Film Crew

Director, Producer, Cinematographer: Alice Elliott

Alice Elliott has worked in theater, film and television for over 35 years. She is an Academy Award nominated director, a writer, producer, actress, parent, college level teacher, advocate for the disabled, cinematographer, New Day film distribution cooperative member-owner, wife, and voiceover artist. A published and produced playwright of both adult and children's plays, she recently directed and co-produced the documentary Body & Soul: Diana & Kathy that will be seen on PBS in October 2009. Her short documentary, The Collector of Bedford Street, was nominated for an Academy Award in 2002. It went to over 50 film festivals and won 18 awards.

Alice has several other documentaries in production, including 2 Weddings and a Future about the Christian and Hindu weddings of Carrie and Sujeet Desai, a couple with Down Syndrome. She is completing shooting on One World, Everybody Eats about Denise Cerreta and her mission to end world hunger with innovative pay-what-you think the meal is worth restaurants. This summer she was able to most of the filming on The Callicoon Center Band, a documentary that celebrates 75 years of a small town community band and the community that makes it possible.

Currently she is directing The Miracle on 42nd Street, a feature length documentary produced by Mary Jo Slater and Nancy Perkins, edited by Lisa Shreve. It is about the 30 year old innovative housing project called Manhattan Plaza. The two towers on 42nd Street provide mixed and subsidized housing for performing artists.

She is an Associate Teacher at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts. As a performer, she appeared on ABC's daytime drama LOVING for ten years and made two feature films including Four Friends, directed by Arthur Penn.

For major publishers in New York, she has recorded English as a Second Language programs and was one of the speakers on the TOEFL English Standard audio tests. In addition she has produced or performed in over 200 commercials. She teaches a voice over class for NYU’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies, and coaches voice over clients, radio personalities, and public speakers.

She is a member of New York Women in Film and Television (former board member and secretary), The Arc of the United States, Westchester, and Illinois.

Producer: Simone Pero

Simone Pero has helped shape nationally recognized campaigns for more than 15 years. As founder of For Impact Productions, LLC., Simone specializes in documentary film and creatively connecting messages to a wide variety of audiences. She most recently produced the documentary film Body & Soul: Diana & Kathy with Academy Award nominated director Alice Elliott, funded in part by the Independent Television Service (ITVS). Body & Soul: Diana & Kathy will have its television broadcast premiere in October 2009 on public television. Simone was also consulting producer for Jennifer Fox’s six-part documentary series Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman, which had its North American premiere at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and aired on the Sundance Channel in 2008. Additionally, she has worked on Thom Powers’ Loving & Cheating for HBO and Myra Sito Velasquez’s The Lovers and is in development on her first feature documentary, The Place Between.

Prior to her film career, Simone worked in cable television and in national politics. Simone has completed the Sundance Institute’s Independent Producers program, is an active member of New York Women in Film and Television’s Documentary Committee, has written for the International Documentary magazine and is teaching at DCTV. She holds a master’s degree in Public Affairs and Policy and is completing a second graduate degree in Media Studies.

Editor: Rose Rosenblatt

Rose Rosenblatt fell in love with film while in graduate school at Columbia University where she was working toward a master's in Art History. When she graduated, she was heading toward art criticism, when she took a detour into filmmaking and never left. During her career, she worked as a producer, writer and editor, beginning with the Rights and Wrongs, a PBS series chronicling human rights abuses around the world, and Mandela in America, a profile of the South African civil rights leader (PBS). She also wrote The Two Worlds of Angelita, a dramatic feature about a Puerto Rican family migrating to New York, and the screenplay The Country of the Pointed Firs, an adaptation of the story by Sarah Orne Jewett.

In 1991, while editing a PBS linguistics series titled The Human Language, she met and partnered with Marion Lipschutz. Together they formed CineQua Non/Incite Pictures, a production company devoted to producing and directing social issue documentaries. Their films have garnered numerous awards and have all had extensive outreach after broadcast. It has been said of their films that, "It's not enough to make a great movie. You need to find the viewers who need it, who will use it, who will change their lives and those of others because they made connections that you helped them to make."

Rosenblatt believes that, in particular, the success of Live Free Or Die and The Education of Shelby Knox had very much to do with the putting a human face on a policy issue. Rosenblatt and Lipschutz are now scouring the globe, in search of their next determined idealist, to be the center of their next inspirational story.

Rosenblatt has a BA in art history from Queens College and a MA in art history from Columbia University. She lives in Manhattan's Tribeca neighborhood with her husband, Larry Loonin. Her daughter is a junior at Bowdoin College in Maine.

Additional Cinematography: Craig Lindvahl

Craig Lindvahl is a nationally recognized filmmaker and educator. His television work has been seen on PBS, NBC, CNN, and The Learning Channel. He is the recipient of seven Mid America Emmy Awards, for producing, writing, camera work, and composing, and the Studs Terkel Award for contributions to the humanities. He is a recipient of the prestigious Milken National Educator Award, has twice been recognized as a finalist for Illinois Teacher of the year, and has been honored for excellence in teaching by the Illinois Education Association, the Illinois Math and Science Academy, Eastern Illinois University, Southern Illinois University, and Western Illinois University.

His latest documentary, with co-producer Joseph Fatheree, is "An Uphill Climb", a one-hour documentary that peers into the extraordinary life of Kyle Packer, a man often seen by others through a prism colored by his disability. Those who take the time to look beneath the cerebral palsy that is so physically obvious find a rich treasure of human experience. They find resilience and courage, sensitivity and strength, and above all, an optimistic spirit that pervades every part of his life.

Additional Cinematography: Liz Gawne

Liz received her B.A. in 2001 from DePaul University in Chicago, where she double majored in sociology and women’s studies. After college, Liz joined the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps, also known as the domestic Peace Corps. Following completion of her national service, Liz enrolled at the Visionaries Institute of Suffolk University in Boston, where she earned a Master of Science in Philanthropy and Media in 2004.