100 Years - Filmmakers

Melinda Janko

(Producer, Director, and Writer)

graduated cum laude from Emerson College in Boston, MA. Shortly after, she formed Turning Point Productions, a company that specialized in promotional videos for the non-profit sector. In 2003, after moving to Southern California, she created Fire in the Belly Productions, Inc., after reading an article about the broken Indian Trust and Elouise Cobell’s fight for justice. For the next two years Melinda traveled the country creating relationships of trust with the lead plaintiff, Elouise Cobell, Native leaders, Indian Trust beneficiaries, Senators, Congressmen, Federal Judge Royce C. Lamberth, and high-level officials of the Department of the Interior. She was granted exclusive access to both sides of the story and filmed in eight states, Washington, D.C., and on many Tribal Lands. Melinda has been interviewed by the BBC Radio, NPR, and Indian Country Today and wrote a special feature article honoring Cobell for the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian Magazine

Michele Ohayon

(Producer)

An Academy Award nominated filmmaker, Michele was born in Casablanca and graduated from Tel Aviv University. After moving to Los Angeles she directed critically acclaimed feature documentaries: It was a Wonderful Life (1987), Colors Straight Up (1997) (Academy Award®, DGA and IFP awards nominations), Cowboy del Amor (2005) (WGA award nomination, winner Jury &Audience at SXSW), Steal a Pencil for Me, (2007) (Yad Vashem Award), S.O.S/State of Security (2011) (Berlin Film Festival), Solar Roadways and Power. Michele is a supervising producer on CNN’s Believer. Michèle is an active member of the Academy of Motion Pictures where she serves on the Documentary Executive committee, the WGA, DGA, and the IDA. Michèle is a founding board member of Cinewomen and the CEO of Kavana Entertainment.

Nicholas Pike

(Composer) Award-winning Hollywood composer Nicholas Pike has scored films ranging from the family-oriented Captain Ron, Return to Me and Virginia’s Run to darker films like Fear Dot Com, The Shining mini-series and The I Inside. He has scored large-scale music videos: Michael Jackson's Ghost, You Rock My World, Will Smith's Wild, Wild

West and MC Hammer's 2 Legit. In 2013 Nicholas won the Outstanding Music and Sound EMMY for the HBO documentary In Tahrir Square. Pike is a sought-after film composer and was hand-picked by actress/comedienne and talk show host Bonnie Hunt to create and lead the first-ever daytime talk show live band for The Bonnie Hunt Show.

Alan Blomquist

(Executive Producer) has been working in the entertainment industry for over 30 years. After a very successful career as an Executive Producer on over 25 feature films for Warner Bros, Paramount and Miramax, including the Johnny Cash biopic, Walk The Line, Taking Lives, Chocolat, Bounce, What Dreams May Come, The Cider House Rules, A Little Princess, Beautiful Girls, Of Mice and Men and Everybody’s All American. Blomquist helped engineer the extremely successful Blue Collar Comedy Tour phenomenon. Currently he is the EP of A Dog's Purpose.

Dea Shandera -Hunter

(Executive Producer) is a highly regarded entertainment executive with 25 years experience in publicity, marketing, production and distribution at Paramount Pictures, The Walt Disney Company and MGM. Her experience includes: One Night With The King (PR and producer of the film premiere). The Celestine Prophecy (PR and co-producer of premieres), and Executive Producer of Earth Day at Walt Disney World. Her most recent post was Executive Vice President of Worldwide Marketing for MGM Television.

Edgar Burcksen, A.C.E.

(Editor) moved to California in 1985 after a successful career in The Netherlands as a feature film editor with more than 15 feature films. His collaboration with George Lucas on Young Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Jackal (1992) earned him an Emmy Award for best editing. In 1995 Burcksen served as editor and post-production supervisor on 500 Nations, a CBS documentary mini-series about Native Americans hosted and produced by Kevin Costner. Burcksen is a member of the Editors Guild, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and a member of the Board of Directors of ACE. He received the prestigious Robert Wise Award during the 2011 ACE Eddie Awards.

Patrick McMahon ACE

(Editor) Canadian born Patrick McMahon, has been editing films for over forty years. He began his career in New York as an apprentice editor on Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex. He also worked on The Stepford Wives, The Sunshine Boys, Missouri Breaks, and the original A Nightmare On Elm Street. His credits include the mini-series The Stand and The Shining for Stephen King and Oliver Stone's Wild Palms. He edited the Emmy award-winning documentary Baghdad ER and In Tahrir Square: 18 Days of Egypt's Unfinished Revolution for HBO. He also edited the archival footage for Confirmation for HBO.

Jim Orr

(Director of Photography) is a Ten-time Emmy Award winner for Outstanding Photography and Lighting Direction. Orr has 19 years experience as a DP on feature films: The Fly Boys, Lost Signal. Documentaries include: Reclaiming your American Dream, Liquid Stage: The Lure of Surfing, and reality television: A&E Series' Intervention and Duck Dynasty.

Stephon Litwinczuk

(Associate Producer/Assistant Editor/Researcher) Editor/Researcher/Associate Producer for a 4-part, 5-hour “Behind the Masks: The story of the Screen Actors Guild” series. Associate Producer for the 2010 Turner Classic Movies’ 7-part, 7-hour “Moguls and Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood” documentary series.

Kathryn Panian

(Associate Producer/Assistant Editor) started working on short-form documentaries for San Diego's local PBS station, KPBS-TV. She has more recently worked on longer format non-fiction programs, such as "Wishful Drinking" for HBO Documentary Films, and "Becoming Chaz," which premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.