Crew

Megan McFeely, Producer/Director

Before embarking on her first film project, Megan McFeely worked for 25 years in the field of public relations and communications for profit and not for profit organizations. She currently works on a TV show called Global Spirit, as the outreach director and an associate producer. She also writes for the Huffington Post and the Contemplative Journal about her efforts to live an authentic life.

Eva Ilona Brzeski, Editor

Eva Ilona Brzeski is a filmmaker and freelance editor whose distinctive, award-winning essay films24 Girls, This Unfamiliar Place, China Diary and Last Seen have screened worldwide and garnered critical praise.  Filmmaker Magazine described them as “sumptuous, intriguing work…aesthetically dazzling”.  A graduate of the Stanford University Documentary Film Program, Eva is the editor of acclaimed documentaries such as Under Our Skin (shortlisted for an Oscar in 2010), Awaken Rodin, and Twitch, several narrative features and a couple of hit TV shows. www.evailonabrzeski.com

Andy Abrahams Wilson, Supervising Producer 

Andy Abrahams Wilson is a multi-award winning, Emmy-nominated producer and director of creative non-fiction films. Andy received a BA in cultural anthropology from Northwestern University, and an MA in visual anthropology from the University of Southern California, where he also studied at the USC School of Cinema. His recent production, Under Our Skin, is the recipient of six best documentary awards at international film festivals and was an Academy Award semifinalist. Andy’s films have been shown on HBO, PBS, CBC, the Showtime Networks, and in theaters and film festivals worldwide. He is a recipient of a Pew Charitable Trust Fellowship in Dance/Media and received numerous foundation grants, including the California Council for the Humanities, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Laurence Rockefeller Foundation, the Columbia Foundation, the Wells Fargo Foundation, and the Educational Foundation of America. He was also recognized by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences for Outstanding Documentary Achievement. www.openeyepictures.com

Jesse Wippert, Camera

Jesse Wippert is a Bay Area filmmaker who has worked in the US, Russia, India and West Africa. His current project, Bay Area Sights & Stories, is a online series of documentary shorts exploring the diversity of the Bay Area – its people, cultures, geography and wildlife. He recently finished Pulse of the World, a documentary about Griots (musicians, oral historians, storytellers) of The Gambia. His initiative, insight, and innate talent have enabled him to take on topics of great sensitivity and engage in all the roles of filmmaking: producer, director, cameraperson, and editor. Vimeo Channel and Konteh Kunda

Jami Sieber and Evan Schiller, Original Soundtrack

Jami Sieber is an award winning electric cellist/vocalist/composer that has developed her own style of lush and evocative music that lends itself to film, dance, and a variety of collaborations with artists, poets, and musicians from around the globe. She has composed six solo recordings and collaborated on three others. Evan Schiller is an audio engineer/producer, musician, and composer based out of Seattle. He has composed soundtracks for films, documentaries, TV commercials, contemporary dance, PSA’s, computer games, and modern theater.

Since 2006, Sieber and Schiller have entered into a production and composing collaboration that brings together each of their strengths and creates music that spans a range from classical to jazz to rock to ambient. Not only do they enjoy a great chemistry and have fun in the process, together they have produced five albums, and have composed music for four documentary full length films: , “Queen of the Sun: What are the bees telling us?”, “BIG JOY: The Adventures of James Broughton, the PBS American Masters documentary “Dorothea Lange: Grab a Hunk of Lightning”, and “As She Is.” For more info visit: www.jamisieber.com or www.evanschiller.com .

Advisors

Tom Shepard has produced, directed, edited, and distributed documentary films for more than 20 years. Four of his feature projects – Scout’s Honor, Knocking, Whiz-Kids and The Grove – have aired nationally on PBS (including POV, Independent Lens and PBS Plus). Coverage of his work has been featured prominently in the U.S. and foreign press, including reviews of three of his films in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe among others. Shepard’s films have played in more than 150 film festivals worldwide – including Full Frame, Silver Docs and the Sundance Film Festival (where he won two top awards for Scout’s Honor in 2001.)  Shepard has raised two million dollars for production of his own work and has received funding from the Independent Television Service (ITVS) four times previously.  He is the former Chairman of New Day Films and regularly teaches documentary film in California and Colorado.  He graduated from Stanford University where he studied human biology and film.

Gary Weimberg has spent the last two decades making award-winning documentaries as an editor, director, and producer. He has won two national Emmy Awards (Earth and the American Dream  (1992); Loyalty & Betrayal: The Story of the American Mob (1994). Two documentaries he edited were nominated for Academy Awards in 1989. In 1999 he was nominated as Outstanding Documentary Director by the Director’s Guild of America for his controversial political documentary,The Double Life of Ernesto Gomez-Gomez; a program that contributed directly to the Presidential Pardon and release of 12 political prisoners who had served 19 years in prison. From 2004-2006, as part of Luna Productions, he has produced a series of documentaries for non-profit organizations that have helped to raise over $1.4 million for worthy causes and co-produced/directed/edited two feature documentaries: The Heiress  and Her Chateau and Soldiers Of Conscience. He is currently working on My Love Affair with the Brain:  The Life and Science of Dr. Marian Diamond. www.lunaproductions.com

Art and Outreach

Judyth Greenburgh is an award-winning photographer, creative director and artist who has influenced elections, changed opinions, made us think, and delighted our hearts.  She has 28 years experience in premium brand development and design for a grand array of projects around the world and has art in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. www.jgreenburgh.com

Angelica Galland  supports our outreach efforts and web development. Angelica Galland has done web site management, graphic design, social media outreach and online marketing in both television and film. She focuses her time working on projects that she feels recognize the sacred.

Lion and Lady artwork by Jackie Morris. www.jackiemorris.co.uk

Photo credits: Judyth Greenburgh and Jesse Wippert.

The Fiscal Sponsor for this project is Open Eye Pictures.