Elizabeth Hemmerdinger
PRODUCER
Elizabeth Hemmerdinger is an award-winning documentary film producer, playwright, and screenwriter. She is the Producer of the feature documentaries Perfectly Normal for Me (Winner, 2019 Christopher Award); Capturing The Flag; and Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me (named one of the five essential documentaries of 2013 by Tribeca Film Institute); as well as the critically acclaimed animated documentary short The Girl with the Rivet Gun. She is also Associate Producer on The Homestretch (Winner, 2015 Emmy Award), and Executive Producer of Lost and Sound.
Her films have broadcast on PBS and screened at MoMA, Walker Art Center Cinema, Lincoln Center, Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, Tribeca Film Festival, Full Frame, Hot Docs, SXSW, Margaret Mead Film Festival, Sheffield DocFest, Black Maria Film Festival (and many more).
Hemmerdinger was Visiting Artist at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and worked in collaboration with NYU/Bobst Libraries to create the video archive The Real Rosie the Riveter Project. She has spoken about her documentary film work at NYU (Tamiment Library, Villa La Pietra and Skirball Center with Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II), Hunter College, Vassar College, The Naval War College, and the American Museum of Natural History.
Hemmerdinger began her storytelling career as a playwright and librettist, winning the prestigious NYU/Tisch School of the Arts Goldberg Prize as an MFA student for her play We Can Do It! Her original plays and musicals have received productions, workshops and residencies at the Williamstown Theater Festival, The Kennedy Center, Museum of Jewish Heritage, Provincetown Theater, The Denver Center, Tiffany Theater, University of Texas Austin, NY Stage & Film, The Lark, and Pulse Ensemble Theatre (among others). Her most recent project is the libretto for a musical based on We Can Do It! with lyrics by Anton Dudley and music by Robert Cioffi. Her published plays Squall, Road Rage and Pissed Sister are available through Playscripts, Inc.
Hemmerdinger also wrote and produced the narrative short film, Good Sister, starring Jessica Hecht and Grant Shaud.
Hemmerdinger is a Board member of PEN America and The Hunter College Foundation. She was the first recipient of the Hunter College Elementary School Distinguished Almuni Award. More information at www.providence-productions.com.
Laverne Berry
Executive Producer
Laverne Berry acted as Executive Producer The Silent Truth and was the Co-Executive Producer for Emmy-nominated Chely Wright: Wish Me Away, and the audience award winning The Lady in Question is Charles Busch. She is an entertainment and media business affairs attorney representing independent film and television producers, directors, production companies, distribution companies, authors and media companies and has been involved in media Alternative Dispute Resolution for 20 years. Berry has been named a New York Metro Area Super Lawyer for six years, including for 2017, by Thompson Reuters; and was included in the New York Metro Super Lawyers supplement to The New York Times newspaper, The Top Women Attorneys in New York, 2014- 2017.
Sharon Hite
Executive Producer
Sharon Hite grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Following her graduation from Brooklyn College with a Bachelor of Arts degree she worked as a Special Education teacher. She moved to Mamaroneck and raised her two children and began a thirty year career as a Real Estate Broker. Sharon and her husband manage a private, family foundation.
The Hite Foundation supports individuals nationally and internationally whose intellectual work and rights need protection and a voice, and supporting institutions that are a vital part of New York’s culture. The Foundation awards grants in the areas of music, arts and education. She is currently on the Boards of the 92nd Street Y, the New York Philharmonic and is President of the Little Orchestra Society.
She is currently underwriting a project with the African Parks Foundation to develop and launch a social media campaign, which will both raise funds and awareness of the ongoing elephant slaughter and ivory trade from Africa into China. She and her husband are members of The Aspen Institute and attend the Aspen Institute Ideas Festival every summer and thoroughly enjoy the classes and Philharmonic concerts.
Her life is rich in cultural pursuits and memberships, but her greatest joy is derived from spending time with her six grandchildren.
Emma Joan Morris
Editor
Emma Joan Morris is an Emmy Award winning producer/director/editor whose work includes the feature documentary Something Within Me, winner of the Audience Award, Film Makers Trophy and a Special Grand Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival. Voices of Sarafina! which she co-directed with Nigel Noble and also edited earned her an Emmy. In 2005 she co-edited Shut-Up and Sing, a feature documentary on the music and politics of the Dixie Chicks.
Among her other editing credits are: the Academy Award winning documentary Close Harmony, and A Stitch for Time, which received an Academy Award nomination. She has edited films for all of the major networks including HBO, PBS, A&E, CBS, ABC, NBC and Discovery Channel.
Peter Miller
Sound Recordist
Peter Miller has recorded sound on some of the most acclaimed documentaries in recent memory including five Academy Award winners – Best Boy, The Ten Year Lunch: The Wit and Legend of the Algonquin Round Table, Into The Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport, He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin' and Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1, – and two Oscar-nominees,Paul Taylor: Dancemaker and Suzanne Farrell: Elusive Muse.
Other feature documentaries include Matt Heineman’s Cartel Land, Valentino: The Last Emperor, Heineman and Susan Froemke’s Escape Fire: the Fight to Rescue American Healthcare, Macky Alston’s Love Free or Die; Neil Barsky’s Koch; Barbara Kopple's Wild Man Blues; and Andre Gregory: Before and After Dinner.
Mr. Miller has been nominated for eight Emmy Awards for best sound, winning for 3-2-1 Contact. Other television credits include Porgy and Bess: An American Voice; the Emmy Award-winning shows In The Fiddler's House for PBS with Itzhak Perlman and syndicated series Martha Stewart Living. He was sound supervisor on PBS’ series Broadway or Bust among many others.
Matt Porwoll
Cinematographer
Matt Porwoll is a cinematographer based in New York. His most recent work, Cartel Land, was selected for competition at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and subsequently won the US Documentary Prize for Cinematography. This is Porwoll's second collaboration with director Matthew Heineman, after Emmy-nominated Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare, shot by Wolfgang Held, which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.
Matt has also served as an additional cinematographer on numerous other films such as HBO’s Emmy-nominated By the People: The Election of Barack Obama, directed by Amy Rice and Alicia Sams, Gunnin' For That #1 Spot directed by Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys, and HBO’s Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1, directed by Ellen Goosenberg, which won the 2015 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.
Catherine Tambini
DIRECTOR/PRODUCER
Catherine Tambini is an award-winning filmmaker who lives in NYC. Most recently she directed and co-produced Hate Rising with Jorge Ramos for HBO and Univision. Hate Rising investigates the effects of the 2016 presidential election campaign rhetoric and the rise of the Alt Right. She and Mr. Ramos received the Impact Award for Outstanding Documentary from the National Hispanic Media Coalition. “This timely film makes for highly compelling viewing and demands to be seen.” The Hollywood Reporter
In a successful directing/producing partnership with Carlos Sandoval, Ms. Tambini was nominated for an Emmy Award for The State of Arizona. Following Arizona’s struggle with illegal immigration and its controversial “show me your papers” law all the way to the Supreme Court, the film was also a CINE Golden Eagle winner, an Imagen Award nominee and was broadcast on PBS’s Independent Lens. The Los Angeles Times – “what [the film] does…is give a sense of the issues as lived on the ground…and the human consequences of policymaking.”
The highly acclaimed Farmingville won Ms. Tambini and Mr. Sandoval the Sundance Special Jury Award, BendFilm Best in Show, the Council of Foundations’ Henry Hampton Award among many others and they were nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. The film tells the story of a small town on Long Island, NY in the wake of the hate-based attempted murder of two Mexican day laborers. “An unusually sensitive and sophisticated piece of investigative journalism,” wrote The New York Times. Farmingville was the season opener for PBS’s award-winning documentary series POV.
Ms. Tambini co-produced the Academy Award®-nominated Suzanne Farrell: Elusive Muse about George Balanchine’s iconic ballerina. It premiered at the New York Film Festival and aired on PBS’s Great Performances/Dance in America. “… a must see work for anyone interested in dance or the creative process.” The New York Times
Ms. Tambini produced and directed Art and Heart: The World of Isaiah Sheffer about the late artistic director of Symphony Space and voice of Selected Shorts on public radio. It premiered at Lincoln Center at the New York Jewish Film Festival. The Bottom Line from The Hollywood Reporter: “This loving cinematic tribute is well-deserved.”
She is currently producing and directing Perfectly Normal for Me about four feisty kids who want to change the conversation on disabilities. It has been chosen for the Reel Abilities Film Festival and will air on public television for Latino Public Broadcasting in 2018.
In addition to her documentary work she has also assisted in the production design of many well-known Hollywood films including The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, Steel Magnolias, True Colors, and The Secret of My Success. She field produced and shot portions of the reality series MTV’s I'm From Rolling Stone and TLC’s Pageant Perfect.
As well as having received many other grants, Ms. Tambini is a Sundance Institute and a MacArthur Foundation fellow. She holds a BFA from the University of Oklahoma and a MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts.