Alex Demyanenko (Los Angeles, CA) is the producer of Bastards of the Party, a feature documentary slated for release later this year by HBO. Almost a decade in the making, the documentary both chronicles the history of LA's African-American gangs as well as director Cle "Bone" Sloan's personal journey growing on the streets of South Central's Athens Park. Filmmaker Antoine Fuqua's Fuqua Films financed the completion of the film, which has gone on to screen at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival and win numerous festival awards. Before starting Bastards, Demyanenko was the editor of the now-defunct progressive alternative weekly L.A. View. An unfriendly corporate takeover and closure of View sent Demyanenko spiraling into the bosom of the dark side, where he contributed to the decline of western civilization by developing some of reality television's top shows (e.g. Joe Millionaire; My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé). He is currently the vice president of series development and programming at VH1, which, he would like to point out, has a great tradition of airing acclaimed documentaries. A former painter and photographer, Demyanenko is a graduate of UCLA, with a degree in political science.

Robert Firpo-Cappiello (New York, NY) is an Emmy-nominated composer with a wide variety of credits in television and theater. He recently composed the orchestral/ambient score to Andrew Rothstein's documentary film Betrayal: The Battle for Warsaw, which screened at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival in November and was also featured at the Los Angeles Polish Film Festival and the Houston World Film Festival in 2006. He has scored documentaries for NBC Sports, the History Channel and A&E. Firpo-Cappiello is presently developing a film version of his folk/blues monologue Beggars Rain, which he describes as a "whiskey-fueled, guitar-driven odyssey through Depression-era America."

Mark Von Sponeck, Christopher Plutte, Jonathan Giesen, and David Macquart founded Global Nomads Group (New York, NY) in 1998 in order to help fill the gap in youth's understanding of foreign cultures. GNG (www.gng.org) uses the power of videoconferencing and digital video to enable students to make up their own minds about the issues affecting them today. In GNG's award-winning documentary Rwanda Alive: Those Who Listen, Ingrid, a 16-year-old Rwandan genocide survivor, describes the harrowing experiences of her past and conveys her vision for a peaceful future. Ingrid tells her story to her American peers during a series of face-to-face video conferences. Past GNG projects include Voices from Iraq and Iraq Unplugged, both of which aired on In The Mix (PBS). These specials chronicle videoconference meetings between teens in Baghdad and teens in Connecticut, during which they talk honestly about combat in Iraq, discard stereotypes and voice their hopes for the future. GNG is currently in the midst of producing three new documentaries, including a young boy's account of life in a Sudanese refugee camp, a documentary on child soldiers in Uganda, and Rwanda Revisited, a follow-up to Rwanda Alive: Those Who Listen. Most recently, GNG launched its online Media Library, a rich resource for both teachers and students alike, where you can find over 50 short videos ranging from Brazilian culture to Japanese food.

C.M. Hardt (Los Angeles, CA) produced, directed, wrote and shot Death in El Valle, an investigation of her grandfather's political murder in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. Death in El Valle was an independent project for Channel Four Television in the UK, where it first aired in 1996. After being censored in Spain for ten years, Hardt's documentary has become a grassroots sensation, as the country finally begins to face the brutal repression of Franco's dictatorship with a national movement to recover memory. Death in El Valle was first seen in theaters in Spain in the fall of 2005 while being distributed through the website www.deathinelvalle.com. The film also aired on WNET/Thirteen and WGBH/Boston in 2001. Death in El Valle has been screened at the AFI Festival in Los Angeles, the Margaret Mead Film Festival in New York and the USA Film Festival in Dallas. Hardt has been invited to present and speak about her film at New York University, University of California Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA, Instituto Cervantes NY, as well as cultural centers throughout Spain and the UK. Hardt has also worked as writer/director/producer on numerous award-winning documentary and reality series, including most recently The Megan Mullally Show on NBC; Nanny 911, the Fox hit; MTV's Peabody Award-winning series BIOrhythm; Road Rules, the Emmy Award-winning hit series; and HBO's powerful series Taxicab Confessions. She also helped develop The Hitchhiker Chronicles for FX. Hardt has also worked closely with actress Goldie Hawn as a writer/consultant.

Writer/producer/director William Savage (Los Angeles, CA) hails from Northern California's Marin County. His first job after high school was for Skywalker Development, George Lucas' construction company, at the Skywalker Ranch. While there, he got his first taste of working on films and television projects such as Ewoks: The Battle for Endor and Howard the Duck. While admittedly not Lucas's finest works, Savage was undeterred. He left Skywalker in 1986 to work for Top Models and Talent in San Francisco as talent and as an agent's assistant. During this period he also found work as a freelance production assistant for several San Francisco production houses. Working various productions in and around San Francisco eventually led him to work for rock and roll impresario Bill Graham. In the late 1980s through early 1991, Savage worked shows with the Rolling Stones, The Who, Paul McCartney, the Grateful Dead and hundreds of others. After Graham passed away in late 1991, Savage landed a job working for Shapiro Entertainment, Inc. in Beverly Hills and relocated to Southern California. During his tenure at Shapiro Entertainment, Savage has helped develop television projects for CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox. In addition, he has developed feature film projects for Fox Searchlight, Artisan Entertainment, D.E.J./Blockbuster Entertainment and Palm Pictures. Savage is currently in post-production on his first documentary feature, about the history of mountain bikes entitled Klunkerz (www.klunkerz.com). Savage lives in the Los Feliz section of Hollywood with his wife and daughter.

WELCOME NEW IDA TRUSTEES

Alan Ett (Studio City, CA) is president and CEO of the Alan Ett Creative Group (AECG; www.alanettcreativegroup.com), a community of companies, founded in 1991, that provide a wide range of services and products. The companies are Alan Ett Music Group, a full-service music production entity; Media City Sound, one of the fastest growing audio post-production facilities in Los Angeles; Opus 1 Production Music Library; and Creative Production Group, a media production company. From 1976 to 1978 Ett was on the faculty of The Berklee School of Music in Boston, Mass., where he was co-founder of the Berklee Jazz Choir and Vocal Program. At the same time he received an MM in composition from The New England Conservatory. From 1979 to1983, Ett performed and taught throughout Western Europe. Upon his arrival in Los Angeles in 1984, he became involved in the computer industry, working with a development group to devise the first shock-mounted 20MB hard disc, the A-O 20, later working on the original version of the production budgeting program Movie Magic and consulting with Roland Corporation in the development of the first MIDI software, the Music Processing System (MPS). Since then he has created musical scores for thousands of hours of television, videos, film, commercials, CD Roms and DVDs. Ett serves on the Board of Trustees of the Society of Singers and the Board of Visitors of the New England Conservatory, and is a member of BMI, the Academy of Television Arts and Science (ATAS) and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS).