Director / Producer
JANET TOBIAS
Janet Tobias started her film and television career at CBS’ 60 Minutes as Diane Sawyer’s associate producer. She then worked as a producer at ABC News’ Prime Time Live, as the editorial producer for ABC’s legal and criminal justice coverage, a national producer at Dateline NBC, and an executive producer at VNI (which became New York Times Television). After working at the networks, she moved to PBS where she produced/directed a four hour joint Frontline/Nightline project on the juvenile justice system in California, and executive produced the Emmy award winning PBS Life 360. In 2001, she co-founded Sierra/Tango Productions, which has produced over 20 films on subjects ranging from 13-year-old girls to US veterans returning from war. No Place On Earth, marks her debut as a theatrical director.
Janet has a parallel career in medicine and technology. She is the CEO of Ikana Health which focuses on health information on the mobile web/social media, and how it can be used to measurably improve family health and patient outcomes.
Besides the Emmy, her awards include two American Bar Association silver gavel awards, a George Foster Peabody Award, 2 Cine Golden Eagles, 2 Casey medals for meritorious journalism, a National Headliner Award, a Sigma Delta Chi Award, and honorable mention Robert F. Kennedy Journalism and Overseas Press awards. She is a member of the Forum on Drug, Discovery, Development and Translation of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and an adjunct assistant professor at Mount Sinai’s School of Medicine.
Producers
RAFAEL MARMOR
Rafael Marmor is a producer of documentary, feature film and television. His feature documentary Blue Blood, dubbed by Variety as “one of the best sports films of all time”, was nominated by both the Evening Standard and London Critic’s Circle for Best British Film of 2007. The narrative remake is currently in development with Ed Pressman and BBC Films. After a short digression producing the comedy TV series Svetlana for Marc Cuban’s HDnet, he returned to the feature documentary world as a producer on Alma Harel’s Bombay Beach, which won the Tribeca grand jury prize in 2011. His most recent film The Short Game, about the best 7 year old golfers in the world, premiered at SXSW 2013 where it won the audience award.
PAUL LAIKIN
Paul is founder and Managing Director of Unanico Group, an internationally award-winning film and television production company and animation studio based in London and Shanghai.
Unanico Group is developing and producing a slate of live action and animation narrative and document feature film coproductions, bringing together leading film production and distribution partners from China and the West. Trained as a linguist and lawyer, Paul is a Member of the Writers Guild of America and Vice President of Royal Institute for East-West Strategic Studies.
NADAV SCHIRMAN
Schirman’s first film, The Champagne Spy (Israel-Germany 2008) won the Israeli Academy Award for Best Documentary, was nominated for the European Film Prize and won the John Schlesinger Award for Outstanding First Feature as well as many other international awards and nominations. It is currently being adapted into a large fiction production by Oscar and Palme D’or winning director Billa August and Oscar nominated producer Uli Limmer.
In the Dark Room (Germany-Israel-Finland-Italy-Rumania 2013) is Schirman’s second feature documentary, part of a trilogy which continues with The Green Prince. Currently in production, The Green Prince is based on New York Times non-fiction best seller “Son of Hamas”. The Green Prince is also produced by Schirman through his Frankfurt based A List Films GmbH, in collaboration with Oscar winning producers John Batsek (One Day in September) and Simon Chinn ( Searching for Sugar Man and Man on Wire).
SUSAN BARNETT
No Place on Earth Producer, Susan Barnett, has 16 years experience as an award-winning investigative reporter/producer/director, achieving international recognition for her work while at the network newsmagazines PrimeTime Live, 20/20 (ABC News), and Dateline (NBC News). Her original reporting has covered a range of topics, including: poor conditions in child care; migrant labor abuses; medical mistakes in the unregulated field of diagnostic ultrasound; the health impact of federal deregulation of the nation’s meat inspection system; problems with food handling and labor abuses at the nation’s fastest growing grocery chain; systemic abuse in the dog breeding industry.
Among her awards: Emmy Nomination/Network News-Investigative, 3 National Headliner Awards, 2 Investigative Reporters and Editors Awards + an Investigative Reporters and Editors Medal, National Press Club, Ark Trust Genesis Award, Columbus International Film and Video Festival, Cine, New York Festival/International TV programming, Society of Professional Journalists, Women In Communications, Midwest Regional Emmy/Documentary.
After leaving the networks, Ms. Barnett moved to strategic communications consulting for nonprofits and responsible for-profits. She continues production work on projects of particular personal interest.
Executive Producers
MOLLY THOMPSON
Molly Thompson launched and runs A&E IndieFilms and History Films, the networks’ feature documentary divisions. Productions include the Oscar-nominated, Sundance Award-winner Murderball, the Oscar-nominated Jesus Camp and the Emmy Award-winners The Tillman Story and Under African Skies. Thompson executive produces the division’s original productions including: Cave of Forgotten Dreams, The September Issue, The Tillman Story and Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer. Thompson’s latest film for A&E IndieFilms, The Imposter was shortlisted for Best Documentary Feature in the 2012 Academy Awards and won a 2013 EE British Academy Film Award (BAFTA.)
SUSAN WERBE
Susan Werbe is Senior Executive Producer, Programming for History®. Since joining the network in 1997, Ms. Werbe has played a key role in the development and supervision of numerous series and specials on History, including American Pickers, which averaged 4.7 million total viewers in 2012.
Werbe is Executive Producer of The Ultimate Guide to the Presidents, an 8-hour limited series on presidential power from George Washington to Obama, Season 3 of Only in America with Larry the Cable Guy, Season 4 of American Restoration, and Season 2 of Cajun Pawn Stars. She is also Executive Producer on the feature documentary No Place on Earth, Life After People and 102 Minutes That Changed America.
Werbe has received two Primetime Emmy Awards: 2008-2009 Outstanding Non-Fiction Special for 102 Minutes That Changed America and 2005-2006 Outstanding Non-Fiction Series for 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America. She also won a Peabody Award in 2005 for Voices of Civil Rights. She was Executive Producer of Moonshot, a co-production that was nominated for a 2010 Primetime Emmy in the Outstanding Made-for-Television Movie category.
Prior to joining History, Ms. Werbe worked at CBS Eye on People where she was Senior Producer for I Remember with Charles Kuralt. Ms. Werbe began her television career at CBS News working on CBS Reports and was a producer on Eye to Eye with Connie Chung, Walter Cronkite’s Universe, CBS Magazine and CBS Morning News. She was a Vice President and Executive Producer at Whittle Communications. From 1984-1991, Ms. Werbe ran her own company, specializing in fund-raising and educational videotapes for not-for-profit clients. She also wrote, produced and directed two documentaries for PBS.
CINEMATOGRAPHERS
CESAR CHARLONE
Born in 1950, Charlone studied in San Paulo Film school. City of God (Academy award nomination), The constant gardener (BAFTA award nomination), Blindness (Fernando Meirelles) and Stranded (Gonzalo Arijón) are part of his most acclaimed work as a photography director. He has also worked with renowned directors such as Spike Lee and Tony Scott. In 1980 he directed the documentary When I get older and since then he has been directing TV episodes, comercials and music videos. In 2006 he co written and co directed The Pope’s toilet, which was selected by Uruguay as its official submission for the 80th Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
EDU GRAU
Born in Barcelona in 1981, Eduard Grau studied filmmaking in ESCAC (Spain) and the NFTS (UK) specializing as a Director of Photography. He has won many film awards and a few cinematography prizes. At 23, after the Sundance winner short The Natural Route, Eduard shot his first feature, Albert Serra’s Honor de Cavalleria, which premiered at the Cannes’06 and other 40 festivals around the globe.
Grau paired up with Tom Ford for his debut feature in Hollywood, A Single Man, that was acclaimed as one of the most beautiful films of the year and won the Colin Firth a Bafta award and 2009 Oscar Nomination. Edu filmed Buried with Rodrigo Cortés, and starring Ryan Reynolds, and won the BRONZE FROG FOR BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY in CAMERIMAGE ‘10 and a GOYA nomination. His short feature, Finisterrae, was a very unique road movie that won the main prize in Rotterdam 2011. He also shot Nick Murphy’s, The Awakening, and a 1920´s ghost story with Rebecca Hall and Dominic West. Animals, by his friend Marçal Fores, have just been premiered. He shot the “Born This Way” video for Lady Gaga, which won MTV´s Best female video Award 2011.
Edu premiered in Toronto’12 Dante Ariola’s Emily Blunt and his beloved Colin Firth. No Place on Earth directed by Janet Tobias also premiered there to huge success. Soon you will see his latest movie, a single shot with Sam Rockwell and Bill H Macy.
SEAN KIRBY
“While many D.P.’s steal from art history in order to fashion a cinematic style, artist turned cinematographer Sean Kirby started the other way around.
“I was watching Tarkovsky and Kieslowski, and their films were inspiring compositions and visuals in my painting. It was then that I started to see film as image making.” – Filmmaker Magazine
Kirby has since shot feature films as Police Beat, Zoo, Lovely, Still and the documentaries, The Tillman Story, No Place on Earth and The World According to Dick Cheney. Kirby’s work has premiered at the Sundance, Toronto and Cannes Film Festivals among others. He is currently in production on the documentary Happy Valley about the Sandusky-Penn State scandal, directed by Amir Bar-Lev, and the early 1900’s thief tale You Can’t Win, directed by Robinson Devor
PETER SIMONITE
Peter Simonite got his start shooting 2nd unit for Terrence Malick on the film The Tree of Life. He has since worked with Malick on two more features, To the Wonder and another untitled project. Peter’s commercial work includes international spots with directors Dante Ariola, Frank Budgen, and the Guard Brothers for Microsoft, Intel, Nike, and Rolex. His first feature film as cinematographer, Skateland premiered at the Sundance FIlm Festival in 2010. His second film, Fairhaven was released to wide critical acclaim at the TriBeCa Film Festival in 2012. Peter has filmed second unit additionally under the direction of Jeff Cronenwewth, a.s.c., Emmanuel Lubezki, a.s.c., a.m.c., and Eduard Grau.
Editors
DEIDRE SLEVIN
Deirdre Slevin immigrated to New York from Ireland in 1995 and starting working in film editing shortly thereafter. In 2002, she met director Wayne Wang while working as associate editor on his film Maid In Manhattan. She went on to edit two of his films, Because of Winn Dixie (20th Century Fox) and Last Holiday (Paramount Pictures) in 2004 and 2005.
In 2006, she made two independent films with Wang, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers and The Princess of Nebraska. Both premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2007 and A Thousand Years of Good Prayers went on to win the San Sebastian Film Festival for best film and best actor, Henry O.
Deirdre’s other credits include Trucker (dir. James Mottern) and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (dir Wayne Wang). No Place on Earth is her first documentary.
CLAUS WEHLISCH
Claus Wehlisch (b. 1972 in West-Berlin) is a German Film Editor. He has recently finished editing the feature film V8 for award winning children’s author and director Joachim Massanek for Universal Pictures. He also recently served as co-editor on the multi-layered adaptation of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas novel.
After learning various aspects of the post-production process in London on the late 1990s, he first got into feature films as an assistant editor on Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut.
An eloquent and passionate storyteller, Claus is a perceptive and widely experienced editor having cut films in a broad variety of genres, for studio and independent productions as well as television.
No Place on Earth is his first collaboration with Janet Tobias.
He is currently editing the big screen adaptation of Francois Lelord’s bestseller Hector and the Search for Happiness for British director Peter Chelsom.
