Beth Bird (San Diego, CA) is a documentary filmmaker whose work engages vital contemporary social issues. Her first feature-length film, Everyone Their Grain Of Sand (2004), won the 2005 Target Award for Best Documentary (with an unrestricted cash prize of $50,000) at its US premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival. Other films include D2KLA (2000), which documents clashes between the police and protesters outside the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles in August 2000, and Love Knows No Borders (1997), which examines discrimination in US immigration law against lesbians and gay men. Bird's work has screened nationally and internationally, including at the Viennale (Vienna International Film Festival), Vienna, Austria; InSITE 2005, Tijuana, Mexico; Play Gallery, Berlin, Germany; the Prague Biennale, Prague, Czech Republic; The Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, Calif.; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, Calif.; and the UN International Conference on Women, Huairou, China.

Chip Croft (New Haven, CT) has been producing documentaries, commercials and instructional productions since 1983. His first production was a documentary on the 1983 America's Cup yacht race in Newport, Rhode Island. He then founded SEA-TV, which pioneered the nautical home video market. SEA-TV was one of the first companies ever to market special interest programming direct to the consumer via videocassette. He has produced programs as diverse as the US and International Yacht Racing Rules, Antigua Race Week, The Incredible Tristan Jones and the Rolex Gold Cup Polo Tournament, Palm Beach, Florida. He has also produced environmental productions warning of the dangers of plastics in the ocean to sea turtles and whales. Other productions include documentary work on the whalers on the Caribbean island of Bequia and on giant leatherback sea turtles in the north Atlantic. For the past 12 years, Croft has been an adjunct instructor at Southern Connecticut State University, teaching video production, editing and computer graphics. Croft and current SEA-TV Productions partner Anneka Banton have just completed the documentary Geoff Hunt: Portrait of a Marine Artist, which won a Special Jury Award in documentaries at Worldfest 2005 in Houston. This is Croft's fourth award in that festival. Croft and Banton are currently developing series on exceptional women and exceptional African-American women. www.sea-tvproductions.com.

Eric Flagg (Gainesville, FL) is currently a graduate student at the University of Florida's Documentary Institute at the College of Journalism and Mass Communications. By trade, he has a bachelor's degree in environmental and ecological sciences and has been an environmental consultant for six years. His other interests include nature and landscape photography, travel, faith and spirituality, history and archaeology. Flagg recently entered the documentary film field because he views it as a powerful extension of his ability to learn and teach. Flagg will receive his master's degree in 2006 upon completion of a 30-40 minute, independently produced documentary film in association with a thesis partner and the UF Documentary Institute. His personally produced film and audio documentation  includes audio recordings and DV shorts on award-winning journalist and Florida history author Al Burt, DV shorts from personal international travel and a DV travel journal. He has also provided camera, sound and grip work for several documentary films.

Constance L. Jackson (Rolling Hills Estates, CA) is president/CEO of Permanent Productions, established in 1998. The main purpose of her company is to write, produce and direct cutting-edge, niche independent documentaries and self-distribute them to the general public. Over the past seven years, Jackson has completed two documentaries: Over the River: Life of Lydia Maria, Child Abolitionist for Freedom, to be distributed early 2006, and Blitz Attack: The Andrea Hines Story, which screened at a Laemmle Theater in Los Angeles. She has also written three 19th century Americana screenplays and one contemporary screenplay, with plans for more screenplays in development. 

Prior to entering the feature film business, Jackson had a successful 20-year career in health care marketing and management, owning a general partnership corporation. She is also a member of FIND, Women In Film and AFI, where she acquired most of her education and training in the business of filmmaking. For more about her and her projects, go to www.permproductions.com and www.blitz-attackmovie.com.

Hilari B. Scarl (Los Angeles, CA) is the executive producer of Worldplay, a feature film documentary scheduled to begin shooting in 2006. The documentary, narrated by Sharon Stone, is traveling to eight war-torn/divided countries to bring 16 young people to Los Angeles to create an original theater production based on their individual and collective experiences. The multinational cast will live together in Los Angeles for eight weeks to write and rehearse their play, and tour their production to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Hilari is the founder of the Young Players Ensemble and has directed, written and produced original productions with young people from all over the world. She has also produced TV shows for CBS, The Learning Channel and Fox and written and produced several short films, the most recent premiering at the Finnish National Gallery. Scarl wrote, acted and produced her solo show The Girl from Nowhere as part of the Los Angeles-based Edge of the World Theatre Festival, and was a finalist for the 2002 Heideman Award for playwriting from the Actors Theatre of Louisville. With over 75 acting credits (including Off Broadway, The Kennedy Center and the Brooklyn Academy of Music), she has performed, toured and taught nationally with the National Theatre of the Deaf and spearheaded a drama program at Hollygrove, an orphanage in Los Angeles. HilariB@aol.com; www.youngplayers.org.

Ethan Stoller (Chicago, IL) is a composer, sound designer and multi-instrumentalist. He is the owner of Dynamite Ham Music, a small production company specializing in music for film and video. His first film score was for the award-winning independent short feature, Roadrunner (2001) by director Chris Blasingame. Most recently, he composed, produced and performed the scores for two nationally televised documentaries. The first, Loving and Cheating (Dir.: Thom Powers), premiered in February 2005 as part of the Reel Life series on Cinemax. The critically acclaimed Red Hook Justice (Dir.: Meema Spadola) premiered on PBS's Independent Lens in May. He also recently completed the score for License to Play (Dir.: Ann Rose), which was featured at the September 2005 IFP Market. This year also saw the release of his debut CD, I Believe In You, as his one-man band, Dynamite Ham. The CD is a joint tribute to two fine songwriters, Broadway legend Frank Loesser and Dr. Frank of Berkeley's The Mr. T Experience. Stoller plays over two dozen instruments on the CD in a wide variety of genres, from disco to bossa nova, techno to country. He is also a published music historian, specializing in big band music of the 1940s. This expertise earned him a role as special music advisor to the Wachowski Brothers for the 2003 film The Matrix Revolutions. He is a graduate of the University of Illinois, and of the Producing Program at the Music Industry Workshop.