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Festival Jury

Anthony Bregman is Vice-President of Production at Good Machine, where he recently produced Jenniphr Goodman's "The Tao of Steve", which won the Best Actor award for Donal Logue at the Sundance Film Festival, and became one of the most successful American independent films of the year 2000.

He is currently in post-production on Michel Gondry's "Human Nature" (to be released by Fine Line in 2001) and Nicole Holofcener's follow-up to "Walking & Talking," an untitled digital feature. He co-produced Bette Gordon's "Luminous Motion" (2000) with Ted Hope. He was associate producer on Ang Lee's "The Ice Storm", Edward Burns's "The Brothers McMullen", Bart Freundlich's "The Myth of Fingerprints", and Jill Godmilow's "Roy Cohn/Jack Smith".

As Head of Production for Good Machine, Bregman has supervised the production and post production of over thirty feature films. In addition, Bregman teaches producing at Columbia University Film School.

Alan Jenkins is Deputy Director, Human Rights and International Cooperation, at the Ford Foundation in New York, where he specializes in racial justice. He is a graduate of the Harvard Law School, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. Mr. Jenkins came to the Foundation from the U.S. Justice Department, where he served as Assistant to the Solicitor General. In that capacity, he represented the federal government in litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court. From 1991 to 1995, he worked as Assistant Counsel to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, focusing on the rights of low-income people of color. His earlier positions include Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, Law Clerk to Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackman and Coordinator of the Access to Justice Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Peter Levy is Vice President of Business Development for Bigchalk, an online education destination. Over the past year, Peter has established partnerships with numerous cultural institutions and content partners, including National Public Radio, Fablevision Studios, and Generation Yes, a student-centered professional development program that pairs students with teachers and lets students teach teachers how to integrate technology into the classroom. His writing credits include Jupiter Communication's 1997 Teen and College Report as well as pieces about education and technology for Internet World, a New York Times Supplement and Women's Day magazine. His new book Getting Started on the Internet -- An Easy and Practical Guide for Teachers, was published by Scholastic Professional Books in 2000.

Daniel Lubetzky, president and founder of Peaceworks LLC, a not-only-for-profit company that fosters joint business ventures in conflict regions around the globe.

Recognizing that economic incentives are powerful tools for reinvigorating broken communities, PeaceWorks has created an innovative model that utilizes business as a driving force for bringing together divided rivals in viable enterprises that simultaneously lay the practical groundwork for reconciliation.

Jennifer Lytton has been working in public health and media since 1991. She has produced and directed several documentaries on topics such as surviving sexual assault and disclosure to children about HIV. For two years, she worked for Media Network's Seeing Through AIDS project, in which she taught media literacy to healthcare providers. She is currently the Program Director of the Center for Special Studies, the AIDS Care Unit of New York Hospital.

Hye-Jung Park is Project Director of the Youth Channel. She worked as Director of Programs at Downtown Community TV Center (DCTV), a grassroots media center for the past eight years. She received an MA from the New School for Social Research. As a media/community activist, she curated many community and national screenings and organized community events to bring up issues on labor, women, Korean Reunification and international solidarity. She has served on the Board of the National Coalition of Independent Public Broadcasters, Media Network and Rainbow Korean Women's Center, North Star Fund, National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture, and Videazimut (an int'l coalition of community media). As an independent producer, she has worked on "Homes Apart: Two Koreas" (PBS), "...Will Be Televised," "The Women Outside" (PBS) and "7 train from Main Street" (Local PBS). As an adjust lecturer, she has been teaching "Asian - African/American Media" at a college.

Rachael Shapiro (Vice President, Producer Relations) - brings over 12 years of experience in the independent film industry, as former Director of the Independent Feature Film Market (IFFM) produced by the Independent Feature Project (IFP), the nation's premier 10,000 member indie film community; production consultant to the Bravo Cable Network and Independent Film Channel; has participated in numerous international festivals and markets including Cannes, Berlin, Sundance, Toronto, Rotterdam, IFFCON, MIFED, AFM; has consulted in development, acquisitions, marketing and publicity, on a freelance basis, for several companies including Highland Crest Pictures, Fox/Lorber & Associates, Strand Releasing, Forensic Films.

John Valadez is the Producer/Director of "The Head of Joaquin Murrieta" for PBS, a historical documentary film about the life and legend of a 19th century Mexican who gained notoriety during the California gold rush and who fought against injustice, for the dignity and rights of his people. John is also producing the second hour of a four-hour series for Public Television entitled Matters of Race (Executive producer: Orlando Bagwell, Roja Productions). His previous films for PBS are "Passin' It On" and "Soul Survivors". "Passin' It On" (nominated for a national Emmy award and aired nationally on the PBS series POV) profiles a former leader of the Black Panther Party who was falsely imprisoned for nearly twenty years. "Soul Survivors" (the first hour of a four hour PBS series entitled "Making Peace") is about grass roots activists who are creating innovative way to stop violence in their communities.

Mr. Valadez is a Rockefeller Fellow, has twice been a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow and currently serves on the Artists Advisory Board of The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). He graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts with a degree in Film and Television.

Christine Vestal, VP Content and Editor-In-Chief, SpeakOut.com

Christine and her staff created the original design and content for SpeakOut.com and she continues to direct ongoing site development, marketing, advertising, activism partnerships, and editorial development. Before joining SpeakOut, Christine was Vice President Online Business and Publisher of Newsbytes for Post-Newsweek Business Information, Inc. She was responsible for business development, content acquisition and syndication, online marketing, brand development, publicity, and alliances with technology, Internet and news organizations. Prior to that, she was Vice President, Group Publisher of Capitol Publications, a subsidiary of the Financial Times.

David Weiner is the director of the Benton Foundation's Richard M. Neustadt Center for Communications in the Public Interest and since 1994 has been responsible for many of the foundation's productions in a variety of media from live events to film and video to the Internet. Among the Neustadt Center initiatives in citizen engagement that he directs are Debate America and Destination Democracy.

A graduate of Ohio University, Weiner went to work for PBS's National Public Affairs Center for Television during the Watergate era and has been a film and video editor, producer/director and developer of new organizations over the last 25 years. He was a founder of Washington's Interface Video Systems and an editor both at Interface and Henninger Video. He was the first manager of the Sony Video Center of the American Film Institute in Los Angeles and the original director of production for the AFL-CIO's Labor Institute of Public Affairs.



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