One of the IDA’s primary goals is to develop a robust community of documentary filmmakers and supporters. To further this effort, each month we’spotlight a group of new(ish) members in the Welcome New Members column.

If you’re a new member and would like to be included (or an “old” member who hasn’t been featured yet), please send your bio (250 words max) to associate editor Tamara Krinsky at krinskydoc@ca.rr.com. You must include “Welcome New Members” and your name in the subject line of the e-mail. Bios should focus on your filmmaking background, interests, experiences, education, accomplishments, etc. If you’re a student, tell us about where you’re studying. If you’re a film fan, tell us what you love about documentaries. Please also include the city, state and country in which you currently reside.

Claude Budin-Juteau (Santa Monica, CA). A director of photography, Budin-Juteau has been looking at the world through a viewfinder since he was nine, when his parents gave him his first still camera. Beginning his professional career as a still photographer at age 17, Budin-Juteau covered portrait, fashion and news photography for a French News agency in Paris. As a photojournalist, he covered events such as the Mitterand presidential campaign and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Switching to a moving image, Budin-Juteau graduated from UCLA with an MFA specializing in cinematography, with an emphasis in documentary. He has since shot projects all over the world, from Japan to Brazil, from India to South Africa. His most recent endeavor is The Invocation, a cross-cultural doc that took him to the five continents, covered 100,000 miles and took nine months to complete. The film will be released later this year. Prior to this project, he filmed MLK Boulevard, a Concrete Dream, a one-hour documentary for the New York Times Television Network that was shown on the Discovery Times Channel. Meanwhile, Budin-Juteau continues to shoot numerous projects for international television networks year round. Last year, Budin-Juteau started a new company, specializing in documentary filmmaking, called Yellow Truck Productions (www.yellowtruckproductions.com). His goal is to help directors/producers translate their documentary concepts into visually pleasing and meaningful images. His experience in filmmaking is a valuable asset to any director/producer in search of an efficient, friendly and knowledgeable cinematographer who has traveled all around the world.

Perri Chasin (Santa Monica, CA) recently directed the documentary Art is What I Do, The Life of Ralph Bacerra. She wrote, produced and hosted the radio series Final Curtain for KCRW 89.9 FM and www.kcrw.com. Previous positions and credits include: senior producer of special investigations at KCOP UPN News 13; producer for Weekly World News hosted by veteran newsman Edwin Newman; senior producer for Real Stories of the Highway Patrol; writer/director for Power Profiles on Financial News Network; and producer for CNBC. She produced the documentary From Sea to Shining Sea: The Story of Hands Across America and has produced entertainment specials for UPN and CNBC, as well as for syndication. She has also produced live events, including the first benefit concert for National Public Radio held west of the Beltway. The concert was hosted by Scott Simon and featured performances by Linda Ronstadt, Dudley Moore, Sid Caesar, Christopher Cross and Crosby, Stills & Nash, among others. Chasin is an adjunct associate professor at Otis College of Art and Design, where she teaches ‘Reel Docs: Truth Through Film’ and ‘Movies that Matter,’ a senior level Integrated learning course whose site partner is FilmAid International, the humanitarian refugee relief organization "projecting hope and changing lives through the power of film." She is also mentor faculty for ‘Otis Legacy.’ in which seniors interview and create video biographies of noted Otis alumni, and she has launched the college’s ‘Movies that Matter’ film series.

Carlos Pasini Hansen (Trancoso, Bahia, Brazil). Hansen was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and studied Film & Television at the Royal College of Art in London, UK. He graduated in 1969 as Master of Art ( RCA), and the same year his film Metamorphosis, from the Kafka story, won the “Best of  the Festival” Award in the International Student Film Competition at the Chicago Film Festival. This was a lucky break that resulted in professional employment in British TV. His first job was with the weekly current affairs show World in Action for Granada TV, followed by work with Thames TV, Central TV, BBC, Channel Four, etc. As a director and producer, he travelled the world shooting documentary series such as The Christians (Granada TV) and The Spice of Life (Channel Four). He lived with Indian tribes in the Amazon and the Andes for Disappearing World and shared the thrills of the “Palio” horse race in Siena, Italy for Granada TV. His documentary Queen of Hearts (Thames TV), the story of Evita Peron, won the Best Network Television International at the Chicago Film Festival in 1973 and was the origin of the subsequent Rice/Lloyd Webber musical Evita. In the original record version with Julie Covington, the first voice one hears is Hansen's, announcing Evitas’s death. Hansen also worked in TV drama, commercials and feature films, mainly in Italy and the UK. He was a delegate to several international meetings on co-production, script, audiovisual policies etc. In 2001, he left busy city life to settle by the sea in the south of Bahia, Brazil, where he is currently writing a feature script and--thanks to digital-- shooting and editing small, local-interest docs. And, of course, at 63, he is still available for other assignments.www.carlospasinihansen.com

Director/Producer Bobby Leigh (Beverly Hills, CA). Coming off of a successful television career, Leigh recently served as a producer on The Gift…At Risk starring Vince Vaughn and Randy Travis, which debuted at the Monaco Film Festival. Also for Visualiner Entertainment, Leigh was a producer on the award-winning feature film Stripped Down staring Ian Ziering (Beverly Hills 90210 and Dancing with the Stars). The film, which took three awards at the Silver Lake Film Festival, including Outstanding Achievement in Production, has been sold to nine European Markets and had its domestic theatrical release in 2009. Leigh recently directed the children’s film It's All an Illusion for Christopher Coppola’s Project Access Hollywood. Leigh also serves as a producer on the LionsGate horror film Experiment in Torture, and is also scheduled to direct Unraveled in winter 2009, which also has a LionsGate Domestic release. Leigh is currently in post-production, directing the documentary film Holodomor: Ukraine's Genocide, an expose on the Ukrainian genocide perpetrated by Joseph Stalin. Leigh served as a producer for three MTV Video Awards television shows and has also produced VISIONFEST/The VISION AWARDS for Filmmakers Alliance and the Directors Guild of America for four years in a row.

Kathryn Mora is an independent filmmaker based in Boston, Massachusetts. She plans to return to Los Angeles early next year. Her first documentary, Birth, was motivated by the births of her sons, her role as a former certified childbirth educator and by the critical state of the maternity care system in the United States. Her film educates and empowers women to regain their confidence in their ability to give birth naturally. Mora’s next documentary will be a full-length film about childbirth that aims to educate and empower women that they possess what they need to have a joyful, satisfying natural childbirth. Also, she will explore the relationship between pain and fear, follow couples through their pregnancy and birth, provide in-depth information about breastfeeding, and much more. Currently, Mora produces and hosts a monthly public access-TV series called BIRTH and BEYOND. Topics include: How Does Fear Affect Pain In Childbirth?, The Roles of the Birth Team, Successfully Breastfeed Your Baby, You Had A Cesarean, Too? and Do You Have To Circumcise Your Baby? Mora plans to attend workshops and classes offered at IDA and other organizations, along with collaboration with other filmmakers. She will continue to read Directing the Documentary and to watch documentaries like Born Into Brothels, Grey Gardens, Ralph Nader: An Unreasonable Man and Hoop Dreams.

Ted Unarce (San Jose, CA) is executive producer for GTC Films, an independent production company that specializes in the creation of feature-length dramas and documentaries that are backed by powerful and progressive social messages. Projects currently in progress include Modern Day Slaves (now in post production), Lessons in Third World, and Borderline. He also produced the feature film Severe Visibility. Prior to working in film, Unarce owned a number of franchises within the medical industry, one in the medical insurance examination field; another dealing with medical insurance. Prior to that, he owned a biotech firm for medical devises and immune assay diagnostics examinations. His areas of skills and specialty include mergers and acquisitions, strategic planning, and manufacturing and marketing. Unarce’s experience is moreover markedly diverse: In addition to his bachelor’s degree in philosophy (as well as having completed additional graduate school coursework), his 30-year background in the medical field gives him the ability not only to speak knowledgeably on most aspects of medicine and science, but to also explain and explore the theoretical underpinnings behind such fields of study. A man with vision, Unarce has expanded into finance; he is now a venture capitalist and businessman as well as a filmmaker. It is his self-proclaimed mission to instill an awareness of social inequity and injustice, and to highlight the struggles felt by the underserved and the disenfranchised. www.moderndayslavesmovie.com.