Filmmakers
(L-R) Robert Levering, Stephanie Mechura, Stephen Talbot
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR
STEPHEN TALBOT is an Emmy, DuPont and Peabody award-winning filmmaker who has produced, written or directed more than 40 documentaries for public television, primarily for the PBS series Frontline and KQED (San Francisco). His Frontline films include The Best Campaign Money Can Buy, The Long March of Newt Gingrich, Justice for Sale and News War: What’s Happening to the News. He directed the PBS history special, 1968: The Year that Shaped a Generation, as well as producing and writing PBS biographies of authors Dashiell Hammett, Ken Kesey, Carlos Fuentes, Maxine Hong Kingston and John Dos Passos. He was the co-creator and executive producer of the PBS music specials, Sound Tracks: Music Without Borders. Talbot also served as the series editor for Frontline’s international series, Frontline World: Stories from a Small Planet, and the senior producer of documentary shorts for the PBS series Independent Lens. As a student at Wesleyan University, he made his first documentary film about the November 1969 anti-war protests in Washington, DC.
EDITOR
STEPHANIE MECHURA has edited documentary films for nearly 25 years, including at Lucasfilms, Ltd and at the Center for Investigative Reporting. Her films have aired on PBS Frontline, Independent Lens, Netflix and The New York Times OpDocs. Stephanie’s Emmy-nominated films received several of journalism’s highest awards, including the DuPont Columbia Award and the Daniel Pearl Award for Excellence in Journalism. In 2018, The Game Changers, directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Louis Psihoyos, premiered at Sundance and is now on Netflix. The Pushouts, directed by Katie Galloway aired as a Frontline special broadcast. Stephanie’s latest film is Truth to Power: Barbara Lee Speaks for Me, directed by Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Abby Ginzberg.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
ROBERT LEVERING is a journalist who has written dozens of articles and authored eight books about the corporate workplace. He coauthored Fortune magazine’s annual “100 Best Companies to Work For” article, and founded Great Place to Work Institute, a global research and consulting firm. He was on the New Mobilization staff for the Nov. 15, 1969, demonstration and was a staff organizer for other national antiwar actions.
CO-PRODUCER
STEVE LADD was for 10 years Executive Director of an Oscar-winning documentary production and distribution company, responsible for acquiring and promoting several hundred films. Since 1996 he has been an independent media consultant, supporting and launching dozens of documentary films, including Emmy winners and Oscar nominees. He was an antiwar organizer at UC Berkeley during the Vietnam War.
Robert Levering and Steve Ladd were Associate Producer for The Boys Who Said NO! film about the Vietnam War draft resistance movement, which won a number of top film festival awards.
ARCHIVAL RESEARCHER
BLANCHE CHASE digs deep to find essential photographs and footage for documentary films. Her recent projects include The Boys Who Said NO! about draft resistance, Boston: The Documentary, narrated by Matt Damon, Paying the Price For Peace, a Free Speech Film Festival selection, Chinese Couplets, a Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival selection, Compared to What: The Improbable Journey of Barney Frank, chosen for the Tribeca Film Festival, Dying to Know: Ram Dass and Timothy Leary, selected for the Mill Valley Film Festival, and 50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus, an Emmy nominee for outstanding historical programming.
ASSISTANT EDITOR
JULIE HWANG has designed and managed intricate post-production workflows and provided creative editorial assistance on numerous award-winning films and television series. She was Associate Editor on Oscar-winning filmmaker Louis Psihoyos' film The Game Changers. Julie was Post-Production Supervisor for Director Jackie Olive’s Always in Season, a saga of racial terrorism and reconciliation honored at Sundance in 2019 with a Special Jury Award for Moral Urgency. Most recently, Hwang worked as Associate Editor on Athlete A, directed by Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk, premiering on Netflix in 2020.
POST-PRODUCTION
KIM AUBRY founded ZAP Zoetrope Productions in 2009 to provide creative and technical finishing services for independent filmmakers. He previously served for 16 years as head of Post-Production for Francis Ford Coppola’s American Zoetrope and was a long-time Coppola collaborator. Among the more recent documentary films he has worked on are Athlete A, John Lewis: Good Trouble, An Inconvenient Sequel, and Audrie and Daisy.
ADDITIONAL CREDITS
EXECUTIVE IN CHARGE FOR PBS WENDY LLINAS
ORIGINAL MUSIC BY OSEI ESSED
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER DEVIN MCCUTCHEN
GRAPHIC DESIGN MICHAEL FREDERICK, FREDERICK HUXHAM
SOUND MIXING SKYWALKER SOUND, CHRISTOPHER BARNETT
ON LINE EDITOR ASHLEY PAGAN
COLOR GRADING LEO HALLAL
CAMERA ANDY BLACK, RICHARD CHISOLM
SOUND KIM AUBRY, RICHARD CHISOLM, LUIS GRANADOS, KENNY HARRINGTON, DENNIS JACOBSEN, LARRY PETER, BART RANKIN, KERRY SHERIDAN, DAVID WENDLINGER, TAYLOR WIZNER, BENJAMIN WOLLNER
FISCAL SPONSOR FILMMAKERS COLLABORATIVE INC., KEVIN WHITE
LEGAL ISAAC HAGER, JUSTINE JACOB
PRODUCTION CONSULTANTS DAVID DAVIS, ABBY GINZBERG
ACCOUNTANT EVA M. SANTELLI
MUSIC CLEARANCE THE RIGHTS WORKSHOP, MARYAM BATTAGLIA
SPANISH TRANSLATION DIANA TRUDELL
PRODUCTION FUNDING PROVIDED BY
JONATHAN LOGAN FAMILY FOUNDATION
CHRISTOPHER AND NANCY MEYER
BILL PRINCE
DANIEL WHALEN
SUSAN BARNES
BERKELEY FILM FOUNDATION
CYNDA COLLINS ARSENAULT
PAUL HARRIS
ROBERT ESTRIN
AND MORE THAN 400 OTHER DONORS
PRODUCED BY GLEN PARK FILMS LLC
IN ASSOCIATION WITH PBS
