Brooklyn native Christopher Butler (New York, NY) has been a writer and producer for Nickelodeon Online since 2002. His debut feature, begun in 2003, focuses primarily on a pair of one-night-only, back-to-back reunion concerts by the beloved, but long-defunct Twin Cities rock band Walt Mink, and chronicles the tenuous collaboration between musician and filmmaker that made the event possible. Though ostensibly a concert film rooted in this friendship and the band's tortuous history, the documentary more closely explores the choices artists face when life intervenes and that which is dearest is taken from us, and how necessity demands that we trace new trajectories for ourselves that lead unexpectedly to happiness. Of course, the film will also rock your face off. Butler joined IDA to apply for fiscal sponsorship and connect with inspiring filmmakers and documentarians. He is currently seeking finishing funds or production partners. Contact: christopherbutla@mac.com. www.waltminkthemovie.com.

At six years of age, Michael Cain (Dallas, TX) fell in love for the first time--with film. He studied radio/TV and acting at the University of Texas at Arlington, then attended the American Film Institute, where he studied producing. Cain then worked for Carl Franklin as location manager on the 1992 film One False Move and subsequently worked on over 25 films, two TV series and 50 commercials and music videos in a variety of roles. In 1998, he abruptly returned home to Dallas when he learned of his father's pancreatic cancer. When he realized that he would be in Dallas for a while, Cain explored the local film industry offerings, eventually creating the Deep Ellum Film Festival (DE/F2) in November 1999 to support the arts while raising money for those suffering with cancer. He has also started Deep Ellum Pictures, a feature and commercial production company for Dallas filmmakers; the Cancer Relief Fund, for which he has thus far raised $44,000 for 63 individuals suffering from cancer; DEFMAN (Deep Ellum Film, Music, Art and Noise), which produces fundraising events for the Cancer Relief Fund; and most recently, Pasadena (TX) Cinema in the Park and the Santa Monica (CA) Drive-In at the Pier. Cain recently produced the documentary TV Junkie, which earned a Special Jury Prize at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. The film was acquired by HBO for a premiere next February as part of larger 11-part series on addiction. Cain is currently working on his next venture as artistic director of the new AFI Dallas International Film Festival, set to launch in 2007.

Documentary filmmaker Jason Compton (Denver, CO) is a former Penn State film/communications student and Pittsburgh Filmmakers alumnus. Currently, he is working as a fundraiser for organizations like Amnesty International, ACLU and the International Rescue Committee, and he plans to begin a series of films focusing on children in crisis situations. The first project, tentatively titled The Perfect Religion, is already in the pre-production/research stage. The film will tell the story of young street orphans in Nairobi, Kenya, afflicted with the AIDS virus and living in a crumbling urban society, with nowhere to turn for help. In addition, Compton and his girlfriend, Trinity Meyer, a photo journalist and human rights activist, are working on the layout for a Web 'zine called InnerNational. the7ghost@hotmail.com.

Jessie Deeter (Oakland, CA) produced Who Killed the Electric Car?, a feature-length documentary that premiered at Sundance 2006 and was released by Sony Pictures Classics in June. In fall 2003 Deeter won a Pew International Journalism Fellowship that funded a trip to Sierra Leone and Liberia. She traveled back to Liberia in April and November 2004 to follow UN Commander General Daniel Opande as he oversaw the disarmament that ended the long civil war there. The resulting short documentary, No More War, aired on FRONTLINE/World in May 2005. The hour-long documentary Taking Guns from Boys, which also looks at the choices Liberians face at the end of their civil war, has just been completed and will hopefully screen at film festivals soon. Deeter field-produced Afghanistan: Hell of a Nation, a 45-minute documentary on Afghanistan's Loya Jirga, or grand council meeting of tribal or regional leaders, that aired on PBS' Wide Angle in September 2004. In the spring and summer of 2003, Deeter traveled to five countries to field-produce a documentary for the Asia Foundation's 50th anniversary. Prior to that, Deeter worked as an associate producer for FRONTLINE/World and FRONTLINE's Modern Meat and Blackout documentaries. Deeter's half-hour student documentary on Mexican workers at the racetrack, Some They Win, screened at several film festivals and won an audience award at the Berkeley Film Festival in 2001. She received masters degrees in journalism and international and area studies, Middle East focus, from University of California,. Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism.

Peter A. De Kock (Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS) has been working as a director of photography for many years, during which he has shot numerous award-winning feature and documentary films. His work has taken him all over the globe--from the barren desserts of Africa to the harshness of the mangrove deltas of Asia. As one critic has written about his way of filming, "De Kock films purely with his senses; his camera is merely a means of expression." To complement his work as a DP, De Kock has directed documentaries, commercials and music videos. Currently, he is finishing a feature-length documentary entitled The Hands of Che Guevara. The film is as much a search for the severed and missing hands of the Latin American guerilla fighter as it is a tale about the objectivity of truth. The film is scheduled for worldwide release in November 2006. www.thehandsofcheguevara.com. www.morethanthousandwords.com.

Jake Downey (Studio City, CA) has produced over 120 half-hours of television in the last decade, most recently on the Emmy-nominated L.A. Times High School Sports Show and Fred Roggin's High School Sports Show. Downey is a longtime anchor-reporter-producer and owner of JDnewsie Productions, a Los Angeles-based firm handling just about every kind of production imaginable. Recent clients include ESPN, Fox Sports, Time-Warner Cable, Echostar/Dish TV, Westec Interactive, Cal-State Northridge Athletics, Dreamworks Animation and Poland Productions. He is currently directing and executive-producing Sleeper Cars and Flannel Uniforms: The Elden Auker Story, which combines Downey's love of baseball and his fascinating stories about his friendships with many of the great icons of 20th Century America. The film tells the story of Elden Auker, a humble Kansas farm boy who became a big league pitcher, struck out Babe Ruth, won a World Series and lived the American dream as a successful business man. jdnewsie@aol.com.

Paula Ely (Los Angeles, CA) has been involved in the entertainment industry since 1991, when she joined Carolco Television, the television production and syndication division of Carolco Pictures. She was involved in the sale and distribution of the Carolco and LIVE Entertainment libraries to the pay-per-view, cable and free television markets before the company shuttered in 1993. Ely later joined Jeff Kazmark, with whom she had worked at Carolco, to form Kazmark Entertainment Group, a firm created to produce television advertising and programming trade opportunities. She executive-produced Merry Christmas, Baby, a short film about the music of the Christmas season in Harlem, which is now in the permanent collection of New York's Museum of Modern Art. She also oversaw the creation of Springbok Films, a division of Kazmark Entertainment, and line-produced its first feature, The Enigma with a Stigma, an improvised comedy released this summer. In 2003, Ely traveled to Botswana to produce the documentary Vanishing Cultures: Bushmen of the Kalahari, and she plans to continue a series on other endangered cultures around the world. In June 2006, the film was featured in the Reel HeART International Film Festival in Toronto and will screen at the Globians International Film Festival in Potsdam, Germany in August. Educational distribution is pending, and the film will also be available on DVD this summer at www.vanishingcultures.tv. Ely has also long been involved in community service both at home and abroad. Her latest project, with the Humane Society, will focus on the issue of elephants in the zoo environment.

Kristine Enea (San Francisco, CA) escaped her full-time lawyer job five years ago to pursue more creative interests, including book publishing (www.leisureteam.com) and video production. She recently founded Southeast Sector Productions (www.sesect.com) to produce Project Area B, a feature-length examination of the redevelopment of San Francisco's Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood. Backed by the power of eminent domain, the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency plans to renew, remodel and re-people the Bayview, to the alarm of those who remember how redevelopment bulldozed the Fillmore District in the '60s and displaced many of the city's black residents. Project Area B looks at the propriety of using redevelopment and eminent domain in a neighborhood where "urban renewal" translates to "negro removal." Project Area B and other projects continue Enea's long collaboration with soundman Eddie Foronda of K9Sound (www.k9sound.com).