Brian Newman (New York, NY), is executive director of National Video Resources, a nonprofit organization established in 1990 by the Rockefeller Foundation. NVR assists in increasing the public's awareness of and access to independently produced media, film and video, as well as motion media delivered through the new digital technologies. Prior to joining NVR, Newman served as executive director of IMAGE Film & Video Center, producers of the Atlanta Film Festival, and as market coordinator for the Independent Feature Project in New York City, managing several awards programs including The Gordon Parks Independent Film Awards. Newman also served as assistant coordinator of media arts for the South Carolina Arts Commission, where he managed the Southern Circuit film tour. He has a masters degree in film studies from Emory University. He speaks regularly at film festivals and conferences, has served on numerous grant review panels and serves on the editorial advisory board for Art Papers magazine. He recently co-produced a feature narrative film, and consults on a variety of film projects. Newman contributes articles on independent film, new media arts and media policy to a variety of publications.

Brent Huffman (Oakland, CA) is an award-winning documentary filmmaker who recently graduated from the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley. He is a former student of the documentary filmmakers Julia Reichert, Jim Klein and Steven Bognar (Seeing Red; Union Maids). For the past seven years, Huffman has been making documentaries in the cinéma vérité style about human rights violations and social issues in Ohio, California, Afghanistan, China and Puerto Rico. Past films include Cooper Park (2000), about a human rights crisis regarding a homeless epidemic in Dayton, Ohio, and Here are the Iroquois (1999), about the tragic death of a farming community in Medina, Ohio. His most recent film, Welcome to Warren, which examines life and culture at a secretive maximum-security prison in Ohio, won an honorable mention at Silverdocs 2005. Huffman was an editor of Reichert and Bognar's PBS-bound, six-hour documentary series A Lion in the House, about children battling cancer (to be completed in October 2005). He is currently completing a film about weightlifting and the historic presidential elections in Kabul, Afghanistan, entitled The Weight of the World. For more information visit www.germancamera.com.

Beth Murphy (Plymouth, MA) has been producing, directing and reporting for documentaries and television and radio news for 15 years, and is the founder of Principle Pictures. She has twice been nominated for Emmys, and is most recently the winner of a 2005 Gracie Allen Award from American Women in Radio and Television. Murphy served as the producer, director and writer for The History Channel's Flying Pyramids-Soaring Stones, which is currently airing in markets around the globe. For Breast Cancer Awareness Month 2004, Murphy produced, directed and wrote Breast Cancer Legacy for Discovery Health. Murphy is also the producer, director and writer of Lifetime Television's Fighting for Our Future, along with the documentary's companion book. She has also produced nine documentaries for public television, including programs on slavery in Sudan, environmental racism and the enormous humanitarian challenge of rebuilding Kosovo after three months of war. Murphy's articles have appeared in The Boston Globe and San Francisco Chronicle, among other publications, and she has been a guest on NBC's Today Show, NPR, The CBS Evening News and numerous other television and radio outlets. As an adjunct professor at Suffolk University and a visiting professor at American University Paris, Murphy has taught courses in covering international crises, the business of international news and media ethics. She earned a BA in history from the University of Connecticut and an MA in International Relations and International Communications from Boston University. She completed further study in documentary filmmaking at the George Washington University Center for History in the Media. www.principlepictures.com.

Aliza Sherman Risdahl (Laramie, WY), president of Moonbow Productions, Inc., is an award-winning writer, producer, speaker, teacher and entrepreneur. She recently produced a 12-part documentary series for Wyoming Public Television entitled Wyoming Families First that explored the social issues faced by families and children in the state. She is currently working on a feature-length documentary about miscarriage called Babyfruit and is working on several book projects including a miscarriage handbook. She also produces radio segments for Wyoming Public Radio. She is a published author and nationally published freelance writer for magazines including Entrepreneur and Home Business. Her books include PowerTools for Women in Business: 10 Ways to Succeed in Life and Work and Cybergrrl@Work: Tips and Inspiration for the Professional You. In 2004, she was recognized as the Small Business Administration's Wyoming Small Business Journalist of the Year. In 1995, she founded Cybergrrl, Inc., the first woman-owned full-service Internet company, and Webgrrls International, the first and largest global organization for women interested in the Internet. She has been featured in national publications such as People, USA Today, and Newsweek and has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, CNBC and CBS News, among many others.