Aaron Straight is a filmmaker who has directed & produced projects around the world on 4 continents in remote locations throughout Africa and Haiti directing people from Maasai warriors to Al Gore. As Senior Creative Director at TRIFILM, Straight’s work ranges from campaigns, feature documentaries, shorts, mixed media, and TV commercials. Some of his clients include IBM Smarter Cities, BgC3, Heifer International, B Corporation/ B Lab, PATH, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Bullitt Foundation, and The Seattle Foundation. Straight is the Media Advisor to Wildlife Media and an architect of the BEARTREK Campaign for 2014. He is also the co-creator of “WHY BEARS?” with BBC/PBS Chris Morgan. Straight is directing a new feature documentary filming in Haiti in 2014 called “Save the devil.” Straight is dedicated to using the power of storytelling for people and the planet.
Allison Argo is the Founder and Executive of Green Planet Films, a non profit distributor of nature and environmental films. She conceived the idea of Green Planet Films while attending a wildlife film festival in 2002. She registered for the conference to explore how she could become a wildlife filmmaker, only to discover a wealth of award-winning films are produced, but many would never be seen outside of the film festival circuit due to the lack of distribution outlets at that time. Instead of becoming another filmmaker with few distribution opportunities, she returned from the festival with another mission ? to promote this genre of films ? and founded Green Planet Films in 2003. By creating an organization SHE wanted to work for, Suzanne puts to use her years of experience as a media freelancer: spanning a wide range of skills from graphic design to writing, to photography and video editing, storyboarding, producing, publicity and promotions, to public relations, web analytics, partnering, research and networking.
Suzanne is also the Associate Producer of the Emmy Award winning broadcast series Natural Heroes which can be seen on numerous Public Broadcast Stations in the USA.
Suzanne has been a panelist for various film festivals and member events, focusing on distribution methods to the Educational Market for filmmakers.
Anderson Jean is an agronomist and field biologist. He received his B.S. at the American University of the Caribbean in Les Cayes, Haiti. During university studies, Anderson became the supervisor of the Audubon Center Library as a result of his interest in ornithology. During his three-year career there, he had the opportunity to participate in several ornithological field studies with scientists from the Vermont Center for Ecostudies (VCE) and Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology (CLO). These field studies allowed him to acquire basic scientific skills in monitoring and evaluating bird populations.
In 2008, Anderson participated in the Golondrinas long term research project coordinated by VCE and CLO in Vermont and Ithaca, New York. He studied the ecology and conservation of Bicknell’s Thrush under the direction of Dr. Chris Rimmer. The following year, he had the privilege of participating in the National Audubon Seabird Restoration Program (Project Puffin). These overseas experiences provided him opportunities to lead bird monitoring activities, contribute in the management plan of the Critically Endangered Black-capped Petrel in Haiti and Dominican Republic and to initiate for the first time the Christmas Bird Count in Les Cayes, Haiti in 2010.
After participating in the intensive course on Island Conservation, provided by Durrell Wildlife Trust In 2011, he was employed by Société Audubon Haïti as a field biologist where he now coordinates field research and conservation activities.
Blanca Ordóñez de Tena and Alba González de Molina Soler obtained their degrees in Audiovisual Communications from Facultad de Ciencias de la Información in 2012. During their school years they directed numerous shorts and feature films, many of which were co-written and co-directed. Their films include short documentaries Juventud Sin Futuro; winner of the third prize at IV Certamen de Cortometraje Express de CCOO and Cuando Mueres Más de Una Vez, as well as their first feature documentary Stop! Rodando el Cambio. Julie, their first fiction feature film is currently in preproduction.
Charlotte Vick has worked with the OCEAN in Google Earth for the last two years, She works with noted oceanographer, Dr. Sylvia Earle, and her Deep Search Foundation and directs RVLL Ocean Endeavors providing communications, technology, resource management and economic development expertise. She has participated in the evolution of online media since 1996. Living most of her adult life on islands, Charlotte has a passion for finding ways to improve life in and around coastal communities.
Charlotte graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and did additional studies at the University of Hawaii in ocean sciences. Her career has included government service at the state, national and international levels as well as extensive work in marketing and communications for business, industry and non-profit organizations. She is keen to aid in applying emerging web-based technology, sustainable ocean and energy solutions in island environments.
Dan Susman, is a co-founder of Elmwood Motion Picture Company and filmmaker whose focus is on creating documentaries that inspire environmental and social change. Dan was given the most outstanding film award from Dartmouth College for Landmark, his short film that brought together a diverse group of community members to save a forest from destruction. Dan was also selected to attend Working Films’ Reel Change Summit where he honed the engagement and outreach plan for Growing Cities.
Professor David N. Cassuto came to Pace in July 2003 from Coblentz, Patch, Duffy & Bass LLP in San Francisco, where he practiced complex civil litigation. Prior to that, he was an associate at Pillsbury Winthrop LLP in San Francisco and served on the Executive Committee of the San Francisco Bar Association’s Environmental Law Practice Group. Before entering private practice, Professor Cassuto clerked for the Honorable Rosemary Barkett on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
A former professor of English specializing in literature and the environment, Professor Cassuto has published and lectured widely on legal, literary, and environmental issues. He is also a frequent speaker on legal and cultural studies.
Professor Cassuto teaches in the areas of property, professional responsibility, animal law, water law, international comparative law, and legal and environmental theory. He directs the Brazil American Institute for Law and Environment (BAILE), a cooperative endeavor with the Getulio Vargas Foundation School of Law in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Professor Cassuto was a Fulbright Fellow at FGV Direito Rio, in Rio de Janeiro Brazil in 2010, is a visiting professor at the Federal University of Bahia, Brazil, and is the Class of 1946 Distinguished Visiting Professor of Environmental Law at Williams College.
Enrico Cerasuolo, Born in Venice in 1968, Enrico Cerasuolo is a documentary director and screenwriter. Since 1992 he has been president of the production company Zenit Arti Audiovisive in Turin.
He has written and directed many international documentary films which have been awarded by national and European festivals including: From Garibaldi to Berlusconi (2011); The Hidden Face of Fear (2008); Space Hackers (2007); Peter’s Dream (2007); Checosamanca (2006), and The Enigma of Sleep (2004).
Fernando Báez, Founder and President of Unicorn Films and Grupo Unico, has made more than 250 documentary films. He was production manager on several channels of the Dominican Republic, as well as director and producer of the documentary series La Imagen Nacional. He has won numerous national and international awards as a television director. His productions include Tiempo para Cosechar; Un Pueblo con Alma de Carnaval; República Dominicana… Sus Ríos, Saltos y Lagos; and the recently released documentary film El Lago Enriquillo…A Prelude to Climate Change, among others. Fernando Baez holds M.A. degrees in both Cinematography and Film.
Jürgen Hoppe, photographer and biologist, was born in Germany in 1959 where he studied in Berlin and Hamburg. He complemented his studies with environmental research trips around the world. One of his major achievements was in Costa Rica where he worked on documenting the country’s protected areas. After having established residence in the Dominican Republic in 1985, he got involved in environmental issues and began working with groups that defend the environment.
He is one of the most active wildlife filmmakers in the Caribbean, having produced more than 25 documentaries in the past 15 years; he specializes in extremely rare species. He frequently works as a producer and cameraman for large companies and is president of Caribemotion Production Company, based in Santo Domingo.
As a member of the Board of Directors of the National Botanic Gardens of Santo Domingo, Hoppe continues to work with numerous conservationist groups as well as national and international organizations. Jürgen Hoppe is also known for his series of publications on Caribbean flora and fauna, published in four languages.
Marcelina Cravat, trained at the Art Center College of Design as a photographer, and The Berkeley Digital Film Institute as a filmmaker, debuts her first environmental documentary, Angel Azul. Making a transition from photography to film came later in life when her love for storytelling motivated her to return to school to pursue a career as a writer/director. Upon graduating she co-founded ARTiDOCs, a small production company specializing in portrait style documentaries on artists. Her love for art and nature make Angel Azul the perfect project for her at this time.
María Montoreano moved from her hometown of Buenos Aires, Argentina to Los Angeles, CA in 1991. She worked as an editor in the film industry for major studios such as Warner, Bros, Disney, 20th Century Fox and Sony. Her most notable film projects were JFK, Anna Karenina and The Motorcycle Diaries. She became interested in marine conservation when she married a marine biologist in 2005. She left Los Angeles shortly thereafter to raise a family. Since then, she has been working in films and videos related to marine conservation. She currently resides in Charleston, SC and works for Mission Blue as Content Curator for the outreach and education Ocean Layer in Google Earth and Google Maps.
Melvin Estrella has worked in numerous capacities within the independent film arena as well as within commercial, television, and non-profit production. Clients have included ESPN (It’s the Shoes), Filmlance Sweden (The Last Contract), Daniel Fridell (Beneath the Surface), Galavision, 3rd Edge Communications, Hock Films, House Films, Make a Wish, and TV-One. Melvin shot and produced the documentary, The Dodgers Sym-Phony and is the director of photography on the documentary-in-progress Wall Street in the Black. His short film Firebird premiered at Jazz at Lincoln Center during the New York Indian Film Festival. He serves on the curatorial committee for The Moth.
Pedro Narvaez Castellanos y Emma Lopez Hechem hold degrees in Information Design from the University of the Americas Puebla. They went on to graduate with honors in a post-grad program in Visual Effects for Film and Television at Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology in Toronto, Canada. They have worked for renowned production companies in animation and post-production in Mexico and abroad with Televisa, Organika, E! Entertainment and Zink, Inc. and others. They have worked on projects for such clients as Discovery Channel, Much Music, SportsNet, CBC, Wal-Mart, E! Entertainment, Canadian Television and TSN. Currently they co-direct the Mexican company, AVA Visual Arts and Animation, which specializes in motion graphics, post-production and video projection mapping.Pegi Vail is an anthropologist and Associate Director of the Center for Media, Culture, and History at NYU. She has taught at NYU and Columbia University on Film, Culture, and Tourism. Her book, Right of Passage, based on her research among backpackers in Bolivia as a Fulbright scholar, is forthcoming (Duke University Press). Vail has additionally served as lecturer for Columbia Alumni Travel Study Tours, National Geographic and Soros Open Society and as a judge for the World Travel and Tourism Council’s Tourism for Tomorrow Awards. As a curator, she has collaborated with organizations such as the Museum of the American Indian, American Museum of Natural History, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and The Moth, the storytelling collective she was a founding board member and curator for. Vail currently serves on the Moth’s General Council and Curatorial Committee. She directed the award-winning short documentary, The Dodger’s Sym-phony. Gringo Trails is her first feature-length documentary.
Philippe Bayard is a member of the Haitian business community and a conservationist. His business interests include Aviation- Airlines and aircraft leasing, Renewable Energy and real estate investment. In addition he is the designated agent for a number of world-class businesses involved in the fields of airport design, air traffic management, security printing, document processing and issuing systems and central bank services. His previous experience includes currency trading, food manufacturing and media ownership together with a period where he flew as a commercial pilot. He is a member of the Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie d’Haïti.
As a conservationist, he is the founder of the Société Audubon Haiti, an NGO which leads an effort to preserve and restore Haiti’s ecosystems and biodiversity. He has also published and co-authored a number of books on this subject..
Richard O’Barry has worked on both sides of the captive dolphin issue, making him an invaluable asset in the efforts to end exploitation. He worked for 10 years within the dolphin captivity industry, and has spent the past 40 working against it.
In the 1960s, O’Barry was employed by the Miami Seaquarium, where he captured and trained dolphins, including the five dolphins who played the role of Flipper in the popular American TV-series of the same name. He also trained Hugo, the first orca kept in captivity east of the Mississippi. When Kathy, the dolphin who played Flipper most of the time, died in his arms, O’Barry realized that capturing dolphins and training them to perform silly tricks is simply wrong.
From that moment on, O’Barry knew what he must do with his life. On the first Earth Day, 1970, he launched a searing campaign against the multi-billion dollar dolphin captivity industry and has been going at it ever since. Over the past 40 years, Ric O’Barry has rescued and rehabilitated dolphins in many countries around the world, including Haiti, Colombia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Brazil, the Bahamas Islands and the United States. He is a leading voice in the fight to end brutal dolphin hunts in Japan, the Solomon Islands, the Faroe Islands, and wherever else they occur.
O’Barry has been recognized by many national and international entities for his dedicated efforts, such as being voted Huffington Post’s 2010 Most Influential Green Game Changer, and being listed on O Magazine’s 2010 Power List – Men We Admire for his “Power of Passion.” O’Barry received an Environmental Achievement Award, presented by the United States Committee for the United Nations Environmental Program. He has done countless interviews with such prestigious news programs as Larry King Live, Anderson Cooper 360, the Mike Huckabee Show, and the Oprah Winfrey Show.
His book Behind the Dolphin Smile was published in 1989; a second book, To Free A Dolphin was published in September 2000. Both of them are about his work and dedication. He is the star of the Academy Award-winning documentary The Cove and the Animal Planet television series Blood Dolphin$. In January 2006, O’Barry became Marine Mammal Specialist for Earth Island Institute, where he is also the Director of Earth Island Institute’s Dolphin Project and Save Japan Dolphins Campaign.
Stefanie Brendl has many years of experience in underwater photo and video production. She is also owner and operator of a shark diving operation in Oahu, Hawaii where her and her team educates people about the importance of sharks. Stefanie has hundreds of hours of diving experience with sharks of all shapes and sizes, including the feared and greatly misunderstood Tiger and Great White shark.
In recent years, Stefanie’s political work has put her at the forefront of shark conservation, in particular in the Pacific region. Her non-profit organization Shark Allies focuses on the battle against the global shark fin trade. With her group she has joined forces with many other activists around the world to stop the senseless slaughter of sharks for shark fin soup.
Stuart Sender is an Academy Award nominated filmmaker, broadcast journalist and screenwriter. His credits include producing and directing the Academy-Award nominated documentary Prisoner of Paradise, which also received a Directors Guild nomination and won the prestigious Grierson Award for best documentary on film. Stuart executive produced The Garden, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. He began his career at CBS news then worked as Senior Producer of the weekly PBS series South Africa Now, which won a Polk Award for excellence in journalism and a New York Emmy for best newsmagazine. Stuart produced the first exclusive interview with Nelson Mandela following his release from prison. He was Senior Producer of the documentary Mandela: Free At Last.
Suzan Beraza Born in Jamaica and raised in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, social and environmental issues pervade Suzan’s work. Her films have appeared on National Public Television and on the Documentary Channel, at Lincoln Center, and at many festivals. Her last film, Bag it!, was honored as a finalist at the Puma Creative Impact Awards in Berlin, and has been televised in over twenty countries. Her current project, Uranium Drive-In, is a recipient of Sundance Institute and Chicken and Egg funding and was featured at Good Pitch and at Hot Docs Pitch Forum.
Suzanne Harle is the Founder and Executive of Green Planet Films, a non profit distributor of nature and environmental films. She conceived the idea of Green Planet Films while attending a wildlife film festival in 2002. She registered for the conference to explore how she could become a wildlife filmmaker, only to discover a wealth of award-winning films are produced, but many would never be seen outside of the film festival circuit due to the lack of distribution outlets at that time. Instead of becoming another filmmaker with few distribution opportunities, she returned from the festival with another mission ? to promote this genre of films ? and founded Green Planet Films in 2003. By creating an organization SHE wanted to work for, Suzanne puts to use her years of experience as a media freelancer: spanning a wide range of skills from graphic design to writing, to photography and video editing, storyboarding, producing, publicity and promotions, to public relations, web analytics, partnering, research and networking.
Suzanne is also the Associate Producer of the Emmy Award winning broadcast series Natural Heroes which can be seen on numerous Public Broadcast Stations in the USA.
Suzanne has been a panelist for various film festivals and member events, focusing on distribution methods to the Educational Market for filmmakers.
