Four
Seasons
Lodge
Andrew Jacobs, Director
Andrew Jacobs has been a staff writer at the New York Times for the
past 8 years, where he has covered a wide variety of beats, from the American
South and the aftermath of Sept. 11, to New Jersey politics and the New
York City Police Department. The idea for "Four Seasons" grew out of a six-part
series Jacobs did for the Times about summer life in the Catskills. A graduate
of New York University, Mr. Jacobs spent a year teaching and writing in
China during the pro-democracy movement. He also owns an old dairy farm
in Ulster County, NY, not far from the Four Seasons Lodge.
Check out Andrew's clips.
Albert Maysles, Cinematography
Albert Maysles is a pioneer of Direct Cinema who, along with his brother David,
was the first to make nonfiction feature films (Grey Gardens, Salesman,
Gimme Shelter) where the drama of life unfolds without scripts, sets,
interviews or narration. With his first film, Psychiatry In Russia
(1955) he made the transition from psychologist to documentary filmmaker.
In 1960 he co-created Primary. His 36 films include What's Happening:
The Beatles in the USA (1964), five films of the projects of Christo
and Jeanne-Claude (1972 to 1995), and three documentaries for HBO. He received
a Guggenheim Fellowship (1965), a Peabody, an Emmy, five Lifetime Achievement
Awards, the award for best cinematography at Sundance (2002) for Lalee's
Kin, which was also nominated in 2001 for an Academy Award and most
recently, the Columbia Dupont Award (2004). In 1999 Eastman Kodak saluted
him as one of the 100 world's finest cinematographers. Albert's latest project,
The Gates (1979-2005), is currently in postproduction.
Learn more about Maysles' work.
Matthew Lavine, Producer
Matthew Lavine was the coproducer of the critically-praised Tying
The Knot (2004), winner of 11 festival awards, including best documentary
at the Frameline International Film Festival. The film was received as "a revelation"
and "wrenching" by the New York Times and "brilliant" by the Boston
Phoenix. The film was distributed theatrically
nationwide by Roadside Attractions, played in over 70 cities, 110 festivals, and 21 countries. Tying was aired nationally on television, and is now widely available on DVD.
Matt was an associate
producer and field producer on reality and lifestyle series for the Fox and Fine Living
networks, including the highly rated Real Scary Stories. He has also produced and edited a number of short videos, including
pieces on deaf education and children growing up in squats. Additionally,
Matt has ten years of experience in management at non-profit media arts
and education organizations.
Kelly Sheehan, Executive Producer
Kelly Sheehan is a long time producer of documentary film and television
projects. Most recently she has served as executive producer on independently
produced feature documentaries including Crossing Arizona (2006 Sundance Film Festival premiere, Sundance Channel broadcast,
numerous awards and screenings around the world including the Munich Film
Festival's One Future Prize, a CINE Golden Eagle, and a top seller in educational
markets through Cinema Guild) and Follow My Voice with the Music of Hedwig produced in association with Sundance
Channel (2006 Tribeca Film Festival premiere, Wolfe Video DVD release),
as well as several documentaries currently in production. She has served
as head of production for the Emmy Award-winning documentary film company
Globalvision, where she supervised numerous documentaries for television
including the PBS film Counting On Democracy (2002), Nkosi: Voice Of Africa's
AIDS Orphans (2002), also broadcast on PBS stations, and We Are Family (2002
Sundance Film Festival premiere). In television, Kelly served as supervising
producer for ABC Children First, a series of twelve broadcast specials for
ABC-TV hosted by national network personalities including Diane Sawyer,
Elizabeth Vargas and Connie Chung. She served as senior producer for NBC
Entertainment's primetime explorer series for CNBC Ushuaia, and
series producer for 86 episodes of the human interest magazine series Tilt
23, which was telecast in over 70 countries. She is also the producer
responsible for developing the Academy-Award nominated feature documentary
My Architect (2005), released theatrically by New Yorker Films and HBO.
Currently, Kelly is Vice President of Development at Rainlake Productions
in New York City.
Rhoda Herrick, Coproducer
Rhoda Herrick is the president of the Herrick Theater Foundation, which producers plays as well as being involved in other charitable purposes. Currently the foundation is producing The Black Monk, starring
Orson Pendleton, and Garden of Earthly Delights, by Arthur Clarke. She is happy to be involved with Four Seasons Lodge.
Matthew Wilson Pond, Coproducer
Matthew Pond is pursuing a Master's Degree in documentary film production
at the Australian Film Television and Radio School, one of the most highly
regarded film schools in the world. Matthew, a former lawyer, was an associate
producer on the feature length documentary Tying The Knot, which had its
theatrical premiere in 2004. He created a short doc on the Naked Cowboy,
in New York City. He currently lives in Sydney, Australia.
Andrew Federman, Cinematography
Andrew Federman is currently a freelance cinematographer, lighting designer,
producer and photographer working on documentaries for the BBC as well as
independent films in New York City and beyond. He has worked on a wide variety
of BBC projects ranging from a biography of Patricia Highsmith to an architectural
program shot atop New York's Chrysler building. He recently directed and
shot a small documentary with Craig Newmark, founder of Craig's List, a
profile of the U.S. Olympic Luge team, and a concert film and interview
with Kanye West; all for Verizon's Broadband Stories. He has shot two short
films in the last few years for Raw Impressions' RIPFEST and has recently
completed work (cinematography/lighting) on John Bruce's feature film Danger
Island.
Avi Kastoriano, Cinematography
Avi, a native of Israel who now lives in Brooklyn, is a director, producer, cinematographer
and screenwriter. In Tel Aviv, Avi directed, shot and wrote scripts for major
network television series on topics including nature, science, sports and
historical sites; he received similar credits for television commercials
and industrial films. Other works include his film shorts The Experiment
(2002) and Question Of Mercy (2003). Avi received his degree in Film Directing
and Cinematography from the School of Visual Arts in 2002, and was a Silhas
Rhodes Scholarship recipient.
Justin Schein, Cinematography
Justin Schein, a director, cinematographer and sound recordist, has shot
more than 45 films all over the world for broadcasters including A&E, National
Geographic, BBC, The Discovery Channel, HBO, The Learning Channel, MTV and
PBS. His most recent film, an hour-long documentary about young gun owners,
aired on MTV in January of 2006. Justin spent seven months in the aftermath
of the 9/11 attacks chronicling the rescue and recovery effort at Ground
Zero for the PBS film America Rebuilds: A Year at Ground Zero. He
is currently shooting in Israel and the West Bank, where he has been documenting
six Palestinian and Israeli teenage girls, and for a documentary about people
who have suffered major brain trauma, for HBO. Justin's films about street
heroin won the Golden Apple at the National Educational Film Festival and
Grand Prize at the Mexico City International Student Film Festival. Shadowbox
Films, the film company he founded in 1998 with David Mehlman, co-produced
The Moon And The Sun which won the Academy Award for best animated
short, 2006. Learn more about Shadowbox
films.
Todd Dayton, Sound
Todd Dayton is half of Fallout Pictures, a NYC-based production company
specializing in documentary film and television. Todd's sound credits include
work on documentary features and television series, including Bravo's "Tabloid
Wars," "Garden Story" on PBS, History Channel's "Tactical to Practical,"
and "Coma" on HBO.
Aaron Soffin, Editor
Aaron has been working as a long form documentary editor since graduating Yale in 2004. He cut two films about the war in Iraq, The Blood of My Brother and When Adnan Comes Home. These films played around the world including festivals in Iran, Dubai, Pakistan, and The Netherlands. When Adnan Comes Home recently won Best Documentary at the 2007 Vail Film Festival. The Blood of My Brother played theatrically in US theaters in 2006 and is now widely available on DVD.
Kim Connell, Editor/Postproduction Supervisor
Kim Connell is the Founder and President of Rainlake Productions. Over the
past 15 years she has directed, produced and edited award-winning television
programs, feature documentaries as well as educational, corporate and non-profit
videos. She recently completed Follow My Voice With the Music of Hedwig
a documentary that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and that aired
on the Sundance Channel in June 2006. She is also the Executive Producer
and Supervising Editor on the Rainlake film Crossing Arizona, which was
recently accepted into the 2006 Sundance Film Festival in the Documentary
competition and has won numerous awards this year. Currently she is directing
the Rainlake film supported by grants from Latino Public Broadcasting and
All Roads Film Project, Cheshire, Ohio a film that traces the final
months of an Appalachian community. Most recently, Kim was a Senior Editor
at Showtime and the Senior Editor on Religion and Pop Culture a one-hour
special for VH1. She edited and co-produced TLC's "Black Las Vegas: In
Through the Backdoor" (2004 Silver World Medal) and a Discovery Health premiere,
"Medical Profile: Christopher Reeve." Kim was also Senior Editor on the
award-winning documentary feature film "The Making and Meaning of We Are
Family," a film promoting tolerance and cultural understanding in the wake
of the September 11th attacks. "We Are Family" was honored at the 2002 Sundance
Film Festival and aired on Trio. Over the years, Kim has also produced and
edited numerous videos for major corporate and non-profit clients such as
Reebok, Grolsch, CCG Metamedia, Share Our Strength and the Ford Foundation.
Nina Lavin, Associate Producer, Production Coordinator
Nina Lavin currently works freelance on independent films and television
commercials. She assisted on the independent feature film Greetings from
the Shore (currently in post-production) and has worked on television commercials
for production companies including Flying Dreams and Warnick and Co. Inc.
Her goal is to focus on documentary filmmaking. Nina, formerly a custom-design
goldsmith specializing in the technique of granulation, had her own jewelry
design business for thirteen years. She is a graduate of The Rhode Island
School of Design, where she also studied film.
Elyssa Hess, Coproducer, Assistant Editor
Elyssa Hess graduated from Bard College in 2006 with a degree in Film and Media Studies and a concentration in Documentary Production. In 2005 she studied at the PCFE Prague Film School where she completed one short narrative piece and one short documentary. She spent a year as a production assistant at Follow Productions assisting in the post-production of the Food Network shows "Paula Deen's Home Cooking" and "Follow That Food." She worked as a production assistant for the documentary The Mormons directed by Helen Whitney, which aired on Frontline in 2007. She is a regular film reviewer for the Record Review, as well as Pulse Entertainment, both local papers in upstate New York.
Alana Range, Associate Producer
Alana Range is a journalism graduate from Carleton University, in Ottawa, Canada. She has worked as a radio reporter and producer for CKCU-FM in Ottawa, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). In 2005, she worked on the television production of the drama Murder in My House. She continues to freelance from New York. Four Seasons Lodge is Alana's first feature-length documentary film.
Nicole Cosgrove, Associate Producer
Nicole Cosgrove is a graduate of the University of Colorado Film School.
She has spent the majority of her career working in Camera department and
Art department on a variety of narrative films. More recently she has become
involved with documentary films working as an Associate Producer on Sita
a Girl from Jambu, a feature documentary that follows the life of a
young Nepalese girl who is kidnapped and forced into prostitution. Sita
was screened at more than 30 film festivals worldwide and won several awards
including the Humanitarian Award at the Los Angeles Film Festival. Nicole
also was an Associate Producer on Beauty Mark, a documentary feature that
follows the life of a tri-athlete as she struggles with her own personal
image and body weight; which in the end her devotion to her competition
nearly takes her life. The film recently began its festival run at the
Boulder International Film Festival 2008.
Lazer Mishulovin, Translator (Yiddish and Hebrew)
Lazer, is an expert Yiddish and Hebrew to English translator. He's a Yeshiva educated and holds a BA in Judaic Studies and English Literature. In 2005 Lazer created a website www.yiddishtranslation.net, where he offers his services as a translator, transcriber and researcher.
Lazer translated thousands of old Yiddish family letters, including those of Israel Prime Minister Golda Meir, journals, manuscripts and Yizkor book articles.
He also worked for individual research projects as a transcriber and translator of old Yiddish plays for The Milken Archive of American Jewish Music, audio testimonials of holocaust survivors and Talmudic lectures from Dr. Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik for The Toras HoRav Foundation.
Lazer also writes for the Yiddish-English weekly The Algemeiner Journal.
His articles, featured in Yiddish, range from human interests to Jewish history and thought.