Filmmaker Bios
Marty Shea (Project Director)
Marty has co-written and directed several award winning short films with co-writer Ian Bonner. He is primarily a line producer and production manager but has worked in various capacities on over seventy projects including studio movies (61*, The Weather Man), television shows (America's Most Wanted, Oprah Winfrey’s The Big Give), national and local commercials (GM, Budweiser), music videos (Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Cash Money Millionaires) and independent films (Standing in the Shadows of Motown, Death of a President). He and Ian Bonner have been making films together for over ten years. Their latest shorts, "21 Carbs" and "The Planning Lady," have won 7 awards and played at over two dozen festivals.Ian Bonner (Project Co-director, Forum Administrator)
Ian graduated from Michigan State University with a Computer Science degree and a Film Studies Specialization. He has since free-lanced as an editor, web designer, and a computer forensics specialist. His filmmaking partnership with Marty Shea began over ten years ago and has resulted in dozens of screenplays and seven short films including the award winning "21 Carbs" and "The Planning Lady." His short story “Raymond the Elephants” was published in Madison, WI based literary magazine, "The Styles”. Ian was the editor and co-writer of Patrick Moug's documentary Bold as a Lion. He has edited several independent films and corporate videos for clients such as Comerica Bank and Boys Hope Girls Hope.Xavier Agudo
Xavier is originally from Venezuela but currently lives in Germany. He recently completed his Master of Arts in Media Production at the Hochschule Ostwestfalen-Lippe in Germany. He is current in post-production on "The Line", his thesis short film. Xavier and his producers implemented the model of crowd funding to produce the film. Xavier has also directed several short films including “Ensomgade” which screened at the 5th International Detmold Film Festival, “La Sombra” which screened at the Viart Latin American Showcase and “kasandra y Kasandra” which screened at the School of Arts UCV Short Film Festival and at solocrotos.com. http://www.equisweb.net/shorts.htmlDiane Cheklich
Diane Cheklich thanks Ross Perot for launching her film career. It was the late 1990’s and she was working as an information technology consultant for Perot’s company. As a “promising female leader,” they offered her a mentor, she chose someone in TV, who then gave her the name of a cinematographer and told her to go make a short film. She did, and loved it so much she knew she had to find more space in her life for filmmaking.Making movies quickly became her film school. Diane already has a half dozen shorts and documentaries to her writing and directing credit (including the award-winning experimental film “Late”), many of which have screened in film festivals around the world. She produced two feature films. TRAP, a psychological thriller, is available nationwide on DVD, and AMSTEROID is in post production.
Diane’s long-standing love of India, and that previous life in the corporate world gave her unique insight into the making of her first feature OFFSHORE.
Mairtin De Barra
Mairtin has worked in various guises in the film and TV industry over the last 11 years, mainly as a location manager. He became director of a film commission, a position he recently left to concentrate on his own work. Mairtin has directed 3 music videos, one of which is award winning, one picked up for distribution and another just completed. His 12 minute short “Tart” recently debuted in the festival circuit and will be broadcast nationally later this year.Timothy Gannon
Tim Gannon has film degrees from the University of Minnesota and Film in the Cities. He is the owner of Big Work Productions which currently makes commercials and corporate videos. His short film “Ferret” starring Gregory Wigdor, Lisa Eichhorn and John Heard, played at over a dozen film festivals worldwide including Berlin Int'l Film Festival, Chicago Int'l Film Festival, San Francisco Int'l Film Festival and the Hampton's Int'l Film Festival.- Check out scenes from "Ferret" under film and the hilarious "Sobe" under commercial: bigworkproductions.com
Matthew Hahn
Matthew Hahn has a BA in Theatre & Speech from DeSales University and an MFA in Acting/Directing from UMKC. His movies have been shown at the St. Patrick's Day Film Festival in London, England, and the A & E Third Screen Indie Film Festival in Hollywood, CA, and he is presently (Feb. 2009) a semi-finalist in the Babelgum Film Festival with two movies in the Animation category.His movies are also featured in the current issues of the e-magazines UnlikelyStories.org and Moviewood-E.com and an episode of "It's Alive" at MogulUS.com/itsalive.
You can see his complete oeuvre at http://grouchobeersgrindho.blip.tv
Wojtek Jezowski
Bio Coming Soon.Charles Marks
Charles is a filmmaker, photographer, editor and radio producer. He has directed two short films, “Boucher: the Morning After” (16mm, 6 min) and “The Beginners Guide to Being Unsuicidal” (DV, 22 min). As a freelance photographer, Charles has photographed performances by the Smashing Pumpkins, Modest Mouse, MC5, and Velvet Revolver. He worked on the MTV documentary “True Life: I am supporting my family,” which aired in November of 2007.- Watch the first 10 minutes of The Beginners Guide to Being
Unsuicidal
James Napoli
James Napoli is a graduate of the London Film School. His award-winning 35mm shorts The Priests and Nobody Gets Hurt have screened at festivals around America and the world. He took a little hiatus from filmmaking to spend four years as the Head Writer and a performing member of New Frequency, the live stage radio theater presentation in Hollywood that continues to run in repertory on XM/Sirius. In addition to his dramatic work, he has a background in comedy, both as a live improvisational performer and as a writer of drive time humor for Premiere Radio Networks, the nation's largest syndicator. He has published several successful humor books, including The North Pole Employee Handbook and the upcoming Violation: The Ultimate Ticket Book. James also teaches college-level screenplay analysis and screenwriting, and spent many, many years as a professional industry story analyst ("reader") for production companies and private clients.James is most recently the creator of the Internet self-help parody Mr. Paul Maul.
Paul Pater
Paul Pater is a paramedic student and EMT by day, but at night he's a devil-may-care, freewheeling nationally recognized dodgeball player and filmmaker. Ok, so he's not nationally recognized in either aspect, but does enjoy making films, sometimes while traveling the country playing dodgeball. He even combined the two passions for his irst feature film "Undefeated: A Dodgeball Story". His short film "The Meter" has played at a number of film festivals as far away as Alaska and as close as the bar down the street from him.- You can look at all of his work at www.paulpater.net
- See his feature film.
Horacio Alcala
Horacio directed and produced the documentary “Film User’s Guide for a Spaceship” for the Friends of Earth and Ministry of Agriculture of Spain as well as several short films including the award-winining “No News from Bosnia”. He has also worked as a director and producer for MVS television in Mexico.Director Links: www.camaraboreal.com
Francois Coetzee
Francois’ feature film “Finale” screened at the Cape Winelands Film Festival and his short films include “Tacet” (Official Selection, Out in Africa Film Festival), Diesis (Official Selection, Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival, Germany). He also wrote the short film “Ethyl & Edward.”Links coming soon.
Varun Mahur
Varun has written, produced, directed and composed music for several narrative and documentary films. He directed “This is India” a short film commissioned by AIESEC in India and Multimedia presentations for Top Travels and Tours for The Buddhist Pilgrimage and The Golden Triangle tourist circuit. He was cinematographer for “The Why Democracy? Project” which includes interviews with the likes of football legend Pele and legendary Jazz Saxophonist Robbie Janson.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK8QcBOi-Kw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4M2qEkM8b2o
Karen Wilkens
Karen is a 3-time emmy nominated director and DGA award nominee. She was a director for NBC’s “Passions” and CBS’s “Guiding Light” for ten years. In the last few years, she has turned her attention to independent filmmaking. She produced and directed the short film “Four Steps” which screened at the Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival and the Palm Springs International Film Society as well as 3 PSAs concerning Proposition 8 in California.www.karenwilkens.com