Honorary Chair Emeritus:

Elmer Bernstein - feature film composer (1922-2004)
2004 would have been Elmer Bernstein's 53rd anniversary as a feature film composer. His name will always be synonymous with creativity, versatility and longevity. He wrote music for over 200 major film and television scores and was nominated fourteen times for an Academy Award for such films as Far From Heaven, The Age of Innocence, To Kill A Mockingbird, and The Magnificent Seven, among others. He was awarded the Oscar for best film score for Thoroughly Modern Millie. Click here for Elmer complete Filmography

Advisory Board Members:

Eamonn Bowles - President, Magnolia Pictures
Eamonn Bowles is president of Magnolia Pictures (Jesus Camp, The World's Fastest Indian, Nine Lives, Somersault, Dead Man’s Shoes, Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst, A League of Ordinary Gentlemen, Ong Bak, Capturing The Friedmans, Read My Lips, Late Marriage, and Control Room.)

In addition to his distribution duties for Magnolia Pictures, Eamonn is a member of rock 'n' roll band, 'The Martinets'. Check out their second album, "New Stories for Men". Check out  www.magpictures.com for more.

Ellen Chenoweth - Casting Director
Select films include Infamous, Good Night and Good Luck, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Analyze That , The Man Who Wasn't There, Meet the Parents, O Brother, Where Art Thou? Arlington Road, Analyze This, Liberty Heights, The Horse Whisperer, Affliction, Lolita, Wag the Dog, Bridges of Madison County, Nobody's Fool, Disclosure, Six Degrees of Separation, The Natural, A Bronx Tale, Terms of Endearment, Diner...

Griffin Dunne - Director, Producer, Actor
Griffin Dunne is a director (Fierce People, Addicted to Love, Practical Magic, Lisa Picard is Famous); producer (Chilly Scenes of Winter, Baby It's You, Running On Empty, After Hours, Fierce People, Game 6); and actor (Marie and Bruce, American Werewolf in London, After Hours, and most recently Game 6). As a screenwriter, he co-wrote Spin (Dreamworks) and, with co-writer Adam Brooks, the Academy Award-nominated short, Duke of Groove.

Martha Frankel - Entertainment Journalist
Martha Frankel has been writing about film and pop culture for over two decades. She has interviewed everyone from Robert DeNiro, Sean Penn, Leonardo Di Caprio and Elizabeth Taylor to Lee Attwater, Floyd Patterson, Roman Polanski, and Anne Rice, for magazines as diverse as The New Yorker, Fashions of the New York Times, Cosmopolitan, the original Details, and Hollywood Life. She received a NYFFA Award in creative nonfiction, was the 1997 Philip Morris Fellow at The MacDowell Colony, and the 2003 Artist-in-Residence at SUNY Ulster. Her memoir, HATS & EYEGLASSES: A Family Love Affair With Gambling (Tarcher/Penguin) will be published in early 2008.

Leon Gast - Filmmaker
Producer, director, editor and writer of When We Were Kings, the Academy Award winning documentary of the 1974 heavyweight championship bout in Zaire between champion George Foreman and underdog challenger Muhammad Ali. Other film credits include Hell's Angels Forever, The Grateful Dead Movie, Celia Cruz: Quantanamera.  

Ethan Hawke - Actor, Director
film credits as an actor include Taking Lives, Assault on Precinct 13, Training Day (Oscar nominated for Best-Supporting Actor), Snow Falling on Cedars, Hamlet, Joe the King, Great Expectations, The Newton Boys, The Velocity of Gary, Gattaca, Search and Destroy, Before Sunrise, Reality Bites, Floundering, Quiz Show, Alive, Rich in Love, Waterland, White Fang, Midnight Clear, Mystery Date, Dead Poets Society, Dad, and Explorers. As a feature film director, his credits include Chelsea Walls, and the upcoming The Hottest State.

Stephen Hays - Founder, 120dB Films
He is the founder of 120dB Films, a financial services company specializing in gap, finishing and bridge loans to the independent film industry. He was co-founder and General Partner of Seneca Capital, a $2.5 billion, New York-based hedge fund specializing in arbitrage, distressed securities and event-driven investing (1996-2003), where he remains a Partner and advisor. Prior to that, he was a Managing Director at Furman Selz, a New York-based investment bank where his focus was proprietary risk arbitrage and special situation investing (1987-1995). Stephen's first position on Wall Street was at Laterman and Co., an arbitrage-focused hedge fund (1985-87). He graduated from Kenyon College in 1983 and gained a Masters in Accounting and Finance at the London School of Economics in 1985. Stephen recently executive produced Savage Grace (Sundance 2007).

Sabine Hoffman - Editor
Credits include two films by Rebecca Miller (Personal Velocity and The Ballad of Jack and Rose, starring Daniel Day-Lewis), Alice Wu’s Saving Face, Rodney Evans’ Brother to Brother, two films by Morgan J. Freeman (Hurricane Streets and Desert Blue), The Day the Ponies Come Back, and Harlem Aria. Documentary credits include Last Party 2000, with Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Katja Esson’s Ferry Tales. She recently completed Off the Black, starring Nick Nolte, and is currently editing Hound Dog, starring Dakota Fanning and Robin Wright Penn.  Sabine founded the Editing Award for feature and documentary narratives at the Woodstock Film Festival in 2004.

Gill Holland - Producer and Partner, The Group Entertainment
Gill has worked on over fifty movies. Nominated for the Spirit Award for Producer of the Year 1998, Gill produced Sundance-winning Hurricane Streets, the FOX sit-com Greg the Bunny, Sundance faves Spring Forward, and Loggerheads, Emmy-nominated Dear Jesse, and Spirit Award winner SweetLand. He produced three volumes of cineBLAST!, the short film video compilations. His music label sonaBLAST! Records' first releases from Mark Geary both hit top 40 in Ireland. He is renovating Louisville’s first LEED certified platinum green building.

Michael Lang - Producer, Promoter
As the founder of Woodstock Ventures, Michael is best known as the producer and promoter of the Woodstock Music & Arts Festival (1969, 1994 & 1999). In addition to his core business of event production and music management he is currently working on the production of a film based on the novel The Master and Margurita by Mikeal Bulgakov. Other film credits include Bottle Rocket, the debut film of director Wes Anderson and actors Luke Wilson and Owen Wilson.

Jeremiah Newton - NYU Industry Liaison
As Film and Television Industry Liaison for the largest film school in America, New York University’s Maurice Kanbar Institute of Film and Television, Mr. Newton created The Directors Series that takes place twice a week involving the latest Hollywood, independent, documentary and foreign feature films. Mr. Newton also administrates the Mentor Program, which finds industry, mentors for film and television students. His writing credits include work on I Shot Andy Warhol.

Annie Nocenti - Screenwriter, Editor
Annie Nocenti is a screenwriter, journalist, and the former editor of Scenario, a screenwriting magazine.

She is an editor-at-large at Stop Smiling magazine (stopsmilingonline.com). Her feature script Patriotville is currently in post-production.

Ron Nyswaner - Screenwriter, Director
Ron Nyswaner’s screenplays include Soldier's Girl (Peabody Award), Philadelphia (Academy award nomination) and this fall’s The Painted Veil, starring Naomi Watts and Edward Norton.  His first book, Blue Days, Black Nights: A Memoir, was nominated for a Lambda Literary award.

Sarah Plant - Composer, Musician, Associate Music Director
Sarah Plant was Associate Music Director, arranger, and flutist for Ang Lee's Oscar-nominated Eat Drink Man Woman. Feature and documentary credits include Shoot George, Juliette of the Herbs (PBS), Entwined, Spotted Puppets (Canal+), Brothers and Others: The Impact of 9/11 on Arabs and Muslims in America (CBC, Hallmark, Swiss TV), Guillermo Gomez-Peña, (PBS), and Going Organic (PBS) For Love of Julian and Bravo Profiles: Julie Taymor (Bravo). Scores include American Museum of Natural History biodiversity films, museum art installations and a commission for Bill T. Jones Dance Company. Her work has been performed at the Kennedy Center, BAM, Carnegie Recital Hall, and the Spoleto Festival.

Bill Plympton
Bill Plympton's animated films include his latest feature Hair High, which won the Gold Jury Prize at the Fant-Asia festival in Montreal, and the short film Guard Dog, which won the Best Short Prize at Anima Mundi and a special prize at the Hiroshima Animation Festival. Past projects include Mutant Aliens, I Married a Strange Person, and The Tune. His short films have been seen widely around the country, high lighting many animation festivals, and on DVD in the Plymptoons and Mondo Plympton collections.

Bingham Ray - IFC Films
Bingham Ray is a distributor and producer for Kimmel Entertainment. He is the former president of United Artists (Bowling for Columbine, Assassination Tango, Nicholas Nickleby, City of Ghosts). As co-founder of October Films, he distributed independent films such as Secrets & Lies, Breaking The Waves, and The Apostle.

Peter Saraf - Producer
Peter was one of the producers of the 2006 Academy-Award winning Little Miss Sunshine. Prior to LMS, Saraf produced Liev Schreiber's enchanting adaptation of Everything Is Illuminated and executive produced Spike Jonze's critically acclaimed Adaptation, starring Nicholas Cage. In 2004, with Marc Turtletaub, Saraf formed Big Beach Films, a New York-based production company that finances and produces independent films. Other producer credits include The Truth About Charlie, Mandela, Ulee's Gold, Courage and Pain, Into the Rope and Storefront Hitchcock.

Steve Savage - President, Co-Founder, New Video, Docurama
Steve is president and co-founder of New Video, a New York based DVD company. New Video has released a catalog of over 1,500 titles under The History Channel, A&E, NBC and IFC imprints. Since 1999, New Video has distributed a catalog of over 100 independent and classic documentaries under their Docurama label. For preschoolers the company offers a series of classic children¹s books on DVD under the Scholastic brand. Visit Docurama or New Video for more info.

Liev Schreiber - Actor, Director
Liev Schreiber has quickly established himself as one of the most versatile actors of his generation through his ability to effortlessly play roles ranging from classical Shakespearean to contemporary film. Among his film credits are, most recently, The Manchurian candidate, The Sum of All Fears, Kate & Leopold, Spring Forward, The Hurricane, and A Walk on the Moon. He is currently in post production on his directorial debut Everything is Illuminated.

John Sloss - Attorney, Producer, Cinetic Media
John Sloss is the principal in Sloss Law Office and a founder of Cinetic Media, a consulting firm specializing in the entertainment and media industries. He is also a partner in Independent Digital Entertainment (InDigEnt), an innovative production company dedicated to making digital features in collaboration with established filmmakers and actors. Sloss has served as executive producer or producer on A Scanner Darkly, Lonesome Jim, Before Sunset, Before Sunrise, The Company, Pieces of April, The Fog of War, Far From Heaven, Tadpole, and Waking Life. He has orchestrated some of the most notable distribution deals in the last decade, including Little Miss Sunshine, Napoleon Dynamite, Super Size Me, Control Room, Capturing the Friedmans and The Station Agent.

Previous films include John Sayles Casa de Los Babys, Rebecca Miller's Personal Velocity (grand prize winner at 2002 Sundance Film Festival). She heads the production company Elevation Filmworks.