Project Team

Sascha Rice – Director/Producer

Director and co-writer of the romantic comedy Mango Kiss, which screened internationally at over 80 venues, Sascha Rice has received numerous awards including Park City Film & Music Festival's "Director’s Choice Award: Gold Medal for Excellence."

Hilary Armstrong - Producer

Hilary Armstrong has extensive fundraising, public relations, and marketing experience, and was formerly with the Pat Brown Institute of Governmental Affairs.

Erin O’Malley – Associate Producer

Erin O’Malley is a producer for television and film, producing the critically acclaimed and award winning television series "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and also "Da Ali G Show" for HBO. For both of these she received Emmy nominations for Best Comedy Series.

Anne Etheridge – Director of Photography

Anne Etheridge's recent credits include Duck, a feature film starring Philip Baker Hall, Bill Cobbs and the AFLAC ducks. She is currently photographing shows for MTV, The History Channel, The Food Network, and The Learning Channel, and has numerous award-winning short films to her credit, including South of Ten, selected for opening night at the 2006 New York Film Festival, and Sissy French Fry, Comedy Grand Prize winner at the PlanetOut Short Film Awards. Her documentary work has aired on Showtime and in film festivals around the world.

Matthew Ferraro - Composer

Chicago native Matthew Ferraro has composed, orchestrated and produced music for theater, commercials, video games, trailers and films, contributing to award-winning films The Insider and The Incredibles, as well as Fox TV's "Futurama," Christmas special "Olive the Other Reindeer," the Sci-Fi Channel series "Dune," and the ABC mini series Anne Frank, The Whole Story. For the past eight years has been composing a large scale "non-symphony" called "The Tension of Opposites," excerpts from which were used in association with Oliver Stone's World Trade Center in 2006. www.matthewferraro.com

Zora A. Wolter - Line Producer

A native of Berlin, Zora Wolter has served as line producer and unit production manager on numerous features, documentaries, TV series and short films. Her recent feature film work includes Dark Streets and Shortcut to Hollywood. The short film Transport, which she line produced, was screened at the Berlin Film Festival 2004, and won the German Camera Award.

Board of Advisors

Kevin Starr

California State Librarian Emeritus and Professor of History at the University of Southern California, Kevin Starr has written or edited 14 books, including his multi-volume series "America and the California Dream." His writing has earned him a Guggenheim Fellowship, membership in the Society of American Historians, and the Gold Medal of the Commonwealth Club of California. His most recent book is Coast of Dreams: California on the Edge 1990-2003. In November 2006 he was awarded a National Humanities Medal.

Sandra M. Itkoff

Sandra Itkoff has created, developed and produced programming for numerous networks including PBS, TBS, A&E, Disney, National Geographic, Showtime and ABC. She was executive producer of the documentary series The Twentieth Century Project — with Norman Jewison, Barry Levinson, Garry Marshall, Gregory Nava, Robert Townsend, and Robert Zemekis directing — and executive producer of Cadillac Desert, a four-part documentary about the epic political and environmental struggle for water in the modern American West.

Maxine Isaacs

Maxine Isaacs has been on the faculty of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government as an Adjunct Lecturer since 1994, teaching "Foreign Policy, the News, and American Public Opinion" and "American Presidential Campaigns and Elections 1960-2004." Isaacs received her PhD in Policy Studies from the University of Maryland in 1994. Her dissertation was on the relationship between elite and mass American opinion. Isaacs has worked in the White House, U.S. Senate, and U.S. Congress. She was Walter F. Mondale's press secretary and Deputy Campaign Manager from 1983-1984.

Van Gordon Sauter

Former President of CBS News and former President of KVIE-TV (Sacramento's public television station), Van Gordon Sauter has enjoyed a far-ranging media career. After pursuing an MA in journalism at the University of Missouri, he covered civil rights and urban affairs for the Detroit Free Press and Chicago Daily News. In 1968 Sauter joined CBS, and held a variety of jobs from news anchor to Executive Vice President. He has since been an advisor to nonprofit organizations, a consultant on public policy, crisis management and media/image relationships, and has taught ethics at the Graduate School of Journalism at UC, Berkeley.

Rita Schmidt Sudman

Rita Schmidt Sudman is Executive Director of the Water Education Foundation, an impartial and non-profit organization whose mission is to promote a broader understanding of water issues and the resolution of water resource problems in the West through educational programs. She directs the development of Western Water magazine, the Layperson's Guide series, the foundation's Colorado River program, public television programs on water, poster maps, tours, press briefings, and school programs. Sudman is a former radio and television reporter and producer and received her MA in telecommunications from San Diego State University.