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MEET THE FILMMAKERS
DIRECTOR AND PRODUCER
Carol Ciancutti-Leyva
Carol Ciancutti-Leyva is a producer, director, and writer with more than twenty years experience. Her directorial debut, ABSOLUTELY SAFE, is a documentary on the controversy over the safety of breast implants. Inspired by her own mother’s struggle with illness related to ruptured breast implants, she has spent a decade documenting the breast implant safety debate.
Ciancutti-Leyva began her career in the arts as Director of the Theatre Arts Program at the Lexington School for the Deaf in New York. Her teaching took her to Nairobi, Kenya where she founded and directed the Kenya School of Performing Arts. While in Kenya, she produced over 30 commercials on location with directors from England, Australia and Hong Kong. On her return to New York, she continued producing film and video for corporate and education clients.
For Hometown Films, she served as a feature film developer, working with screenwriters and developing story ideas. Ciancutti-Leyva also helped to develop a six-part documentary series called Hometowns about small towns across America struggling to stay economically alive. She also was Associate Producer for the documentary, Choc-O-Rama about America’s fascination with chocolate, produced for Arte.
Today, Carol manages her independent film production company Amaranth Productions in New York City. Currently, Amaranth Productions has several projects in pre-production.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Jennifer Fox
Jennifer Fox is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning director, producer, camera woman and educator who has been involved in countless documentaries over the last 25 years.
Her first film, Beirut the Last Home Movie was broadcast in 20 countries and won seven international awards, including Best Documentary Film and Best Cinematography at the 1988 Sundance Film Festival. She directed the groundbreaking ten hour PBS series An American Love Story which was named by the New York Times and other major papers as one of the “Top Ten Television Series of 1999.”
Recently, Jennifer Fox has completed yet another groundbreaking and world acclaimed project—Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman, a six hour film which explores the life of women in the modern world. Currently, she is working on the feature length documentary Learning to Swim.
Fox has executive-produced numerous films, including the award winning Love & Diane; On the Ropes; Double Exposure; Project Ten; Real Stories from a Free South Africa; and Cowboys, Lawyers, & Indians. Fox is one of the subjects of two documentaries on filmmaking, “The Heck with Hollywood!” by Doug Block, and Cinema Verite: Defining the Moment by Peter Wintonic.
EDITOR
Vincent Stenerson
Vincent Stenerson is an acclaimed documentary film editor who has edited award-winning documentaries and specials for PBS, HBO, The Discovery Channel, Turner Network Television, CBS, and ABC News.
Vincent Stenerson was nominated for an Emmy Award for HBO America Undercover’s Without Pity, which examined the lives of Americans living with disabilities. Additional credits for America Undercover include HBO’s most highly rated documentary specials The Iceman: Secrets of a Mafia Hitman and The Iceman Confesses.
For Turner Network Television, Stenerson was part of the creative team that won a Cable Ace Award for Big Gun’s Talk: The Story of the Western. His editing credits also include: The Astronomers (KCET/Los Angeles), Television’s Music Man (WNET/New York); a two hour-long documentary on the life and times of Marie Antoinette (PBS); Tropical Rainforest, an IMAX film for the Science Museum of Minneapolis; and A Night In Havana, a feature-length documentary about jazz great Dizzy Gillespie’s concert tour in Cuba (Official Entry – Cannes Film Festival, Cine Golden Eagle Award for Editing).
Currently, Vincent is working on several projects with Everyday Gandhis, an organization dedicated to teaching and spreading peace-building throughout the world. At present, he is editing a feature-length documentary on peace-building efforts in post civil war Liberia.
CINEMATOGRAPHER
David Dawkins
David Dawkins has worked as a cinematographer and editor for dozens of acclaimed films. For television, Dawkins filmed and edited the groundbreaking ABC television series Hopkins 24/7, Boston 24/7, and NYPD 24/7. In 2003, Dawkins edited 60 Spins Around the Sun, a feature documentary about efforts to repeal the Rockefeller drug laws. Additionally, Dawkins edited the feature documentary Let’s Get Frank, which explored the Clinton impeachment hearings with Barney Frank.
Dawkins has worked on numerous documentary projects with renowned filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker, including Jimi Plays Monterey, Delorean, Shake: Otis at Monterey, and Woodstock Journals.
Today, David Dawkins runs his own post-production facility in New York City—Radical Avid.
CINEMATOGRAPHER
Helen Tschudi
Helen Tschudi is an independent producer and camerawoman who founded Manhattan Images Corporation in New York City, 1991. The company provides a complete production facility and production staff.
Tschudi has produced and served as cinematographer on several projects ranging from cultural subjects to news stories for independent clients in Europe and the United States. In addition, she has independently produced and shot many videos on cultural subjects for several German television stations, geared for the European television market.
Helen has traveled to Norway and war-torn Bosnia where she developed an independent video project that bridged communications between Bosnian refugee families currently living in western Europe and family members in Bosnia through video letters which she personally shot and hand-delivered to the families in Bosnia. The project was made possible by the support of the United Nations High Commission on Refugees.
COMPOSER
Miriam Cutler
Miriam Cutler is a Los Angeles based film composer who has been writing, producing, and performing music for over 20 years. Her evocative scores have graced numerous narrative features and award-winning documentaries, as well as television, corporate videos, cartoons, and even two circuses. She’s known for her versatility, her soulful integration of world music styles, and her enthusiasm for working collaboratively.
Cutler’s film scores have contributed to the texture and power of numerous award winning films and television programs, including Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, Thin, Absolute Wilson, Scouts Honor, Stolen Childhoods, Lost in La Mancha, Pandemic: Facing Aids, View From the Bridge, Licensed To Kill, and Life and Times Tonight.
As a music producer, she has produced albums with acclaimed musicians, including Joe Williams, Nina Simone, Shirley Horn, and Marlena Shaw. For more information about Miriam Cutler’s work visit www.miriamcutler.com.
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER
Bianca Kaprielian
Bianca Kaprielian has worked in production and post-production on numerous nationally-televised documentaries. Most recently, she was Director of Photography and Assistant Editor for Gender Rebel, produced by Friction Films for LOGO/MTV. For Moxie Firecracker Films, she served as Production Assistant and Assistant Editor on Rory Kennedy’s Ten Days That Unexpectedly Changed America: Homestead (The History Channel), an Assistant Editor on Liz Garbus’ Coma (HBO), and interned in production and post-production for Yo Soy Boricua, Pa’ Que Tu Lo Sepas! (Independent Film Channel) and Indian Point: Imagining the Unimaginable (HBO).
While at Smith College, Kaprielian produced, shot and edited numerous documentaries, including Beyond Organic, which profiles an innovative effort to grow healthier fruit in the San Joaquin Valley (Jury Selection, Riverkeeper Film Festival). Currently, Bianca is living in San Francisco, California, where she is beginning her career as a police-officer.
POST PRODUCTION COORDINATOR
Johanna Giebelhaus
Johanna Giebelhaus has worked on edit teams for documentaries that have appeared on television and in theaters. For HBO, Johanna worked on several films in the award winning documentary series America Undercover, including Iceman, Autopsy, Pardons and Parole, and A Question of Miracles. Public television projects have included Crucible of Empire: The Spanish-American War, Great Projects: Electric Nation, and The Lab. Theatrical projects have included The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition and The Venetian Dilemma.
Most recently, Johanna edited the award-winning feature length documentary God Grew Tired of Us: The Story of the Lost Boys of Sudan. God Grew Tired of Us won the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and won Best Documentary at the Deuville Film Festival.
Currently, Johanna is working with Director and Producer Carol Ciancutti-Leyva at Amaranth Productions, planning a grass-roots screening tour and educational outreach campaign for the documentary film ABSOLUTELY SAFE.