Southern Circuit - Tour of Independent Filmmakers

Joshua Z. Weinstein loves people and filmmaking. He is currently directing two-dozen short films about Wyoming Outfitters for The Wyoming Channel. Joshua’s camerawork has appeared on BBC, VH1, Food Network, TLC, and other TV stations. Joshua was born in New York City and currently resides in Brooklyn. His main joys in life are bicycling, family, and good cooking. Weinstein’s documentary Flying on One Engine follows Dr. Sharadkumar Dicksheet, who is a unique humanitarian in the world despite significant health problems. He is wheelchair bound, without a larynx, and has been diagnosed with a life-threatening aortic aneurysm. He now lives only (and barely) so he can travel to India to perform free operations in marathon-like surgery sessions where up to 700 children receive treatment for their cleft lips and other facial deformities. Although Dr. Dicksheet survives off of Social Security while living in his Brooklyn apartment, his life is drastically different in India where the eight-time Nobel Prize nominee is treated like a living god. Flying On One Engine shows how this quirky, funny, and sometimes difficult character overcomes his own ailments by helping others.

David E. Simpson has crafted award-winning films for 25 years. As a producer, director and editor he plies his trade in the belief that a well-told story can move viewers’ hearts and minds regarding crucial, human issues. David co-produced and directed When Billy Broke His Head, a documentary about disability culture that won the Sundance Film Festival’s Freedom of Expression Award, along with major prizes at dozens of other festivals. He recently co-produced and edited Forgiving Dr. Mengele, about an Auschwitz survivor’s controversial campaign of forgiveness, which won the 2006 Slamdance Grand Jury Prize for documentaries. David directed Refrigerator Mothers, about a generation of mothers who raised autistic children under the shadow of professionally-promoted mother-blame. The film won top honors at the Florida, Indiana, and Sedona film festivals and aired on the PBS series P.O.V. David also produced and directed Halsted Street, USA, a multi-award-winning snapshot of America through the prism of one multicultural street. His experimental narrative, Dante's Dream, a re-working of Dante’s cosmology, earned five 1st place festival awards. Simpson will be on the Southern Circuit Tour with his film Milking the Rhino, an acclaimed documentary which tells a nuanced tale of human-wildlife coexistence in post-colonial Africa. The Maasai tribe of Kenya and Namibia's Himba—two of Earth's oldest cattle cultures—are in the midst of upheaval. Emerging from a century of "white man conservation," which turned their lands into game reserves and fueled resentment towards wildlife, Himba and Maasai communities are now vying for a piece of the wildlife-tourism pie. Community-based conservation, which tries to balance the needs of wildlife and people, has been touted by environmentalists as "win-win." The reality, however, is more complex. And when drought decimates the grass shared by livestock and wildlife, the community's commitment to conservation is sorely tested.

Brad Jayne has been a visual storyteller for the last 15 years, beginning his career as an award-winning still photographer with the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Now based in Charleston, SC, Jayne has taken the reins as writer, director, or producer on a variety of national and regional commercial and television projects, always striving to learn more about the craftsmanship of filmmaking. This wide-ranging experience has proven integral to his development as an imaginative, well-informed, and knowledgeable filmmaker, as illustrated by the success of his most recent independent projects — the 13-minute French-language narrative short Le Croisment (The Crossing), the 22-minute short narrative Search, and the 31-minute fictional narrative Song of Pumpkin Brown, all written, directed, and produced by Jayne.

Aron Gaudet is the director of Dungby Production’s feature-length documentary film, The Way We Get By. Chosen as a 2007-08 WGBH Filmmaker in Residence, Aron was the director of India: A New Life (a WGBH-Frontline World production) which won three Telly Awards. Aron began his film career as an associate producer and editor on author Stephen King’s 25 Years In The Dark. In addition, Aron produces Boston Red Sox and Boston Bruins spots for New England Sports Network (NESN). Aron has received a total of eight Telly Awards, two Emmy nominations, two Vermont Association of Broadcasters awards, and a Michigan Association of Broadcasters award.

Gita Pullapilly is an award-winning television journalist and film producer. Her stories have aired on CBS, CNN, and ABC. She is the producer of Dungby Production’s feature-length film, The Way We Get By. In 2008, Gita was inducted into the Royal Society of Arts in recognition of her work in film and television. In January 2008, Gita was also awarded a Kaiser Mini-Fellowship to make a film on HIV/AIDS in Ukraine. In addition to this project, Gita was the producer and interviewer on India: A New Life (a WGBH-Frontline World production funded by the Skoll Foundation). Gita has received a number of awards including the University of Notre Dame Asian American Alumni Association Exemplar Award for her work within her community, two Associated Press Awards, a Michigan Association of Broadcasters Award, three Telly awards, and a Northwestern University Scholarship for Outstanding Storytelling. She was the first filmmaker chosen as a Fulbright Senior Scholar to Jordan.

The SXSW Special Jury Award winning The Way We Get By is a deeply moving film about life and how to live it. Beginning as a seemingly idiosyncratic story about troop greeters — a group of senior citizens who gather daily at a small airport to thank American soldiers departing and returning from Iraq — the film quickly turns into a moving, unsettling and compassionate story about aging, loneliness, war and mortality. When its three subjects aren't at the airport, they wrestle with their own problems: failing health, depression, mounting debt. Joan, a grandmother of eight, has a deep connection to the soldiers she meets. The sanguine Jerry keeps his spirits up even as his personal problems mount. And the veteran Bill, who clearly has trouble taking care of himself, finds himself contemplating his own death. Seeking out the telling detail rather than offering sweeping generalizations, the film carefully builds stories of heartbreak and redemption, reminding us how our culture casts our elders, and too often our soldiers, aside. More importantly, regardless of your politics, The Way We Get By celebrates three unsung heroes who share their love with strangers who need and deserve it.

Campbell is a writer and director for theater and film. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his short film, Seraglio, which he wrote, directed and produced with his wife, Gail Lerner. Seraglio also won Deauvilles Grand Prix and First Place Audience Award at Algarve International Film Festival and the New Haven Film Festival, and ran for two years on HBO. Other award-winning shorts he has directed are S.U.V. Luv and The Speeding Ticket. His production of his play, Golden Prospects, was nominated for five LA Weekly awards and was Critics Pick in TimeOut NY, LA Times and LA Weekly. His screenplay, Harrow Lake, was chosen for Film Independents 2005 Screenwriters Lab and was recently optioned by Paranormal Media. Colin regularly writes and directs for Instant Films, where hes won Best Writer, Best Director and numerous Best Film Awards. He has directed for the Mark Taper Forums New Works Festival, ASK Theater, and the Actors Gang.

When Harrod Blank first realized that his '65 VW Beetle could be treated as a canvas, the result was titled Oh My God!. Painted like a beach ball with a bumper of plastic fruit and rubber chickens, a chalkboard on back, and a TV on the roof, the car was the catalyst for his remarkable career creating and documenting art cars. In August of 2005, Blank embarked upon the making of a visionary center for the arts in Douglas Arizona on the border of Mexico called Rancho Del Arte. In addition to Automorphosis, Blank has produced Burning Man the Movie, a documentary film ten years in the making about the radical arts festival, and two shorter art car documentaries, Wild Wheels and Drivin' the Dream.

Director Jeff Alulis graduated from USC's prestigious Graduate Screenwriting Program in 2002 and shortly thereafter formed Emo Riot Productions alongside co-producer Ryan Harlin. Jeff and Ryan co-directed and produced the award-winning 2003 documentary Do You Remember?15 Years of The Bouncing Souls and have since gone on to work on other music-related film projects, including the eight-part docu-series NOFX Backstage Passport which aired on Fuse TV in 2008 and is now available on DVD. Let Them Know The Story of Youth Brigade and BYO Records is Jeff and Ryan's second feature-length film collaboration.

As the son of missionaries, Jeremy Dean spent his youth traveling the world. He was immersed in the jungles of Central and South America and Asia. He also traveled throughout Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, and the South Pacific. It was during this time that he was exposed to numerous cultures and the struggles of indigenous peoples. He had to learn to survive by dealing with tribal customs and local traditions that sparked an interest in finding connections between diverse parts of the world. Dean returned to the United States to finish his formal education, receiving his B.A. in Fine Arts from Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida in 2002. In 2003, Dean attended the University of the Nations School of Digital Filmmaking in Kona, Hawaii where he wrote and directed the short film Vanity. Upon returning to St. Augustine, Jeremy moved into a largely impoverished African-American neighborhood.