Dempsey Rice - Director/Producer

Dempsey Rice is a documentary filmmaker based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work focuses on pivotal moments in individual lives that speak universal human experiences. Connection, personal story, relationship and identity all emerge in her filmmaking.

Her feature length documentary film Daughter of Suicide played at film festivals around the world and premiered on HBO in 2000.  It went on to win multiple awards for mental health programming.  She is the recipient of a NY Emmy as the Series Producer of IMNY (I Am New York). Her hyper-local project The Listening Project: Brooklyn (133 short films) aired on Brooklyn Independent Television. ). She was a Fellow at the Made in New York Media Center by IFP (2015-2016) where she launched her current project The Animated Mind of Oliver Sacks. Other projects include Forget Me Nots (2010) and Body Job (2008).

Dempsey first met Oliver Sacks in 2002 as a Producer for the Public Radio program The Infinite Mind.  Their first videotaped interview was in 2003. Over the course of their interviews together, Dempsey captured something of Sacks that no one else has on tape:  the man behind the famous neurologist and author.  These interviews document the ways in which Sacks thought, analyzed, and articulated ideas and discoveries.  We see a scientist enthralled by neurological disturbance and a man who speaks passionately about his life and work.  

To see more of Dempsey's work please visit www.dempseyrice.com

Lori Cheatle - Producer

Lori is the producer of over 25 films and the founder of Hard Working Movies. Her most recent film, Dreaming Walls, premiered at the Berlinale and is executive produced by Martin Scorsese (Magnolia Pictures/Hulu). Other titles include Matanga/Maya/M.I.A. (dir. Steve Loveridge) which won a Special Jury Award at Sundance, the IDA award for Best Music Documentary and a special Grierson Award (BBC2, Netflix, Dogwoof); Us Kids  (dir. Kim Snyder), winner of several festival and Human Rights awards;  I am Another You by Nanfu Wang (FilmRise/Independent Lens);  Kiki (dir. Sara Jordeno, IFC Films), which premiered at Sundance, won the Berlin Teddy;  Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart (HBO/Sky Atlantic), directed by Jeremiah Zagar); 51 Birch Street (by Doug Block, HBO), selected as a NYT 10 Best Film of the Year;  Seven Songs for a Long Life (dir. Amy Hardie, nominated for a BAFTA); and many others. She received the Sundance Amazon Producers Award for her work in non-fiction and is a member of AMPAS and BAFTA. 

Al Morrow - Producer, Stewart le Maréchal - Executive Producer, MetFilm Production

Al is an award-winning producer and Head of Documentary at MetFilm Production, her latest 4 part series The Enfield Poltergeist directed by Jerry Rothwell for Apple TV+ will be released on the 27th Octobe 2023.  Previous films include Misha and The Wolves (NETFLIX/BBC) directed by Sam Hobkinson which premiered at Sundance Film Festival; The Reason I Jump (BFI/VULCAN) directed by Jerry Rothwell which won Best Single Documentary - International at the Griersons, Best Cinema Documentary at the 2021 BIFA Awards and the Audience Award at Sundance Film Festival 2020. 

Al also produced ‘Last Breath’ (Netflix/Creative Scotland/BBC Scotland/Zdf/Arte) directed by Richard da Costa and Alex Parkinson; ‘Sour Grapes’ directed by Jerry Rothwell and Reuben Atlas for Netflix, Arte and VPRO; and ‘How to Change the World’ (Sky Atlantic/BFI/Impact Partners/CTV) which premiered as a Day One film at the Sundance Film Festival won the World Cinema Special Jury Award: Editing and a Grierson award.

Previous films include Jeanie Finlay’s films ‘Pantomime’ (BBC Storyville) and the The Great Hip Hop Hoax’ (BBC/Creative Scotland), Sarah Gavron’s ‘Village at The End of the World’ which premiered in Competition at 2012 BFI London Film Festival; Jerry Rothwell’s 'School In The Cloud' and ‘Town of Runners’ (ITVS/Britdoc C4); the Grierson nominated films ‘Donor Unknown’ (More4/ITVS/Arte) and MEN WHO SWIM (BBC Storyville/Arte/SVT/VPRO); ‘Heavy Load’ (BBC Storyville, IFCtv, ITVS); and ‘Deep Water’ (Pathe/UKFC/FilmFour) winner of the Grierson Award for Best Cinema Documentary.

Based in London’s Ealing Studios, MetFilm Production is an independent production company making high-quality documentary and fiction films.Latest films include Misha and the Wolves, directed by Sam Hobkinson, which had its World Premiere at Sundance Film Festival 2021; The Reason I Jump directed by Jerry Rothwell, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2020 and won Best Documentary at BIFA 2021; and the fiction film 23 Walks starring Alison Steadman and Dave Johns, which was theatrically released in the UK in 2020 and will open in the US in summer 2021. Other recent releases include thriller documentary Last Breath, comedy Swimming With Men, starring Rob Brydon and directed by Oliver Parker, documentary Sour Grapes and the award-winning How to Change The World, which premiered at Hot Docs and Sundance respectively.

Maeve O’Boyle - Editor

Maeve O’Boyle is an Emmy-award winning filmmaker. She edited The Education of Mohammad Hussein, (HBO) which was shortlisted for an Academy Award. She co-produced and edited the Emmy-award-winning and 2014 IRE award-winning, Firestone and the Warlord (PBS). She also edited and co-produced Growing Up Trans (PBS), which won a duPont Columbia award and was a Nominee for Best Documentary Emmy & Peabody Longform Doc award. She co-wrote and edited 112 Weddings  which premiered at Full Frame, Hot Docs and Sheffield Doc/Fest and aired on HBO and BBC Storyville, and Do I Sound Gay? which had its world premiere at TIFF and was awarded the runner up for People’s Choice Award.  Other work includes Left of the Dial (HBO), Heat (PBS), Carrier (PBS) and The Kids Grow Up (HBO). She directed, produced and edited The 8th which was nominated for an IFTA and won the 2020 Hollywood Gold Award for best documentary. More recently, she co-directed and edited Joan Baez I Am A Noise which has just had its World Premiere at Berlinale 2023 and its North American Premiere at SXSW and is being distributed by Magnolia Pictures.

Jonathon Corbiere - Director of Animation - Thought Café

Jonathon is the creative director and co-founder of Thought Café and FutureTalk. Specializing in graphic design, film and VFX, Jon and his team have worked on numerous award-winning documentary film projects including The Life and Mind of Mark Defriest, Narrowsburg, and There’s No Place Like This Place. He is an MIT Art Scholar and his recent work with Thought Café + FutureTalk branches into educational game-based experiences and immersive stereoscopic VR, including the Canadian Screen Award-winning A Curious Mind, produced for Hulu, as well as The Polar Lab for PBS’s NOVA and full PCVR 6DOF with Dark Threads. As an digital innovator, Jonathon was honoured as the keynote speaker for the 2020 “Digital Day on the Hill” hosted by the Democratic Digital Communications Staff, and as a Key Panelist for VidCon & EduCon. 

Kate Edgar - Executive Producer

Kate Edgar was named the Executive Director of the Oliver Sacks Foundation following the death of Dr. Sacks in August 2015. Ms. Edgar began working for Dr. Sacks in 1983. For more than three decades, she collaborated with him as editor, researcher, assistant and friend. In addition to working on Dr. Sacks’ books, she has consulted television programs and feature films based on his work.

Joanne Nerenberg - Co-Producer

Joanne Nerenberg works on all aspects of documentary film as a producer, director and editor. She is the co-creator of move it! A dance TV show for kids sold to Sesame Workshop in 2003. Joanne has produced video for Harvard University, The New York Historical Society, The Brooklyn Children’s Museum, and The Lincoln Institute in Cambridge, MA. Most recently, she produced Lizzie Gottlieb’s film Turn Every Page.

Michael Hearst - Composer

Michael Hearst is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and writer. His film scores include Chicken People, The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin, To Be Takei, Magic Camp, Kate Bornstein is a Queer and Pleasant Danger, The Good Mother, and The House of Suh. Hearst is co-founder of the band One Ring Zero, which has released nine albums. As a solo artist, his projects include Songs For Extraordinary People, Songs For Unusual Creatures, Songs For Ice Cream Trucks, and Songs For Fearful Flyers. He is also the author of the books Unusual Creatures, Extraordinary People, and Curious Constructions, as well as co-director and host of the PBS Digital series Songs For Unusual Creatures.