FILMMAKERS

Ondi Timoner, director / producer

Ondi Timoner — the only filmmaker to win the Sundance Grand Jury award twice in history — graduated from Yale University cum laude and founded Interloper Films in 1994.

She has achieved worldwide critical acclaim with her feature length documentary, DIG! – which took home the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival (2004). Her short film, Recycle (2005) was a winner at the ICG Awards, and screened at both Sundance and Cannes. Both DIG! and WE LIVE IN PUBLIC were bestowed the rare honor of having been acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in NYC for the permanent collection.

Ondi graduated Yale University cum laude and founded her own production company, Interloper Films in 1994. At Interloper, she filmed the documentaries Voices From Inside Time about incarcerated women in Connecticut (winner of the Yale Film Prize), and later, The Nature of the Beast, about one woman’s heroic journey through the criminal justice system (winner of the Bettina Russel Grand Jury Prize in Canada and The National Society for Visual Anthropology Commendation), which aired on PBS. She later went on to shoot Dam Nation, about the oldest living civilization of sub-Saharan Africa threatened by a WTO dam.

Ondi Timoner’s passion for the underdog is equaled only by her passion for music. Through Interloper she has made music videos and music documentaries for The Dandy Warhols, The Vines, Paul Westerberg, Lucinda Williams, Vanessa Carlton, The Jonas Brothers, and DMC, among others. The soundtrack for JOIN US was carefully crafted from the brilliant work of Sufjan Stevens and Iron & Wine, with a haunting score by Richie Kulchar. WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’s soundtrack features selections from David Bowie, NIN, Janes Addiction, Jesus & Mary Chain, Sigur Ros among others – and a seamless score by Marco D’Ambrosio and Ben Decter.

Since DIG!, Ondi has also directed commercials for McDonald’s, State Farm, DeVry, the Army and Ford, which has helped her independently fund her latest film projects, JOIN US, released in 2007, and her next feature release, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC.

Whether it’s rock music, religious cults, or the virtual world of the Internet, Ondi always takes the viewer deep into worlds they would never otherwise explore. Her iconoclastic work is noteworthy for telling stories that unfold over time with incredible access and emotional depth.

In March 2008, Ondi traveled to Ethiopia to shoot THE GREATEST GIFT, a short film for the non-profit organization, One Love Africa Schools. In October, Ondi returned to Africa, traveling to Ethiopia and Senegal, where she directed/produced two shorts for the prestigious annual show CNN: HEROES.

On the narrative end, Interloper Films and Boston Diva have teamed up to develop The Perfect Moment, about the powerfully controversial life and work of Robert Mapplethorpe, which Ondi is set to direct. She is currently directing COOL IT, a documentary about the economic and social issues and potential solutions to balancing climate change and the overwhelming, solvable human needs of our planet at this crucial tipping point.

Keirda Bahruth, producer

Keirda Bahruth is a freelance producer / director based in Los Angeles.  She began her career working on music videos for bands such as Jane’s Addiction and Jesus Jones before transitioning into the commercial world on ads for Toyota, Apple and many others.

A move to New York via Coppos Films teamed her up with legendary Saturday Night Live director Jim Signorelli, famous for his wildly popular commercial parody sketches.  He mentored Keirda and instructed her to shoot behind-the-scenes footage of life at SNL for the show’s 25th anniversary special, which gave her complete access to the inner workings of the show.  SNL was an unlikely place to develop a taste for documentary filmmaking, and yet this was the breeding ground for Keirda’s love of filming extraordinary people in their day to day lives.

After three full seasons at SNL, Keirda returned to Los Angeles and joined the nascent world of reality television, which had just begun to sweep the nation.  She has worked as a director and producer on shows for the Discovery Channel, E!, Fox, The WB and BET.

By 2004, Keirda was accumulating a wealth of experience and felt it was time for her to pull the trigger on her aspiration to become a documentary filmmaker.  Keirda had always had a nagging fascination with punk music cult hero Bob Forrest. She had regularly seen him play in the 80’s during the thriving punk rock and metal scene in Los Angeles that included bands such as Guns and Roses, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Forrest’s band, Thelonious Monster. She convinced him let her make a film about his life and began documenting the story of this musician that has been critically acclaimed and roundly admired by music legends such as Tom Waits and Joe Strummer, yet had somehow wallowed in the outskirts of success as he colorfully and tragically undermined his own opportunities due to various inner demons including drug addiction.

While filming BOB AND THE MONSTER, Keirda met director Ondi Timoner and they joined forces to produce the documentary feature WE LIVE IN PUBLIC.  The two women put virtually everything else on hold in order to take the film through an intensive production process that eventually led them to many successes, including a Grand Jury Award win at Sundance 2009, an acquisition by MoMA, massive amounts of incredible press and a theatrical release.

Keirda is currently focusing full-time on BOB AND THE MONSTER, while developing her first narrative screenplay titled BIG TIME NOWHERE.

Joshua Altman, editor

Joshua Altman graduated from Penn State University with a degree in Film & Video. Upon graduation, he moved to Los Angeles, and realized the need for talented and hard working editors. Since then, he hasn’t had a day off.

While WLIP is the first feature length documentary he has cut, Josh has spent years crafting stories out of non-fiction content for reality television shows on NBC, FOX, Bravo, Discovery Channel, VH1, and others. He has also edited several scripted pilots, music videos, and short films.

Joshua’s unique style has been said to bring together music and storytelling in a way that is both exhilarating and engaging for the audience.

In addition to editing, Joshua recently wrote and directed a short comedy, /Fresh Squeezed/, which his talented and beautiful wife produced. The short can be viewed in full at www.freshsqueezedfilm.com

Currently, he’s finishing up his first feature length screenplay.

Jeff Frey, co-producer

Jeff Frey has produced everything from music videos to feature narratives and, most notably, documentaries. His projects have garnered numerous awards including the Grand Jury Prize for best documentary 2004 & 2009 Sundance Film Festival, the Sustainability Award, 2006 Media That Matters and Silver and Gold Promax/BDA awards for his work in branded content.

Jeff is currently producing the feature documentary The Independent Life of Roger Corman with Stick n’ Stone Productions and Endeavor Independent.

Austin Wilkin, associate producer

Austin Wilkin is an independent writer, producer and filmmaker living in Los Angeles. Starting out in the art department on independent films in his hometown of Boston, Massachusetts, Austin has spent over 10 years in Los Angeles where he’s worked a variety jobs throughout the film industry to experience and learn as much as he could about the over all machinery Hollywood. Coming to Interloper Films in mid-2008, Austin worked as story editor on the inspirational short film THE GREATEST GIFT: “The Story of the One Love Schools” before joining the WE LIVE IN PUBLIC team, first as archival researcher and soon as Associate Producer. Having proudly worked with Interloper on two additional short films for the celebrated CNN: HEROES, Austin continues to work on projects that he hopes will enlighten and inspire.

Meagan Keane, associate producer

With a Bachelors degree in World Arts & Cultures from UCLA already in her back pocket, she started working full time with independent documentary production company, Interloper Films and director Ondi Timoner in 2005, while simultaneously completing a full time masters program in Film Production at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

During her time with Interloper Films, Meagan served in a multiplicity of roles from production coordinator to story editor, field producer to associate producer. In 2006 she completed her Master of Fine Arts from USC and continued to work with Interloper Films associate producing “Join Us”. In 2007 Meagan started working with Interloper on a freelance basis while she pursued opportunities in nonfiction commercial production as well as documentary feature film production working with award winning directors including Jessica Yu, Steve James and Timothy Warren.

From 2006 through 2008 Meagan continued to serve as Associate Producer for Interloper’s “We Live in Public”. Recently Meagan relocated from Los Angeles to a place she has always called home, the San Francisco Bay Area. This move was sparked by two important opportunities, a contract with Lucasfilm Ltd. developing a documentary television series that is awaiting funding for 2009 production, and a position as an instructor in Visual Communications at Santa Clara University. She is excited about the constant exposure to new, young filmmakers that university instruction brings and the freedom it allows her to pursue the development of her own projects. In 2009 Meagan is producing a new documentary feature focusing on four women in their journey toward the Ms.Wheelchair America pageant, a competition which, unlike traditional beauty pageants, is based on advocacy, achievement, communication and presentation to select the most accomplished and articulate spokesperson for individuals with disabilities.

CAST

Joshua Harris

Joshua M. Harris is a professional artist. As his first professional role, Mr. Harris was the Senior Videotex Analyst for International Data Corporation from1985-1986. Following that position, he founded the online research firm, Jupiter Communications in 1986, which went public in 1998 and was subsequently merged and sold.

Mr. Harris founded Pseudo Programs, Inc. in 1994. Pseudo was, at the time, the world’s largest original producer of interactive streaming video programming.

Mr. Harris owned and operated Livingston Orchards, LLC., a commercial apple farm in Columbia County, New York from 2001 – 2006.

From 2006 -2007 Mr. Harris was the Chief Executive Officer of the Operator Exchange Corporation.

Mr. Harris holds a bachelors degree in Communications from the University of California, at San Diego.

Currently, Mr. Harris is the CEO of the African Entertainment Network based in Sidamo, Ethiopia.

Jason Calacanis

Jason McCabe Calacanis is the founder and CEO of Mahalo.com, a human-powered search engine. Prior to Mahalo.com’s launch in May, 2007, he was an “Entrepreneur in Action” at Sequoia Capital, a position he held since December 2006.

In 2007, Jason partnered with Michael Arrington of TechCrunch to launch the TechCrunch40 conference, showcasing 40 of the world’s most promising startups on stage before an audience of Silicon Valley’s finest.

Jason co-founded and was the CEO of Weblogs, Inc., a network of popular weblogs that was sold to AOL in November 2005. Upon joining AOL, he was appointed senior vice president. In addition, he was named general manager of AOL’s Netscape.

Prior to forming Weblogs Inc., Jason was the founder of Rising Tide Studios, which sold its flagship publication to Dow Jones.

As a leading thinker in the startup space, Jason frequently delivers keynotes at the largest tech conferences (CeBIT, LeWeb, DLD) and is regularly featured and quoted in news outlets including Charlie Rose, CNN, 60 minutes, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and others.