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Filmmaking Team

FILM TEAM

DIRECTOR - Johanna Demetrakas

With her first documentary, Womanhouse, about a ground-breaking feminist art installation, Demetrakas won the AFI Independent Filmmakers Grant, a place in the Whitney Museum’s New American Filmmaker Series, and international recognition at festivals such as the Venice Biennale, Paris, and New York. Her second art doc, Right Out of History: The Making of Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party was broadcast on PBS and the BBC after acclaim at the London and Berlin Film Festivals. Her art documentaries have been in many museum shows, including the major exhibit, “Los Angeles 1955 – 1985,” at the Pompidou Museum in Paris, 2006. The Pompidou recently bought a 16mm copy of WOMANHOUSE for their permanent collection. Since winning the Discovery Program Award and making the dramatic short Homesick in 1989 (Sundance, Houston Fest winner, Showtime broadcast), Demetrakas turned her energies to writing and directing dramatic fiction as well as documentaries. Her credits include LA Law, Doogie Howser, MD, and the Lifetime television feature Out of Line, starring Jennifer Beals. In 2004, Demetrakas produced, directed, and edited a two-hour special Biography of Richard Gere for A&E. It was the first A&E Biography without a narrator.


Well known for her editing prowess, her credits include The World According to Sesame Street and Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony. That epic documentary, edited by Demetrakas, won both the Audience and Freedom of Expression Awards at Sundance, 2002, as well as being nominated for five Emmys, including editing for Demetrakas. She Co-Directed and Edited Busrider’s Union with the legendary cinematographer Haskell Wexler. She has collaborated with Renee Tajima-Pena on several films, including My America, or Honk if You Love Buddha, the PBS special My Journey Home, and the P.O.V. film, Calavera Highway. Demetrakas has served on several awards juries including the Director’s Guild of America, the IDA, The Student Academy Awards, and The Greek Film Festival. She taught writing and directing at Cal Arts and is now on the faculty at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts.



PRODUCER -Lisa Leeman's first film, Metamorphosis: Man Into Woman, won the Filmmakers' Trophy at Sundance, 1990, and aired on PBS’s documentary showcase, POV. She most recently premiered One Lucky Elephant, the feature doc she directed over ten years, at LAFF in June, 2010. Lisa also directed the feature doc Out Of Faith, (PBS, winter 2008). Lisa is currently co-directing, with Paola di Florio, a feature documentary about the renowned swami Paramahansa Yogananda.

Past work includes co-directing and editing the feature documentary Who Needs Sleep with Haskell Wexler (Sundance, 2006); & co-writing & editing the Emmy Award winner Made In LA (Silverdocs, LAFF; POV/PBS, 2007). Other writing credits include Not In God's Name (featuring the Dalai Lama), which explores the similar values underlying all faiths, and their potential for bridging perceived differences, and the theatrically released feature doc Naked In Ashes, which follows an ascetic yogi and his young disciple in India.

Other directing/producing credits include the Emmy nominated Fender Philosophers, (PBS) and Breaking Up (ARTE). Lisa has served on the Sundance Film Festival documentary jury and on the board of the International Documentary Association. She teaches documentary producing at USC, has taught filmmaking in China & Jordan, and writes articles about the ethics of documentary filmmaking. She spent a decade editing award-winning social issue documentaries, including Renee Tajima-Pena's The Journey Home (PBS Special); Michelle LeBrun's Death: A Love Story (Sundance ‘99); Laura's Simon's Fear And Learning At Hoover Elementary (POV; Winner, Freedom of Expression Award, Sundance ‘97); Marco Williams' In Search Of Our Fathers, on women-headed African-American families (FRONTLINE, PBS); Will My Mother Go To Berlin?, Micha Peled's personal essay on Jewish-German relations (ARD, PBS); Stanley Nelson's Methadone: Curse Or Cure? (PBS); It Was A Wonderful Life, Michele Ohayon's film on middle-class homeless women (PBS); and the TBS series The Native Americans and America’s Music: The Roots of Country.

 



EDITOR - Kate Amend, ACE received the Outstanding Achievement in Editing Award from the International Documentary Association for her body of work, which includes two Academy Award-winning documentaries: Into The Arms Of Strangers: Stories Of The Kindertransport, The Long Way Home, and the 2001 Oscar-nominated documentary short On Tiptoe: Gentle Steps To Freedom.   

Amend also edited Beah: A Black Woman Speaks, directed by Lisa Gay Hamilton, which received the Grand Jury award at the 2003 AFI Film Festival, the 2005 Peabody Award and aired on HBO.  Her recent work includes the documentary Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains, directed by Jonathan Demme, and The Brothers Warner, directed by Cass Warner.   

Other credits include Steal A Pencil For Me (2007); Thin (2006), and The World According To Sesame Street (2005) which premiered at Sundance 2006; Peace By Peace: Woman On The Frontlines (PBS, 2004); Pandemic: Facing AIDS (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and HBO, 2003)


DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY - Pablo Bryant has been working in the documentary film world for a decade. He has been the Director of Photography on four feature documentaries, and has been a camera operator on many other projects. This work has taken him all over the world, including India and Nepal for the National Film Board of Canada’s “TULKU”, which has just been released. He was a staff cameraperson for LTN, a Los Angeles lifestyle network, and before that on “SAVVY” for the WE network. He has just finished shooting on “CRAZY WISDOM”, which was filmed all over the US, the UK, and Tibet. In addition to his work as a cameraman he has produced, and directed a short documentary film about the epidemic of homeless children in the US called “Stand Up For Kids”. He is currently working on documentary called “When the Iron Bird Flies”.