Filmmakers

Linda Goldstein Knowlton directed and produced the 2012 documentary, SOMEWHERE BETWEEN, which chronicles the coming-of-age stories of four teenaged girls in the US, all of who were adopted from China as babies. It premiered in Toronto at the 2011 Hot Docs Film Festival, where it garnered the Sundance Channel Audience Award and went on to screen at the LA Film Festival, and many other festivals including Aspen, Vancouver, Boulder, Portland, and Milwaukee where it won the Best Documentary Award. The film screened at numerous festivals, and was released theatrically in over 80 cities across the US and was also selected for the 2012 Sundance Film Forward: Advancing Cultural Dialogue program, screening in India, Morocco, China, and Colombia. Goldstein Knowlton also co-directed and co-produced the documentary, THE WORLD ACCORDING TO SESAME STREET. It examines Sesame Street’s international co-productions, made primarily in some of the world’s political hotspots, including Kosovo, Bangladesh, and South Africa. It made its World Premiere in competition at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. Previously, Goldstein Knowlton produced the New Zealand film WHALE RIDER (2002), directed by Niki Caro, which was the winner of the Audience Awards at Toronto, Sundance, Rotterdam, Seattle, San Francisco, and Maui film festivals. She produced the 2001 film, THE SHIPPING NEWS, directed by Lasse Hallstrom. In 1999 she produced both MUMFORD, written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan, and CRAZY IN ALABAMA, directed by Antonio Banderas.

Mark Jonathan Harris is an Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker and Distinguished Professor in the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, where he heads documentary production. Among the many documentaries he has written, produced and/or directed are THE REDWOODS, a documentary made for the Sierra Club to help establish a redwood national park that won an Oscar for Best Short Documentary (1968); THE LONG WAY HOME, which won the Academy Award for Best Feature Length Documentary (1997); and INTO THE ARMS OF STRANGERS: STORIES OF THE KINDERTRANSPORT, produced for Warner Bros. that also won an Academy Award for Best Feature Length Documentary (2000). UNCHAINED MEMORIES: READINGS FROM THE SLAVE NARRATIVES, a documentary that he wrote on slavery in America, premiered at Sundance and aired on HBO in February 2003. It was nominated for an Emmy for a Nonfiction Special and Harris was nominated for Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming. DARFUR NOW, a feature documentary he produced with Cathy Schulman and Don Cheadle, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2007 and was nominated as Best Documentary of the year by the National Board of Review and the Broadcast Film Critics Association and won an NAACP Image Award. LIVING IN EMERGENCY: STORIES OF DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS, a film, which he executive-produced, was shortlisted for an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 2009. The International Documentary Association recently awarded him the Preservation and Scholarship Award.

A versatile writer/producer who works fluidly through genres and mediums, Marti launched into the feature world with her debut I AM NUMBER FOUR. She followed this with FRIGHT NIGHT, a reimagining of the classic cult horror film, starring Anton Yelchin and Colin Farrell. Additionally, Noxon is currently developing THE GLASS CASTLE, based on the best-selling memoir, for Lionsgate. Noxon has written and Executive Produced for many critically-acclaimed shows including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Brothers & Sisters, Point Pleasant, and Still Life. She has also acted as consulting producer for Mad Men, Prison Break, Angel, and Glee. Other current projects include Proof, a pilot for SyFy developed with M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense) that she will also Executive Produce. She is also writing and producing a dramedy called Guide To Divorce for Bravo. A graduate of UC Santa Cruz, Noxon currently lives in Hollywood with her two children.

Diku Mandavia M.D. is an emergency physician and a residency graduate of the LA County + USC Emergency Medicine program and a medical graduate of Memorial University in Canada. He has over twenty years of emergency practice in Southern California including at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He is a Clinical Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Southern California and Chief Medical Officer of FUJIFILM SonoSite Inc. He currently resides in Los Angeles with his wife Katina and daughter Neela.

Joshua Altman graduated from The Pennsylvania State University with a degree in Film & Video and is currently an editor based in Venice, CA. He’s edited six feature length documentaries, three of which premiered at Sundance. From that list, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC took home the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2009, THE TILLMAN STORY was on the 2011 Oscar short list for the “Best Documentary” award, and BONES BRIGADE: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY went on to become the number #1 documentary on iTunes upon its release. That same year, another film he edited, NO ROOM FOR ROCKSTARS, also took the #1 documentary slot on iTunes. Additionally, Joshua’s work on WE LIVE IN PUBLIC garnered a nomination by The Cinema Eye Honors for ‘Outstanding Achievement in Editing.’ He has also edited numerous non-scripted television shows for CBS, NBC, FOX, Discovery, VH1, and Bravo.

Lavino’s film music includes scores for the Oscar-nominated documentary GOD IS THE BIGGER ELVIS, the Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning HBO film WHICH WAY HOME, and Henry Singer’s acclaimed BBC film LAST ORDERS. Other film work includes RUBBERNECK, directed by Alex Karpovsky (Girls), the Gabriel-Byrne-produced TENT CITY USA, and the forthcoming SOMETHING WHISPERED, starring Cuba Gooding, Jr, and William Sadler. Lavino’s score for Karpovsky’s film WOODPECKER features performances by Colin Greenwood of Radiohead, and Lee & Tyler Sargent of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and was hailed by The Guardian as “a stunning film soundtrack…warm…gorgeous.” Lavino’s music for television includes HBO’s Kevorkian, the eight-part series “Sissinghurst” for BBC television, and songs for the groundbreaking Disney animated show The Book of Pooh.