Katy Chevigny, Executive Director

Katy brings 15 years experience as a documentary filmmaker, entrepreneur and nonprofit manager to Arts Engine, Inc. Katy founded Arts Engine, Inc. and its predecessor Big Mouth Productions. Most recently, she directed the film Election Day (2007) which premiered at the South By Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival in March 2007. Election Day takes a vérité approach to American voting. It backs away from two-party combat in favor of what men and women on the street do on their quadrennial day of destiny—November 2, 2004. Election Day is currently on festival tour and will air on public television in 2008. Katy also co-directed Deadline (2004), an Emmy-nominated documentary about the dramatic events that took place in Illinois in 2003 concerning capital punishment. The film aired on NBC in July 2004 and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Katy is currently producing The Dishes, about bare-knuckle band-making in Chicago, and has produced many award-winning documentaries at Arts Engine, including: Arctic Son, Nuyorican Dream, Innocent Until Proven Guilty and Outside Looking In: Transracial Adoption Today.

katy@artsengine.net

Enrico Cullen, Director of Development and External Affairs

Enrico joined Arts Engine in 2005 to spearhead business development, income initiatives and brand articulation. Focusing on sustainability in the nonprofit sector, Enrico secures funding from a broad spectrum of philanthropies, corporations and family foundations, including the Surdna Foundation, Adobe, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Seventh Generation, Netflix, the Bay and Paul Foundations, the Ford Foundation, the Green Family Foundation, and more. Under Enrico’s leadership, Arts Engine continues to develop its reputation as one of the nation’s leading independent media organizations focusing on social issues. Before joining Arts Engine, Enrico was the Director of Development & Public Affairs for Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment, a $2.5 million nonprofit providing environmental education programs to over 100,000 New York City children, youth and adults each year. He led the planning team and the launch of the Academy of Urban Planning, a New Visions public school located in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and was a principal for the preliminary planning and strategy stages of the organization’s recently completed LEED-certified headquarters.

enrico@artsengine.net

Jennifer Gallardo, Director of Technology & Online Programs

Jennifer graduated cum laude from New York University with a BA in Computer Science. Aside from being a self-proclaimed gadget geek, her interest in technology has manifested itself in other ways. Throughout her college career, she worked within an inner city public school assisting teachers and students in making the best use of technology in the classroom. She also served as Vice President of the Web Design Club at NYU where she was enlisted to teach hands-on workshops in basic HTML skills. Concurrently, she has freelanced as a web designer, providing simple, affordable web sites to local musicians and artists. While Jennifer’s interest in technology dominates her everyday life, she also finds time to devote to photography, playing guitar, and writing.

jennifer@artsengine.net

Kibra Yohannes, Director of Operations

Prior to her position as Director of Operations for Arts Engine, Inc. she was Director of Programs, working most closely with MediaRights, the Media That Matters Film Festival, and the Youth Media Distribution Initiative. Before joining Arts Engine, Inc. in 2002, she worked in theater production as Company Manager for Freedom Repertory Theater in Philadelphia, a member of the League of Resident Theatres. She also established the first digital archive for the oldest African American newspaper in the United States, The Philadelphia Tribune, and its 120 year-old photo library. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from the University of Virginia. She serves on the Advisory Board of Full Circle Productions, a Hip Hop theater company and as a mentor for Project Involve, an Independent Feature Project (IFP) mentorship program for filmmakers of color.

kibra@artsengine.net

Elizabeth Mandel, Director of Production

Elizabeth is the producer of the film Arctic Son, and a co-producer on Jennifer Fox’s film Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman. She directs and produces educational videos for non-profit organizations such as Jewish Women International and for Johns Hopkins Medical Center’s Project Restore, in additional to producing spots for Nickelodeon and Sundance Channel. Elizabeth served as an associate producer for Jasmine Dellal’s When the Road Bends and was the producer of the Deadline DVD. Prior to joining Big Mouth in 2001, she worked for the United Nations and the Asia Foundation. She has also worked in India, Cambodia, Nepal and Japan on a variety of community development, leadership training and citizen participation projects. She holds a Master’s Degree from Columbia University in International Affairs, with a focus on Economic and Political Development and graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University with a B.A. in Religion and East Asian Cultures.

elizabeth@artsengine.net

Angela Tucker, Director of Production

Angela is the Associate Producer, Sound Recordist and Outreach Director for Deadline. She was the Outreach Coordinator for Outside Looking In: Transracial Adoption in America and was Line Producer for Beyond the Steps for PBS’ Great Performances. Angela directed and produced a video for ACORN Housing about their predatory lending programs. She produced a narrative short film, Shook (directed by Melanie Williams Oram), which premiered on Showtime. Angela received her MFA in Film from Columbia University where she was awarded a grant from The Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Dean’s Fellowship and a Milos Forman Finishing Fund Award. Currently, she is developing Lo, a documentary about African-American women with bipolar disorder that has received funding from The Paul Robeson Fund for Independent Media. Angela received her B.A. with Honors from Wesleyan University in Theater and African-American Studies. She is a member of New York Women in Film and Television.

angela@artsengine.net

Maia L. Ermita, Director of Festival & Outreach

Prior to joining Arts Engine, Maia served as the Educational Media Specialist for MHz Networks - one of the few independent television networks in the Washington DC area. She has always been involved with media policy and new media production both in New York and Washington through groups such as NYCTV, Media Access Project and Thirteen/WNET. Maia graduated from the George Washington University with a degree in Electronic Media and a minor in Fine Arts & Art History.

maia@artsengine.net

Beth Davenport, Producer

Having worked in various capacities at Big Mouth since 2003, Beth brings over eight years of production and outreach experience in television, commercials and award-winning documentaries for P.O.V., Sundance Channel, BBC and Arte France as well as directing advocacy videos and short films. Film credits include: the Emmy-nominated film Deadline, Thomas Balmes’ Wrongful Death and Election Day. Beth is currently a producer at Arts Engine, Inc./Big Mouth Films and is producing The Dishes, directed by Katy Chevigny and directing Rose and Nangabire, a feature-length documentary work-in-progress.

beth@artsengine.net

Maggie Bowman, Producer

Maggie is currently producing Big Mouth’s work-in-progess Election Day, an ITVS-funded feature documentary on the 2004 U.S. elections. She recently associate-produced Two Tone Productions’ Unfinished Country, a film about Haiti’s 2006 presidential elections for the PBS foreign affairs series Wide Angle. At Big Mouth she has directed an advocacy video for the New York Hotel Trades Council and served in multiple production capacities on Arctic Son and Deadline. Also, Maggie has produced for the Brian Lehrer Show, a public affairs talk show on New York Public Radio; she line-produced the documentary short Dimmer, about a group of blind teenagers in Buffalo, New York (Sundance 2005); and she does freelance production work in film and television. Prior to her work in film, Maggie was a union organizer and consultant for five years, working on campaigns with taxi drivers in the Bronx, nurses in Iowa, and home health aides in Brooklyn, among others.

maggie@artsengine.net

Ryann Scypion, Office Manager

Originally from Houston, Texas, Ryann moved to New York to attend NYU. She has been working in business administration since graduation and has held various administrative positions from personal assistant to office manager.

ryann@artsengine.net

Laimah Osman, Web Developer

Laimah is a multimedia artivist (artist + activist) living in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BFA in painting at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University in 1998. She moved to San Francisco after college and stumbled into the dot-com boom. She attended MediaLink, a program of Bay Area Video Coalition, designed to equip low-income artists and locals in technology. After a couple years in San Francisco she returned to New York and joined Media Jumpstart (later named May First Technology Collective). She worked as a website designer and technology advisor for citywide groups working for social justice. Today she hopes to continue to develop sustainable technology and promote creative uses of technology for movements for peace and justice in New York City and beyond. She is also a board member of AWAAM (Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media), a collective member of riffRAG and dabbles in homemade printmaking techniques in her time away from the computer.

laimah@artsengine.net

Kasmore Rhedrick, Web Editor

Kasmore is fascinated by the many different ways the global community creates, manages, structures and distributes content to communicate with the world. He began his exploration of mass communication in the green monochrome monitor, dot matrix printer era where he filed daily “column inches” as a beat reporter for the community page of the Asbury Park Press. Kasmore is never bored by the latest developments in communication technology and loves participating in the pursuit to bring something new and cool to the world wide web. Pursuing this interest has taken him to many different countries and “virtual spaces” where he has worked as an online editor, information architect, playwright and dramaturge. A recent opportunity sent him to Qatar where he discovered a passion for Kabaddi and Sepatakraw. Although Kasmore has always been curious about new media and new structures in narrative composition, his first love will always be the traditional well-crafted story complete with local color and subtle drama.

kasmore@artsengine.net

Leah Sapin, Festival & Outreach Manager

Leah followed a passion for filmmaking from her home in Manchester, England to London then to New York where she has freelanced in television, independent film production and post-production for the last nine years. During her time at the University of Michigan, Leah volunteered in after-school programs and creative writing pursuits, while working in the University Publishing House and performed as event coordinator and marketing designer for the local live music establishment. After graduating with an English Literature Degree, Leah moved back to New York to pursue creative opportunities with a combination of community engagement and youth activism in the graphic design or film industry. In her free time Leah enjoys photography, writing, exploring the wilds of Prospect Park, Brooklyn and saving money whenever possible in order to travel the world.

leah@artsengine.net

Mary Myers, Associate of Development & External Affairs

Mary brings a broad range of experience to her work at Arts Engine. In the last 10 years she has worked as an editor of independent and television documentaries, including films such as King George: A King Runs for President, by Chris Carnel, pack, strap, swallow by Holly Paige Joyner, Gypsy Caravan by Jasmine Dellal, and pieces for ABC, A&E, The Learning Channel and The Discovery Channel. She is also an award-winning composer, writing for film and live performance of solo work and in collaboration with video and performance artists. As a singer, she has performed numerous world premieres including Beeing, an opera by Sorrel Hays. She has also worked as a peace activist for many years with the broad understanding that sustainable peace requires transformation at all levels of society. To this end, she works as a lecturer, workshop leader and teacher. She has been leading a weekly Peace Circle since 1999 and is active in the campaign to create a Cabinet level Department of Peace. In the past few years she has begun working with clients as a psycho-spiritual counselor and will receive ordination as a Helix Practitioner in December 2007. Mary has a long relationship with Arts Engine, having worked with the organization since 2001 on numerous Arts Engine projects, including Deadline, Journey to the West, Brother Born Again, and short advocacy pieces for ACORN and Jewish Women International.

mary@artsengine.net

Felix Endara, Filmmaker Services Coordinator

Ecuadorian-born Felix Endara is a filmmaker and independent programmer living in New York City. His films have screened at festivals including Berlinale and the Mill Valley International Film Festival. Before joining Arts Engine, he was a media educator at Global Action Project, co-facilitating a program for immigrant and refugee youth.

felix@artsengine.net