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Media That Matters™ 12 Jury

KARIM AHMAD oversees several funding initiatives at ITVS, including the Open Call, the Diversity Development Fund and the innovative web series FUTURESTATES, for which he reviews projects for funding and works with greenlit filmmakers to develop both non-fiction and fiction content from conception to completion. He previously served as Feature Development Director at San Francisco production company Momentum Cinema, where he wrote and produced the award-winning narrative feature film Harrison Montgomery, starring Martin Landau. Karim has served as a panelist for numerous film funders and festivals, worked extensively as an independent story consultant, and received his BA from Pomona College.

KELLIE ANDERSON-PICALLO is the Director of Media Education at Auburn Media, and is an ordained Presbyterian PC (USA) minister. An Emmy-Award winning producer, she knows the power of the media to create transformation. Her call is to help responsible voices use the media as a pulpit to further the common good. Kellie, who brings her years of producing and writing into her ministry, is a frequent preacher and teacher.

DANIELLE BEVERLY has been a documentary filmmaker since 1999. She was Field Producer for ‰ÛÏRebirth‰Û which premiered at Sundance 2011, aired on Showtime on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, screened at The White House, was selected to represent the US Department of State on a tour of American films, and won a Peabody Award in 2012. ‰ÛÏRebirth” is a longitudinal documentary tracking the healing of five people affected by 9/11 over a decade, as well as the rebuild of The World Trade Center in 35mm time-lapse film. It will be a permanent exhibit at the National September 11th Memorial & Museum.

Danielle is in post-production on her documentary ‰ÛÏOld South‰Û, which follows gentrification in a Georgia community ‰ÛÒ she worked as a solo crew to shoot, direct, and produce the project.

Danielle‰Ûªs first documentary ‰ÛÏLearning to Swallow‰Û (2005) premiered in competition at Silverdocs, screened internationally, and traveled to small rural communities as part of The Southern Circuit. In 2007, she produced the ITVS International Global Perspectives documentary series ‰ÛÏTrue Stories: Life in the USA”, hosted by Danny Glover, which has aired in 20+ developing countries.  In 2006, she was nominated for an Emmy for the PBS series ‰ÛÏKeeping Kids Healthy‰Û, and was selected for the CPB/PBS Producers Academy at WGBH.

Danielle was a 2011 Flaherty Fellow at The Robert J. Flaherty Seminar and received a 2012 Rynne Research Fellowship from The Center for Peacemaking. She has received grants from The Paul Robeson Fund for Independent Media, The Lucius & Eva Eastman Fund, NYSCA, and The Puffin Foundation. She was a Professor of Filmmaking at the University of Notre Dame and is currently a Visiting Professional in Residence in Digital Media at Marquette University.

DOMINIQUE (Nikki) ELBOURNE was born and raised in Trinidad, and moved to New York in 2009 to attend Manhattan Comprehensive Night and Day High School. While going to school, Nikki became an intern for the organization Reel Lives, where students tell their stories through documentaries. Her experience at Reel Lives made filmmaking a new interest and loves everything about it, especially editing. Nikki graduated from Manhattan Comprehensive in 2010 and continues to work with the staff in making short films about the school. Nikki will begin her freshman year at the Borough of Manhattan Community College with a major in Film Studies. Her hobbies include soccer, reading, writing, and listening to music. To find out more about the program, and watch films from Nikki and youth producers like her, visit Reel-Lives.org.

MATISSE BUSTOS HAWKES is the Communications Manager at WITNESS, which provides creative and strategic leadership on digital communications for the organization. Prior to WITNESS, she spent two years at Aperture, the fine photography foundation, as the publicist. She later worked at PixelPress, a multimedia company for social change where she helped produce projects such as “The End of Polio”, with UNICEF and WHO which featured the work of world-renowned photojournalist Sebastiao Salgado. For more information, follow WITNESS @witnessorg and her @matissebh on Twitter, and check out her new initiative on Youtube, The Human Rights Channel (a collaboration between WITNESS and Storyful).

LISA LEE is a tech geek by day and a do-gooder by night. During work hours, Lisa proudly works in Diversity and Inclusion at Facebook and chairs the company’s Asian American Pacific Islander Employee Resource Group. Outside of work, Lisa has dedicated her time to numerous causes, mainly issues in the Asian American community and issues facing girls and women.

From 2008 to 2011, Lisa served as the pro bono publisher of HYPHEN Magazine, an award-winning publication and website that covers Asian American arts, culture, and politics. Since she became the publisher in 2008, the volunteer-run organization’s annual budget has doubled through development and fundraising efforts that she implemented and supervised. Under her leadership, HYPHEN also embarked on marketing efforts that increased its readership by 100%. In 2010, along with the Strategic Planning Committee, Lisa led HYPHEN to successfully complete its first three-year strategic plan.

In February 2011, Lisa co-founded Thick Dumpling Skin, a community forum dedicated to discussing body image issues and eating disorders in the Asian American community. The site was picked by Audrey Magazine as one of the best blogs of 2011.

Lisa was listed on Angry Asian Man’s list of 30 Most Influential Asian Americans under 30 in 2009 and is the recipient of the 2011 San Francisco Emerging Leader Asian American Heritage Award. She is a frequent speaker on panels and at workshops on media-related issues for Asian American college students, young professionals and nonprofit managers. A graduate of U.C. Berkeley in Mass Communications and Theatre & Performance Studies, Lisa is committed to using her communications and social media background to create a more complex representation of Asian America.

Read more about her at www.misslisalee.com, on Facebook at facebook.com/lisalee, and follow her on Twitter @rrrlisarrr.

CAROL TIZZANO is an art and media educator and an award-winning producer. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for NAMLE (National Association for Media Literacy Education). She teaches art, media studies, and production to children, teens, and adults at the elementary through university levels and in community settings. She presents on a wide range of topics for diverse audiences. Workshop and presentation themes include media literacy basics; media representation of girls and women; media and pop culture related to gender and diversity; critical viewing; creating animation; the impact of commercial and consumer culture; linking art education and media literacy; animation production; and independent media. As a presenter and educator, Carol bridges the worlds of theory and practice and makes the content accessible and useful.

Her documentary, “PicturePerfect”, addresses how women and girls are depicted in popular culture and the resulting impact. She is co-author of “Kids Talk TV: Inside/Out”, a media literacy resource that provides a solid foundation for creating media literate youth. As a PBS freelance producer, she has covered the arts and cultural scene of northeast Ohio. Her work as an educator and producer reflects her commitments to valuing diversity, advocating social justice, and supporting the arts.

Published on July 31, 2012

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