INAYA GRACIANA YUSUF - DIRECTOR/PRODUCER/CAMERA OPERATOR
Inaya is an Indonesian-American filmmaker. She has worked on short documentaries to feature length projects such as Miriam, Amplify: The Story of Synesthetes, Passage to Womanhood, Dhalang and Minding Our Own. Her films has participated in several festivals across United States, China, Ireland, Denmark and Canada. She has received a Gold Award at The Spotlight Documentary Film Awards and Award of Recognition in Documentary Short, Women Filmmaker, Contemporary Issues and Editing. Throughout the years she worked on projects with HBO, BBC, ESPN, Lifetime, NBC, FOX, PBS, MLS Soccer USA, Climate Reality, Yahoo! and VICE. Inaya’s corporate background in advertising and branding spearheaded her transition from design and motion graphics into filmmaking. Growing up in both Indonesia and United States, her personal work are often driven by her surroundings and revolves around women and children, identity politics and immigration, criminal justice system, contemporary issues in Islam, LGBTQ, and the Southeast Asian environment. She is currently working on her first feature film, The One and The Many. She is an Associate Teacher at MPS Directing (Short Live Action Film) at School of Visual Arts.
ALESSANDRA PASQUINO - PRODUCER
Born and raised in Italy, graduated in Fine Arts in London, Alessandra is a producer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. She brings over 15 years of experience in development, budgeting, production, supervision and post production on projects ranging from documentaries and broadcast commercials to special multimedia exhibits, music videos and ethnographic films. She has worked worldwide including in some very remote and tough locations.
Alessandra began her career by producing commercials and content for companies such as; Kellogg’s, McDonalds, Nabisco, Chrysler, Range Rover, Toyota and many other consumers’ goods brands. She eventually took on an opportunity to produce documentaries and joined ELEMENTAL PRODUCTIONS, a company committed to exploring and making films on the effects of globalization on culture and health in developing countries. Amongst directors, artists and celebrities that she has worked for are: Oliver Stone, Leonardo Di Caprio, Klaus Kinski, Wayne Wang, David Ashwell, Rupert Wainwright, John Lindauer, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Gregory Colbert, Matthew Rolston and most recently Joan Jett. Her most recent projects include SUPERPOWER DOGS (IMAX documentary) - Production Supervisor; BAD REPUTATION (premiered 2018 Sundance Film Festival, Magnolia Pictures) Co-Producer and Line Producer; RE-WILD 6-part documentary series focused on the effort to preserve biodiversity in urban ecosystems throughout the country - Executive Producer.
ANNIE TUCKER - STORY CONSULTANT AND ADVISOR
Annie Tucker holds a PhD in Culture and Performance from UCLA, where she received training in the therapeutic applications of performance, the mobilization of the arts for social change, and creativity as a vehicle for generating intercultural dialogue and understanding. This training has complemented her eclectic career as a performer, educator, researcher, writer, and translator. With expertise in Southeast Asia, she has recently investigated the use of traditional music as therapy for children on the autism spectrum in Indonesia, facilitated creative movement workshops in Indonesia and Vietnam for vulnerable communities, including survivors of human trafficking, and was awarded the 2016 World Readers Award for her translation of Sundanese author Eka Kurniawan’s internationally best-selling Beauty is a Wound. Her writing and/or translation has been published in Popula, Vice, The White Review, The Margins, Columbia Journal, and elsewhere, and included in multiple academic anthologies. With Elemental Productions she has worked in documentary film research, writing and development for over a decade on projects exploring culture, history, psychology, and last year as co-author published a book on new methods in ethnographic film entitled Afflictions: Steps Toward a Visual Psychological Anthropology.
MICHEL NEGROPONTE - STORY CONSULTANT AND ADVISOR
Michel Negroponte is an award winning filmmaker who has been making feature length documentaries for more than 30 years. His films include Space Coast (1979), Resident Exile (1981), Silver Vallaey (1984), Jupiter's Wife (1994), No Accident (1996), W.I.S.O.R (2000), Methadone (2005), I'm Dangerous with Love (2009), and An Autobiography of Michelle Maren (2015). His films have been broadcasted in U.S. on PBS, HBO, and the Sundance Channel as well as in England, France, Germany, Spain and Japan. His work has been show at Sundance and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and in festivals in Berlin, Rotterdam, Vancouver and Japan. In addition to his own work, he has worked in a producing capacity on many films, among them Bookwars by Jason Rosette, Fastpitch by Jeremy Spear, the Academy Award-nominated Children Underground by Edet Belzberg, and Manhattan, Kansas by Tara Wray. He also produced Orthodox Stance, a feature documentary directed by Jason Hutt about a young religious boxer damed Dmitry Salita. Michel Negroponte has also taught film production in the graduate and undergraduate film programs at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Temple University and the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
SETH MOONEY - DP/CAMERA OP/PHOTOGRAPHER
Seth is a freelance director of photography, audio engineer, photographer as well as Digital Technician and Consultant for editorial and commercial fashion photographers. Seth works closely with photographers to achieve their desired look as well as manage the digital assets and workflow on set for publications including Vogue, Elle and Interview to name a few. Seth’s clients include Miles Aldridge, Boo George, Deborah Tuberville, Craig McDean, David Burton and Koto Bologo working on international campaigns for clients such as Valentino, Tiffany & Co., MAC Cosmetics, Ralph Lauren, Target, and Neiman Marcus. He is also the co-founder of Pawn Works Gallery in Chicago. His photography can be viewed at www.sethmooney.com.
LILA PLACE - ASSEMBLY EDITOR
Lila Place is a documentary film editor and director who got her start in the editing rooms of Woody Allen and Spike Lee. As an editor she’s worked on numerous films that have won awards at top film festivals including Silverdocs, IDFA, Hot Docs and Full Frame and aired nationally as well as internationally. She has also directed several short films including UNDER THE ROLLER COASTER which won best short at Slamdance and screened at the MoMA and was broadcast on PBS. Lila believes that intimate personal stories can convey powerful universal themes and that documentaries can be as cinematic and emotionally compelling as fiction. Her work is influenced by her background in feature films cultural anthropology and dance. She received a BA in Cultural Anthropology from Barnard College and an MA in Documentary Film Production from Stanford University. Her recent films include 116 Cameras, La Prenda, Forever, Minka, Song of the Basques and The Road to Redemption.