada, Argentina and Panama. In 2004, Victor graduated from the EICTV - The International Film School in Cuba, focusing on documentary filmmaking. In 2005 he attended the German Film Academy Filmakademie Baden-Württeberg and continued his studies in the field of documentary production. Mares also attended the IPAD - Institure of Art and Design in Lima, Peru where he studied photography. His award-winning documentary Symphonic Episodes (Episodios Sinfonicos), about the cycle of everyday life in Cuba, screened at various film festivals throughout the world including the Taiwan International Documentary Festival, The Chicago International Documentary Festival and The Tirana International Film Festival in Albania. From 2005 through 2007, Mares served a Editor-in-chief of the award winning production company Apertura Films in Panama City, Panama. Mares is currently the director of photography for the film Give Us Your Retired, Your Rich, Your Americans, a documentary about Americans retiring to Panama and the effects and challenges of their migration.

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JOSE LUIS BENAVIDES
SECRETARY
Journalism Professor, Cal State Northridge

José Luis Benavides, Chairman, Journalism Dept., at California State University at Northridge, earned his MA and Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. Benavides teaches in CSUN's Journalism Department, where he has developed the curriculum for an interdisciplinary minor in Spanish-Language Journalism.

His research interests include journalism and diversity, Spanish-language journalism in the U.S., the coverage of Latino communities, and journalism writing. Some of his recent work includes: the second edition of Escribir en prensa, the second edition of Aventuras, and a special edition issue of California History on the first Spanish-language newspaper in Los Angeles, El Clamor Público.

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PETER HOLDERNESS
TREASURER
Photographer, IndyMedia & Time Magazine

Peter is a photographer and journalist whose work has focused on borders, immigration, religion and urban culture. He grew up in New Mexico, earned a bachelors degree in Urban Studies from Columbia University and recently completed a masters degree in New Media from the Medill School of Journalism.

His recent projects include stories about domestic workers in Hong Kong, Punjabi Sikh populations in East Asia, homeless military veterans in Chicago, and the reconstruction of New Orleans. Peter is passionate about visual storytelling, and will spend 2008-2009 in Madrid on a Fulbright Scholarship to use photography in a study of Latino immigration and the construction of modern Spain.

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Jonathan M. Bowman, Ph.D.  ·  Silvia Capistran  ·  Laura Chick    
Heather Courtney  ·  Marlene Dermer  ·  Jack Duganne 
Evangeline Griego  ·  Victor Grimaldo  ·  Desiree Gutierrez    
Victor Grimaldo  ·  Elizabeth Hutson  ·  Jinah Kim  ·  Josh Kun  ·  Kevin Leadingham 
Suzanne M. Lopez  ·  Belinda C. Lum  ·  Marisa Murgatroyd  ·  Lucila Moctezuma   
Gabriela Nunez  ·  David Paul  ·  Wendy Lieberman Piccone  ·  Artemio Rodriguez   
Emma Roll  ·  Sandra Rusch  ·  Ray Santisteban   
Alison Sotomayor  ·   Angela L. Torres  ·  Robert F. Trucios

JONATHAN M. BOWMAN
Communication Studies, University of San Diego

Jonathan M. Bowman is a faculty member in the Department of Communication Studies at the University San Diego, joining USD in 2007 after three years on the faculty at Boston College. He received his B.A. from the University of California Davis and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Michigan State University. His program of research generally investigates interpersonal and small group communication processes in a variety of contexts, with an emphasis on the revelation of unknown information ( i.e., self-disclosure in the interpersonal literature; discussion of unshared information in the small group literature). His work has been published in journals including the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Communication Research, The Journal of Men's Studies, and multiple book chapters. An award-winning teacher, Dr. Bowman is currently teaching Human Communication Theory, Nonverbal Communication, and Interpersonal Communication courses in seminar formats, as well as a hands-on version of Communication Investigations which emphasizes the completion of a quantitative research project. Dr. Bowman hopes to use his extensive methodological training as an advisory board member of Impacto Foundation, particularly through work on quantitative assessment and qualitative outcome variables associated with the foundation's goals throughout the larger culture.

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SILVIA CAPISTRAN
Painter/Artist & Co-Founder, La Mano Press

Born in Jalisco, Mexico and raised in Los Angeles, CA, Silvia received her B.A. in art from California State University, Northridge. Silvia is the co-founder and gallery director of La Mano Press, in downtown Los Angeles, an artist-run center dedicated to the promotion and appreciation of printmaking. As a painter, a graphic artist and web designer, Silvia likes to express herself through her art.

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LAURA CHICK
Los Angeles City Controller

Laura Chick is the 17th Controller of the City of Los Angeles. Controller Chick is the first and only woman in the history of Los Angeles to hold citywide office. As Controller, Laura Chick serves as the chief auditor, accountant and watchdog for the City of Los Angeles—working to ensure its fiscal health. To further expand the ability of the City Controller’s Office to root out significant problems, Laura Chick created the City’s Waste and Fraud Unit in 2005. In January of this year, she launched a live, 24 hour, Waste & Fraud Hotline and Website for confidential whistleblower tips.

In December, 2006, Los Angeles Magazine named Laura Chick one of the most influential people in the City. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently appointed Laura Chick to the Board of Governors for the California State Bar. This elite, 23-member group, meets eight times a year to debate organizational policy and professional issues.

Prior to becoming Controller, Laura Chick served as Councilmember, Third District, in the west San Fernando Valley, from 1993-2001. Chick served as the first woman to ever chair the City Council’s Public Safety Committee. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in History from UCLA and a Master’s in Social Work from USC.

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HEATHER COURTNEY
Documentary Filmmaker & Photographer

Heather Courtney is a filmmaker and cinematographer based in Austin, Texas. Her most recent film, LETTERS FROM THE OTHER SIDE, which uses cross-border video letters to tell the immigration story from the perspective of the women left behind in Mexico, premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival in January 2006, screened at the South by Southwest International Film Festival (SXSW) and numerous other festivals around the world, and was funded by the Independent Television Service (ITVS) and a Fulbright Fellowship. Heather also organized over 20 grassroots screenings with churches, schools, and community centers all over Texas. In Fall 2006, LETTERS was broadcast on over 60 PBS stations across the country. Her previous film, LOS TRABAJADORES/ THE WORKERS, won the Audience Award at SXSW in 2001 and an International Documentary Association award, and was broadcast nationally on the PBS series Independent Lens in 2003. She recently produced the Texas segment of Roger Weisberg’s national PBS documentary on the health insurance crisis, CRITICAL CONDITION, set to air in Fall 2008.

For her most recent project, WHERE SOLDIERS COME FROM, Heather returns to her hometown in rural northern Michigan to follow the lives of a group of 20-year-old friends before, during and after their National Guard deployment. Prior to receiving her graduate degree in film, Heather spent eight years writing and photographing for the United Nations and several refugee and immigrant rights organizations, including in the Rwandan refugee camps after the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

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MARLENE DERMER
Founder, Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival

Marlene Dermer, is the co-founder and executive director of the Latino International Film Institute and the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival (LALLFF). Her passion for film and her Latino roots were so intense that they drove her to envision, and implement, a worldview film festival to showcase the diverse viewpoints, and imagination, of the Latino community at large.

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JACK DUGANNE
Printmaker, Artist, Teacher & Founder of Duganne Ateliers

Master Printmaker, Jack Duganne, one of the original architects of digital fine art printmaking and the originator of the term “Giclée”, is currently teaching all levels of Photoshop at Santa Monica College in the Academy of Entertainment and Technology. Involved in the visual arts since his days as a fine art student at UCLA in the late 60’s, Jack established the standards for emerging digital printmaking. Working with Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young fame, in the early years of Nash Editions, he became a one man research and development department testing ink jet printers and qualifying inks, substrates and coatings for use in the digital printmaking process. He has worked as a consultant to the printmaking industry for 20 years. Throughout his career, Duganne has freely shared his knowledge with printers and emerging artists. He currently runs his own studio at Duganne Ateliers, printing fine art digital prints for artists. He also runs Workshop, a co-operative studio in Santa Monica, which is home for 12 artists of varying disciplines.

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EVANGELINE GRIEGO
Documentary Filmmaker, About Time Productions

Evangeline Griego is an award-winning independent producer/director of the documentaries "Paño Arte: Images from Inside" and "Border Visions/Visiones Fronterizo." She collaborated with Tajima-Peña on "The New Americans" and the special "My Journey Home," both for PBS. More recently, Griego co-produced the new documentary "Chevolution" (Red Envelope Entertainment/Netflix and Arte) and produced "Sir! No Sir!" (Sundance Channel). She is the co-founder of the Silver Lake Film Festival in Los Angeles. She serves on the board of directors for NALIP (The National Association of Latino Independent Producers) and the OUTFEST Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian film festival. She is currently in production on the feature documentary "God Willing," about a Bible-based nomadic cult. She lives in Los Angeles.

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VICTOR GRIMALDO
Founder, Viva Panama Organization

Victor Grimaldo is the President of the Viva Panama Organization, based in Los Angeles, which organizes cultural and educational exhibitions and programs with museums, schools, universities in efforts to bring the Panamanian culture to a larger population and by doing so, helping socioeconomic development of its native Panama. Victor also heads (and dances in!) the Ballet Folklórico Viva Panama, a private dance school that is invited to perform in receptions, multicultural festivals in- and out-of state and internationally.

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DESIREE GUTIERREZ
Public Relations & Community Outreach Coordinator for PBS

Desiree Gutierrez is the founder of the communications consulting firm, MAVEN IMAGE. Her experience includes a hybrid of nonprofit, social action and entertainment campaigns. Prior to creating MAVEN IMAGE, Desiree was a publicist with ITVS and managed the publicity efforts of the Independent Lens series. She also supported five, KCET-PBS productions, including Tavis Smiley and California Connected. Desiree worked extensively with Artists for Amnesty—the entertainment division of Amnesty International USA—and her freelance clients have included: Lexus, TNT and TBS Broadcasting, Antiques Roadshow, American Express, The Craigslist Foundation, The Ginetta Sagan Fund, Outdoor Gear, Oxfam International and The Pasadena Pops Orchestra. Desiree has produced numerous successful events including Oscar parties, television launch parties, film screenings and heritage events.

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ELIZABETH HUTSON
Art Therapist, Ventura County Behavioral

Elizabeth Hutson, MA, LMFT, is a graduate from Otis College of Art and Design with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, and Loyola Marymount University with a Masters of the Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy with a concentration in Art Therapy. Elizabeth has worked with youth and families in at risk communities for the past six years. First at LA Child Guidance clinic in South Los Angeles for 4 and half years focusing on African American and Hispanic children and adolescents in the non public school and outpatient settings with severe mental health diagnosis.

Currently, she is working as a MFCC III Clinician and art therapist for Ventura County Behavioral Health in an outpatient setting. In addition, Elizabeth is working on a project through the Mental Health Services Act and Ventura County to link underserved minority communities in the county to mental health services.

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JINAH KIM, PhD
Associate Director, Asian-American Studies, Northwestern University

Jinah is the assistant director of the Asian American Studies Program at Northwestern University, where she is committed to building Asian American, Latina/o and Ethnic Studies Programs. She teaches literature, film and popular cultures to explore the connections between and comparative racialization of Latino, Asian and African Americans in the 20th century. Her current research explores Asian and Latina encounters in Los Angeles, Peru and Japan. She is also working on a second project that examines Mexican Bracero programs, the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII, and their popular representations. Jinah, who was born in Seoul and grew up in New York City, earned a bachelors degree in Literature at Columbia University before working as a union organizer for UAW 2110 in New York. She has a PhD in Cultural Studies from the University of California, San Diego.

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JOSH KUN, PhD
Communication, Journalism, American Studies & Ethnicity,
Annenberg School for Communication, USC

Kun's research focuses on the arts and politics of cultural connection, with an emphasis on popular music, the cultures of globalization, the US-Mexico border, and Jewish-American musical history. He is director of The Popular Music Project (www.usc.edu/pmp) at USC Annenberg's The Norman Lear Center and co-editor of the book series "Refiguring American Music" for Duke University Press.

Prior to joining the USC Annenberg school, Kun was Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside. He holds a PhD in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley. A former Arts Writers Fellow with The Sundance Institute and a former fellow of the Ucross Foundation and The Mesa Refuge, he is the author of Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America (UC Press) which won a 2006 American Book Award. He is co-author of And You Shall Know Us By The Trail of Our Vinyl: The Jewish Past As Told By The Records We've Loved and Lost (Crown, 2008), and wrote the introduction to the re-publication of Papa, Play For Me (Wesleyan University Press), the autobiography of musical comedian Mickey Katz.

His articles have appeared in numerous scholarly journals and anthologies, covering everything from the sound worlds of the Mexican border and the lost histories of Jewish mambo and Jewish jazz, to African-American and Latina/o musical exchange in Los Angeles. In 2005, he co-founded Reboot Stereophonic, a non-profit record label dedicated to excavating lost treasures of Jewish-American music that has been featured in The New York Times and on National Public Radio.

As a critic and journalist, Kun is a regular contributor to The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and Los Angeles Magazine. From 1998-2006, he wrote "Frequencies," a bi-weekly music column published in the San Francisco Bay Guardian and Boston Phoenix. His writing has also appeared in Tu Ciudad Los Angeles, Cabinet, LA Weekly, The Believer, Guilt & Pleasure, Village Voice, SPIN, Mother Jones, Rolling Stone, and in Mexico's La Jornada and Proceso. He has written the liner notes to CDs by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Maldita Vecindad, and Sammy Davis Jr.

His journalism on the US-Mexico border earned him a 2007 Unity Award in Media and made him a finalist for a 2007 Southern California Journalism Award.

In 2005, Kun was a regular critic on The Movie Show With John Ridley on American Movie Classics, and he has also appeared as a culture critic on ABC, The Disney Channel, National Geographic TV, UPN, Fox Latin America, BBC Radio, and National Public Radio. From 1999-2000, he hosted The Red Zone, Southern California's first commercial Latin Rock radio program, on 107.1 FM and in 2002 was the show's host on MTV-español. From 2003-2005, he hosted and associate produced Rokamole, a weekly Latin alternative music video show on KJLA-LATV.

He serves on the boards of Dublab, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, and the Latin American Cinemateca, and on the editorial boards of American Quarterly, the International Journal of Communications, and The Journal of Popular Music Studies. He has also worked as a consultant and curator with The Los Angeles Public Library, Walt Disney Concert Hall, The Autry National Center, and the Santa Monica Museum of Art.

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KEVIN LEADINGHAM
Network TV Producer

Kevin Leadingham has established himself as both a steadfast and versatile documentary and Reality Television producer and director. Kevin first turned his attention to documentaries with the award winning documentary A REFUGEE AND ME, shot on location in Thailand, followed by MAMA’S GOLD – which documents a privately run orphanage in southern China, PUBLIC SAFETY BLITZ – about LAPD’s Charity football team, and MAID IN AMERICA – a portrait of Latina domestic workers in Los Angeles which aired on PBS’s Independent Lens.

Kevin’s television credits include U. S. Marshals: The Real Story and The Hunt for Amazing Treasures III for TLC, Lifeline: Las Vegas (Discovery), FM Nation (MTV), My Life is a Sitcom (ABC Family Channel), The Season: Oakland Raiderettes and Sidelines: LA Hoops and Totally Hooked (ESPN), NASCAR DRIVER: 360 (FX), Sheer Dallas (TLC), Wife, Mom Bounty Hunter (WE TV), Wife Swap (ABC), Playing It Straight and Next Great Champ (Fox). Kevin recently completed working as Co-Executive Producer on the A & E law enforcement docu-series Rookies: Tampa set to air in 2009.

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SUZANNE M. LOPEZ
Author & Family Therapist

Author, therapist and love relationship expert, Dr. Suzanne Lopez, has recently relocated from the Hollywood Hills to Albuquerque, New Mexico. The author of Get Smart with Your Heart and Love Match or Mismatch, she has made frequent television appearances on such shows as Leeza, Sally Jesse Raphael, Montel Williams, Maury Povitch, The Other Half, as well as NBC and ABC news and a host of radio shows.

Ms. Lopez is a national speaker and conducts seminars and workshops through The Institute of Unlimited Human Potential and for national organizations and corporations on such subjects as woman's empowerment in the workplace, communication skills, stress management, sexual harassment, the changing workplace and the balancing one's professional and personal life for optimum fulfillment. She also facilitates seminars and workshops in both Los Angeles and New Mexico on "The Secret" and "Core Energetics". Her client list includes individuals, couples, and groups, from high-powered film executives, to creative artist and adolescents. Suzanne has studied extensively on both coasts, attending USC, New York University, University of California Santa Cruz, and she received her masters degree in psychology from California State University. Formerly the director of The Institute for Unlimited Human Potential and an adjunct professor at Antioch University in Los Angeles, Suzanne now runs her own practice and production company in Albuquerque, NM.

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BELINDA C. LUM, PhD
Sociology & Ethnographic Studies, University of San Diego

Belinda C. Lum is an Assistant Professor in the Community, Urbanization, and Culture concentration within the Department of Sociology and affiliated faculty member of the Ethnic Studies Program at the University of San Diego. Professor Lum is receiving her PhD in Sociology from the University of Southern California, where she was also a Senior Irvine Fellow at the Center for American Race & Ethnicity. Her areas of specialization include: International Migration, Work and Labor, Social Inequality in Urban Contexts, Public Sociology, and Asian American Studies. Professor Lum is currently working on revising chapters from her dissertation, Immigrants and Los Angeles Labor Unions: Negotiating Empowerment, Politics, and Citizenship for publication. She currently teaches Introduction to Sociology and Work & Labor, Immigrant America and Asians & Latinos in a Global Economy.

Professor Lum's philanthropic work focuses on promoting immigrant worker rights and diversity. She has worked on numerous campaigns and with various immigrant worker organizations to bring attention to the dire social conditions that immigrants face in the United States. Lum also works as a community based consultant, where she conducts large-scale facilitation, develops community action research projects and strategies, and conducts program evaluations and write-ups. The goal is to provide institutions with greater capacity to work with diverse communities.

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MARISA MURGATROYD
Creative Director, Meaningful Media

Marisa is an award-winning writer, photographer, and filmmaker committed to producing socially conscious media. She is a versatile creative professional who applies her artistic, conceptual, and organizational skills to a wide variety of projects, including films, presentations, print and online media. She has worked in development, production, outreach and distribution of independent documentary films on a range of subjects, including sustainable development, politics, religion, substance abuse and technology.

Marisa is currently a producer at Eyes of the World Media Group, an independent production company specializing in social issue films, and Creative Director of Meaningful Media, a non-profit network connecting those committed to changing the world through media. She also freelances in photography and graphic design.

Marisa received a Masters in Communication Art and Design from the Royal College of Art (London), and a Bachelor's from Brown University in Modern Culture and Media. Her creative work has won awards and prizes from many organizations, including the National Foundation for Advancement of the Arts (Photography), the Faulkner Society (Best Short Story), and the British Standards Institute (Environmental Design Award).

Marisa got her first camera at the age of 13, and has been an avid shutterbug and consummate wanderer ever since. She lives in Los Angeles, California.

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LUCILA MOCTEZUMA
Director of Fellowships, Tribeca Film Institute

Lucila Moctezuma is the director of the Media Arts Fellowships program at the Tribeca Film Institute. She has worked in New York's independent film community since 1996, including the Independent Feature Project (IFP) and the Latin American Video Archive (LAVA). She has collaborated with several national and international film festivals, among them the Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival in NY, the Morelia International Film Festival in Mexico, and currently as the US delegate for the Huesca International Film Festival in Spain. Lucila has been a juror for the Media that Matters, Youth Free Expression Network from the NAAC and LaCinemaFe film festivals and is on the Board of Trustees for the Flaherty Film Seminar and on the Advisory Board for the Forum Internacional de Cine de Monterrey in Mexico, and for New Children/New York. Lucila has worked in different areas of film and video production, including the PBS series The New Americans, produced by Kartemquin Films, and the series Shocking and Awful produced by Deep Dish TV which was included in the 2006 Whitney Biennial. Lucila, originally from Mexico City, studied Philosophy at the Universidad Iberoamericana, where she also taught from 1991 to 1995.

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GABRIELA NUNEZ, PhD
English, University of Louisville

Gabriela Nuñez is an Assistant Professor in the department of English at the University of Louisville and teaches courses on U.S. Latina/Latino literature and culture. Gabriela earned a B.A. from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego. She was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in Latina/o Studies and English at Northwestern University (07-08). Born in Los Angeles, from a mixed Mexican and Peruvian heritage, her work focuses both on Latinas/os in the U.S. and abroad.

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DAVID PAUL
Accountant

David Paul was born in Calcutta, India and moved to the United States in 1969. He studied English while at college in India and has had a diverse range of professions since moving to the states. His path has led him to earn a real estate license, and become a tax accountant and licensed notary in the state of California. His expertise is representing clients in tax metters before the IRS at all levels from audits to appeals. He holds a fourth degree black belt in Kung San and plays over 10 musical instruments.

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WENDY LIEBERMAN PICCIONE
Social Worker

Wendy Lieberman Piccione was born and raised in New York City. She graduated from Hampshire College in Amnerst, MA and attended Hunter College where she received a Masters in Social Work. As a Social Worker, she worked with at-risk teenagers on the Lower East Side of New York City and elderly Holocaust survivors living in the Bronx, NY. In 2004, she relocated to Miami, FL where she met her future husband, an Argentine national. In 2005, her husband was deported to Argentina and Wendy relocated to be with her husband in Buenos Aires, Argentina. At this time, her interest in the treatment of immigrants (regardless of status) peaked and she started a blog "Married and Deported." Currently, Wendy and her husband are living in Arizona and awaiting the birth of their first child.

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ARTEMIO RODRIGUEZ
Artist & Founder, La Mano Press

Artemio Rodriguez was born in Tacámbaro, Michoacán, México in 1972. He studied Agronomy at the Universidad Autonoma Chapinga and was later introduced to art when he apprenticed and learned letterpress printing form Juan Pascoe, a master printmaker working at the Taller San Marin Pescador near Artemio’s hometown.

As a printmaker who works primarily in black and while, Artemio’s signature style emphasizes simplicity and clarity. His work has been featured in galleries in the United States and Mexico, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, San Diego Museum of Art , Chicago Mexican Museum , San Francisco Mexican Museum, Casa del Libro de Puerto Rico, and Biblioteca Nacional de la Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México among many others.

Artemia is a celebrated artist and has illustrated and published several books. In 2002, he founded La Mano Press in downtown Los Angeles, CA and has recently opened La Paloma, a cultural space in his hometown of Tacámbaro, Michoacán, México.

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EMMA ROLL
Photographer, Mentor, & Panama Heritage Curriculum Consultant

Emma Roll holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Ethnography & Photography from the University of California and a Postgraduate Certificate in International Communication from Macquarie University in Australia. Currently she is working towards completing a certificate in Website Creation.  Emma moved to Central America to follow her passions of surfing, photography, and experiencing new cultures. Over three years she managed teen summer camps, worked as a local surf guide/instructor, became a successful surf photographer, was employed as a photojournalist for local and national newspapers, mentored youth in sports and photography, and conducted her own photo-ethnographic studies of various subcultures of the region.

As an International Travel Photojournalist and Marketing Photographer, she has visited over ten countries but continues to be drawn back to one locale: Bocas del Toro. Having lived in the archipelago over three years, she is acquainted with its citizens (ex-pats, indigenous, and Panamanian nationals), effects of tourism, local resources, and government. Her passion for the people and environment allowed her to become a part of the community and see the island from the inside. Emma is a key member in the formation of the pilot program curriculum for the Impacto Foundation.

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SANDRA RUSCH
Elixir Consulting

Sandra Ruch has extensive entertainment industry marketing experience. She spent 7 years as the Executive Director of the International Documentary Association and Publisher of Documentary magazine. As Executive Director, Sandra J. Ruch supervises and oversees the IDA’s events, programs, fiscal sponsorship, publications, website, public relations and financial operations. IDA is a nonprofit membership organization (3,000 members worldwide) that promotes nonfiction film and video, supports the efforts of documentary filmmakers around the world and serves to increase public appreciation and demand for the art of the documentary.

Prior to IDA, she was President of Marketing for New Line Cinema; Sr. Vice President for Cinergi Pictures and spent 12 years as Manager of Cultural Programs for Mobil Oil Corporation where she supervised Mobil’s PBS series, Masterpiece Theater with WGBH, Boston and co- produced, the PBS series Pride of Place, A History of American Architecture. Ms. Ruch also co-produced QUICK SILVER HIGHWAY, a FOX TV Movie of the Weekextensive experience in the world of documentary films. Sandra is now producing and consulting on the development and production of documentaries with Elixir Consulting, based in Los Angeles.

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RAY SANTISTEBEN
Documentary Filmmaker

Ray Santisteban has produced and directed award winning documentaries that have aired in the U.S. and internationally on public television. He has explored subjects as diverse as a one hour documentary on New York Black Panther leader Dhoruba Bin Wahad - PASSIN' IT ON (1993 Student Academy Award winner, documentary category, Co-Producer) and explored the roots of Puerto Rican poetry in, NUYORICAN POETS CAFE (1994, Director, Producer, Editor). In 1994, he worked as an associate producer on the four part PBS series ¡CHICANO!: THE HISTORY OF THE MEXICAN AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT. In 2003, he directed and produced “VOICES FROM TEXAS” a one hour documentary on poetry and spoken word traditions within the Mexican-American community in Texas and was the Senior Producer of VISIONES: LATINO ART AND CULTURE IN THE U.S. a three hour PBS series nationally broadcast in Oct. 2004. In 2005, he produced two episodes of the nationally broadcast children's program "Postcards From Buster" for WGBH in Boston. He is the recipient of a 1993 New York Foundation for the Arts Media Fellowship and a 2005 Rockefeller film and video fellowship.

As a educator, Santistban garnered a 1996 “Ideas in Action Award” from the National Telemedia Association, as the co-founder and project director of “Creating Our Own Images” a youth video training program in Madison Wisconsin, and was the recipient of the 1996 University of Madison Wisconsin, Chicano studies program “Teacher of the Year Award.”

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ALISON SOTOMAYOR
Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist

Alison Sotomayor has dedicated her career to creating powerful, moving and high-quality programming. Born in East Los Angeles, she was recruited by the California Chicano News Association and KCOP-TV and KCET-TV to become Public Affairs Co-Host and Co-Producer for three years on the public television series Trendsetters. While at KCET-TV, Alison produced and developed story ideas for the award-winning public affairs series, Life & Times.

After ten years at KCET-TV, Alison became Director of Communications & Producer for the non-profit media advocacy group, the National Hispanic Media Coalition. In 2006, Alison was Associate Producer for a national documentary The New Los Angeles, a third film of the four-part series, California and the American Dream, broadcasted on PBS.

Alison’s recent works include Sal Castro & the 1968 East Los Angeles Walkouts, Spanish Language DJ’s and Immigrant Justice, Out of the Picture: Minorities in Network Television, a Lifetime Tribute to Edward James Olmos, Culture Clash: 24 Year Theatrical Retrospective and its Impact on America, and Vikki Carr: A Biography.

She a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the National Association of Independent Producers, Latino Public Broadcasting, the California Chicano News Media Association and the Los Angeles County Human Relations Media Image Coalition and has received several Golden Mikes and Emmy Awards for her work. Alison graduated from UCLA with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology in 1989, the first member in her immediate family to obtain a college degree.

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ANGELA L. TORRES
Photographer

Angela L. Torres is a resident of the Silverlake, Los Angeles art community. Ms. Torres is a self taught Photographer, with 12 years of professional experience. Picking up her first camera at the age of seven. She instantly fell in love with documenting life as it happens. Angela is the proprietor of Angela L. Torres Photographs, established in 1999. Her works have been published in various publications such as: Latino Leaders, Ms. Magazine, and CTS for which she served as Director of Photography. In addition she has contributed to The City of Los Angeles Child and Family Services citywide billboard campaigns. Much of her talent has been dedicated the Dolores Huerta Foundation, and had the honor of having one of her portraits of Ms. Huerta receive considerable publication.

Angela Torres is a resident of Silver Lake, whose artistic interests have led to establishing her own studio – Angela L. Torres Photographs. She volunteers some of her time teaching Photography to adolescent age foster children in the Los Angeles area. Ms. Torres’ photographic works have been featured in Latino Leaders, Ms. Magazine, CTS, Planned Parenthood, and various publications in conjunction with the City of Los Angeles. She has donated much of her talent to the Dolores Huerta Foundation, and had the honor of having one of her portraits of Ms. Huerta receive considerable publication.

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ROBERT F. TRUCIOS
Composer & Architect

Robert F. Trucios has been writing music for film since 1995. Classically trained in music theory and an accomplished instrumentalist in piano, woodwinds, and percussion, Mr. Trucios composes and produces music with sonic qualities influenced by classical, romantic, and jazz, as well as hip-hop, electronic and traditional forms from all over the world. His music juxtaposes acoustic instruments with synthesis and sampling to create a collage of textures and moods for his scores. As every film is individual and unique, so is the music Mr. Trucios composes for them. Robert has recently finished production of the spoken word/hip hop album for Omari Hardwick, star of TNT’s “SAVED”. He has placed songs on the award winning documentary for PBS “MAID IN AMERICA” and on network television including multiple episodes of “JONNY ZERO” for Warner Bros. on FOX.

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