Deborah Shaffer began making social issue documentaries in the early 1970’s, as a member of the Newsreel Collective. In 1972 she co-founded Pandora Films, a women’s production company, which produced HOW ABOUT YOU? and CHRIS AND BERNIE. In 1979 she made the labor history documentary THE WOBBLIES (NY Film Festival). During the 80's, Shaffer focused on war and human rights in Latin America, directing NICARAGUA: REPORT FROM THE FRONT; WITNESS TO WAR (Academy Award®, PBS); FIRE FROM THE MOUNTAIN (NY and Sundance Film Festivals, POV, Emmy Nomination); and DANCE OF HOPE (Prix d'Or, FIPA, Sundance). Shaffer was one of the first filmmakers to work in post-Sept. 11 New York City. FROM THE ASHES - 10 ARTISTS (Sundance, Tribeca, Cinemax/HBO) captures the impact the attacks had on 10 downtown NY artists, followed a year later by FROM THE ASHES – EPILOGUE (Tribeca). She is the Executive Producer of the short documentary, ASYLUM, which played at Sundance, Human Rights Watch, won Best Documentary at Aspen Shortsfest and was nominated for an Academy Award®.

In addition to her work as a director of independent documentaries, Ms. Shaffer has directed numerous programs for public television, including SECRETS UNDERGROUND (Christopher Award, Emma Award) ART:21 – ART FOR THE 21ST CENTURY (Emmy Nomination) and LADIES FIRST: THE WOMEN OF RWANDA (Emmy Award, Sigma Delta Chi Award, Cine Golden Eagle), and has worked extensively as an editor. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts. She is a founding member of First Run Features, and a member of IFP, NYWFT, and WGA. She was recently awarded the Irene Diamond Lifetime Achievement Award by the Human Rights Watch Film Festival.

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Artemis Joukowsky, III is a non-profit activist, film producer and venture capitalist. He has formed ten for-profit and eight non-profit institutions and has been a founding partner in two venture capital funds. He has produced one book, and is in the process of making two movies and on-line TV projects. Joukowsky is a Senior Advisor of Econergy International, a publicly traded company in the AIM market on the London Stock Market. Before the IPO, he was Vice-Chairman of Econergy, which is a diversified international energy services company, focused on clean energy markets. He is the Executive Producer and co-author of Raising the Bar, a book recently published by Umbrage Press. He is the founder and organizer of Raising the Bar Associates, LLC, which was created to work with major international corporations to support the UN Convention on Human Rights. He is a member of the Finance Committee and a Program Officer for the Joukowsky Family Foundation.

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Dr. Charlie Clements is president and CEO of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, where he served as the director of human rights education in the late 1980s. His book, Witness to War, which was the basis for an Academy Award®-winning documentary film, describes his journey of conscience from a Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and pilot in Vietnam to public health physician and human rights activist. In 1997, as president of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), he represented PHR at both the signing of the International Treaty Banning Landmines and the Nobel Prize ceremonies.

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Michael Julian Berz was born in Canada and raised in Germany and Austria. Berz studied journalism at the University of Vienna before working for Austrian television. He moved to NYC in August 2001 to cover the arts and culture; on Sept. 11 he began filming what became FROM THE ASHES - 10 ARTISTS (Sundance, Tribeca). He co-directed FROM THE ASHES - EPILOGUE while continuing to produce and shoot cultural and documentary programs for Austrian and German television. In 2006 he was cinematographer for KOSOVO: A TALE OF TWO VILLAGES broadcast in Europe by ARTE. He also works extensively as a still and portrait photographer.

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DAVINA PARDO’s award-winning short documentaries YESTERDAY IN RWANDA and BIRDLINGS TWO have been broadcast on the CBC and screened at dozens of film festivals in the U.S. and Canada including Toronto, Slamdance, Tribeca, and SILVERDOCS. Pardo recently associate produced and shot additional camera for Cynthia Wade's documentary FREEHELD, which premiered at Sundance in 2007 and has been shortlisted for an Academy Award® nomination. She received a BA from Amherst College and an MA in Documentary Film Production from Stanford University.

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Patricia Lee Stotter is an Emmy Award winning composer and writer for television, film, theater and interactive media. Her music for television includes many popular programs from Sesame Street to HBO documentaries (UNCHAINED MEMORIES, READING YOUR HEART OUT, SOMETIMES I FEEL, THREE SISTERS: THE SEARCH FOR A CURE)

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Steven Wechsler is a multi-award winning editor. He recently completed two shows for PBS/American Masters – John Ford/John Wayne: The Filmmaker and the Legend, for which he received an EMMY nomination, and Walter Cronkite: Witness to History. Wechsler was Senior Editor for New York Times Television on 29 one-hour documentary programs. He has edited dozens of projects for Great Performances, Bill Moyers, NOVA, Art:21 - Art in the 21st Century, City Arts and Children’s Television Workshop, and others, all of which aired on PBS; and numerous broadcast and documentary programs which aired on CBS, ABC, FOX, TLC, National Geographic, Oxygen, A&E, Bravo, Discovery, and CNBC, among others. Steven Wechsler earned his Masters of Fine Arts from New York University Graduate Institute of Film and Television, and his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the City College of New York.

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Natalie Reuss has made award-winning films and television programs for over a decade. While in film school, she produced and directed her first film, THE ANDREYEV’S OF BRIGHTON BEACH, which was honored with a premiere screening at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. Several of the programs she produced for PBS programs have garnered Emmy Awards, including PROUD TO BE A GIRL. Along with Deborah Shaffer, she was Executive Producer of the short documentary, ASYLUM which was nominated for an Academy Award®. Most recently she was Associate Producer of the 2-hour AMERICAN MASTERS film ATLANTIC RECORDS: THE HOUSE THAT AHMET BUILT, about Ahmet Ertegun, the greatest record man of all time.

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