Production Staff

Robert Greenwald

Executive producer

Robert Greenwald is a filmmaker and political activist whose new media company, Brave New Films, produces and distributes feature film, television and video productions focused on long-term social change. Brave New Films produced the Sierra Club Chronicles, a television series focused on environmental issues, and has created several viral videos, such as Fox Attacks and Impeach Gonzales. Recently, Greenwald testified before the House Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Defense about his 2006 film Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, which exposes what happens when corporations go to war. He is also the director/producer of Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, a documentary that examines the retail giant's assault on American values, and Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism. He was the executive producer of a trilogy of political documentaries: Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election; Uncovered: The War on Iraq, which he also directed; and Unconstitutional. Greenwald has produced and/or directed more than 50 television movies, miniseries and feature films, including Steal This Movie. His work has garnered 25 Emmy nominations, four Cable ACE Award nominations, two Golden Globe nominations, a Peabody/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Award, and eight Awards of Excellence from the Film Advisory Board. He is the recipient of the 2002 Producer of the Year Award from the American Film Institute, and the Liberty Hill Foundation's prestigious Upton Sinclair Award.

Richard Ray Perez

Co-executive producer

Rick Perez produced and directed the award-winning political documentary Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election, which The Los Angeles Times called “a riveting story about the undermining of democracy in America.” The project marked his first collaboration with Robert Greenwald, who was the executive producer of the film. Perez has worked with Greenwald on several other projects: He was the supervising producer and series director of Sierra Club Chronicles and photographed Uncovered: The War on Iraq and Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism. He is also the co-executive producer of Buy Ohio, a feature-length documentary about political corruption, and co-produced and co-directed the documentary Crashing the Party: The Democratic National Convention. Perez has produced projects for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the American Civil Liberties Union, the AFL-CIO, and best-selling author Arianna Huffington. He previously worked as technical director for the Fox Broadcasting Co. and as an assignment editor and field producer for KCBS-TV News in Los Angeles.

Sarah Feeley

Supervising producer

Sarah Feeley is a documentary filmmaker whose recent work includes producing Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers and Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. She worked as a producer and the vice president of production at Brave New Films, where she pioneered a training program to cultivate diverse documentary filmmakers. Feeley was an integral part of the story team on the Academy Award-Nominated animated feature film Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride. She has written two feature film scripts and has written and directed four short films: Empty, Crispin’s Day, Left Behind, and My First Time. Feeley’s entertainment career began at Sony Pictures Entertainment, where she worked on the licensing and merchandising programs of features such as Godzilla, Men in Black and Stuart Little, as well as television properties including Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, Dawson’s Creek and Bewitched. She holds a master of fine arts in motion picture producing from the Peter Stark Producing Program at the University of Southern California.

Molly O'Brien

Brave New Films Producer

Emmy Award-winning producer Molly O'Brien most recently served as co-executive producer of Sierra Club Chronicles, a hard-hitting seven-part documentary series of environmental stories that promote direct action and grassroots activism aimed at policy change. The series was the focus of articles in The New York Times and Time magazine. Before this project, she completed producing and directing a documentary, Terminal Impact, for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Narrated by Diane Keaton, the film celebrates the NRDC’s clean-air victory over the city and Port of Los Angeles. Prior to that, O'Brien directed 11 episodes, including the pilot, of ABC Family's Switched. Her two feature documentary films — Schooling Jewel and Pepa's Fight, about the lives and struggles of teen girls in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and East Palo Alto, California — were broadcast on Oxygen Network. Schooling Jewel premiered at the Doubletake/Full Frame film festival and went on to the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam. Previously, O'Brien produced American High, an Emmy-winning documentary series that aired nationally on Fox and later on PBS. O'Brien's first film, A Pig with Hair, was short-listed for the 1998 Academy Awards by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Featuring the Guggenheim Museum's Children's Arts Program and the music of Wynton Marsalis, A Pig with Hair went on to win numerous awards, including the Silver Plaque in Chicago, and continues to air on PBS. Her first dramatic film, Some Common Things That Happen to Corpses, starring Jennifer Aspen and Ivan Basso, also won numerous film festival awards. O'Brien graduated from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts/Film & Television and currently lives in Los Angeles. She is represented by Jenny Fritz at Broder Kurland Agency.

Dave Bergan

Assistant editor

Dave Bergan spent 11 years as vice president of multimedia services and information technology at Assessment Technology Inc. in Tucson, Ariz. He recently completed a year of intensive study at Video Symphony, a television and film postproduction institute in Burbank, Calif., and has worked on several film, television and industrial DVD projects. Bergan is a graduate of the University of Arizona.

Beth Bird

Postproduction supervisor

Beth Bird’s producer/director work engages social issues such as globalization, popular resistance and community empowerment. Her feature-length film, Everyone Their Grain Of Sand, won the 2005 Jury Award for Best Documentary at its U.S. premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival, Best San Diego Feature at the San Diego Film Festival, and Festival Favorite at the Oxnard Film Festival. It recently opened at major movie theaters throughout Mexico. Her other films include D2KLA, which documents clashes between the police and protesters outside the Democratic National Convention in 2000, and Love Knows No Borders, which examines anti-gay discrimination in U.S. immigration law. As postproduction supervisor, Bird’s credits include Made in LA, a feature-length documentary about sweatshops, which will air nationally on PBS; several episodes of the HBO First Look series; and a documentary about the film Reservoir Dogs for the IFC channel.

María Elena Cortinas

Associate producer

María Elena Cortinas is the associate producer/researcher for the “Freedom to Marry,” “Freedom to Dream: Rights of Immigrants,” and “Freedom to Learn: School to Prison Pipeline” episodes of the Freedom Files. Cortinas is working on her feature-length directorial debut, tentatively titled Quetzal. Her previous work includes Go West, for which she won the Student Film Award from the Directors Guild of America, and Unsung Cowboy, which won numerous international film festival awards. She obtained her bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinema-Television and is near completion of her master’s degree from California State University in Los Angeles.

Yolanda Cruz

Producer/director

Yolanda Cruz is the producer/director for three episodes of the Freedom Files: “Freedom to Marry,” “Freedom to Dream: Rights of Immigrants,” and “Freedom to Learn: School to Prison Pipeline.” Her work has screened at numerous festivals and museums, including The Sundance Film Festival, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the National Geographic All Roads Film Project, The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian, and the National Institute of Cinema in Mexico City. She received an MFA in producing and directing from the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Cruz is an active member of several California-based Oaxacan organizations and serves as a board member of the Binational Center for Oaxacan Indigenous Development. She was born in an indigenous Chatino village in Oaxaca, Mexico, and is fluent in Chatino, Spanish and English.

Chris M. Gordon

Editor

Chris Gordon served as a film editor on three Robert Greenwald documentaries: Uncovered: The War on Iraq, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, and Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. With director Jed I. Goodman, Gordon edited and is co-producing the full-length feature drama Do Not Disturb. He also edited Hometown Heroes, a documentary short about soldiers returning home from Iraq. Gordon was previously a postproduction supervisor for theatrical trailers and television advertisements for motion pictures. He also writes copy for, edits and produces theatrical trailers and TV advertising spots.

Jerry A. Henry

Director of photography

Jerry A. Henry was one of six young filmmakers selected to serve as unit director/videographer on David Zeiger’s 13-part PBS documentary series Senior Year. He has an MFA degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, with an emphasis on documentary and digital media. His award-winning film, I Promise Africa, documents his experiences with HIV-positive orphans in rural Kenya. For his film Something Other Than Other, Henry recently was awarded the Gordon Parks Emerging African American Filmmaker Award as well as the Media That Matters Film Festival Tolerance Education Award. His first feature-length documentary, Economy Superstar, is due for completion in 2007.

Christopher S. Johnson

Editor

Christopher Johnson has edited both short- and long-form documentaries, usually focusing on human rights and environmental issues. He has made political shorts for Academy Award-nominated director Stuart Sender and edited several episodes of Brave New Films’ Sierra Club Chronicles. He also edits promotional shorts for Warner Music and Sony Music.

Kim Huynh

Associate producer

As part of the story team on Robert Greenwald's Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, Kim Huynh researched wartime contracting practices and earned the nickname "Fire Fingers" as a transcriber. After production, she remained at Brave New Films, acting as a grassroots organizer. She graduated from Loyola Marymount's School of Film and Television in Los Angeles.