MARC SMOLOWITZ, DIRECTOR & PRODUCER | IMDB Marc Smolowitz is a multi-award winning independent filmmaker based in San Francisco. With three decades of experience in the film and media business, Smolowitz is a director, producer, and executive producer who has been significantly involved in 50+ successful independent films wearing many hats across the entertainment industry. The combined footprint of his works has touched 200+ film festivals and markets on 5 continents, yielding substantial worldwide sales to theatrical, television and VOD outlets, notable box office receipts, and numerous awards and nominations.

His long list of credits includes films that have screened at top-tier festivals such as Sundance, Berlinale, Venice, Chicago, Palm Springs, AFI Docs, IDFA, DOC NYC, CPH: DOX, Tokyo, Melbourne, Viennale, Krakow, Jerusalem, among others.

His film company -- 13th Gen -- works with a dynamic range of independent film partners globally to oversee the financing, production, post-production, marketing, sales, and distribution efforts of a vibrant portfolio of films and filmmakers. Founded in 2009, the company is known widely for being active on some 10-15 concurrent projects, both independent and inside Hollywood, and it has successfully advanced Smolowitz's career-long focus on powerful social issue films and filmmaking across all genres.

In 2016, he received one of the prestigious Gotham Fellowships to attend the Cannes Film Festival's Producers Network and Marche du Film marking him as one of USA's most influential independent film producers.

Learn more about Marc's work and his company 13th Gen at http://13thgenfilm.com.

JAVID SORIANO, EDITOR & ASSOCIATE PRODUCER
Javid is a filmmaker based in San Francisco. He has received grants and fellowship awards from the Sundance Institute, the Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) and the Kadist Art Foundation and is currently in post-production on his debut feature documentary film, SWING LOW. He is currently visiting faculty in the Graduate Program at the San Francisco Art Institute.

DANIELLE HOLKE, CO-PRODUCER & COMMUNITY MANAGER
Danielle is a veteran builder and nurturer of digital communities, for both organizations and individuals, with a current special focus on independent filmmakers. Her background in marketing and PR, with significant experience in entertainment, maker-culture, documentary film, and social causes, has allowed her to launch strong programs which have resulted in sold-out screenings at prestigious film festivals such as the Toronto International Film Festival and AFI Docs, published cover stories and features in a variety of publications including The New York Times and IndieWire, and hundreds of fruitful relationships with taste-makers and journalists world-wide.

SHAWN DOYLE, SOUND LEAD
A musician for most of his life, Shawn has always gravitated to work in the field of sound. Since 2008, he has worked on-location as a Sound Recordist, and in 2014, he travelled to Iceland as the Production Sound Mixer for the feature film Bokeh. When not on location he can be found working in the studio mixing for TV, film, and music. In his spare time, he enjoys playing drums for the recording artist Emily Neveu and fly fishing remote rivers.

JEREMY WILKER, CINEMATOGRAPHER
Jeremy films, produces, and edits dozens of commercial spots per year for his clients and loves being on-set. He's got two feature narrative films under his belt (Death to Prom and TRIUMPH67), has done short films (Chai Again, Room 202, and The Negative), and has contributed his cinematography talents to several feature documentary projects (Being BeBe, Wet House, Time for Ilhan, The G Word, Typeface). He’s filmed projects for Levi’s, Best Buy, Stub Hub (Super Bowl), Final Four, Lowe’s, and Frontline. Jeremy serves on the board of FilmNorth, where he also teaches classes, and formerly served on the advisory board of UW Stout Entertainment Design program. In his free time, he enjoys raising his two children, modern board games, snowboarding, and camping.

TIM KULIKOWSKI, PRODUCER | IMDB
With over twenty years of experience in the areas of advertising, marketing, consulting, the web, and interactive multimedia, along with an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Phoenix, Arizona, Tim Kulikowski left a comfortable, yet unfulfilling, corporate life in 2005 to travel the world and seek out a new path, landing in San Francisco two years later to pursue a lifelong dream of becoming a filmmaker. He believes film is a powerful medium to help bring about social change. Working with the producers of STILL AROUND (premiered at Boston LGBT Film Festival, May 2011), a feature compilation of short films about people living and thriving with HIV/AIDS in 2011 (30 years after the crisis began), he co-directed PAWS, one of the 15 shorts, and was an Associate Producer on the overall compilation. From there, Tim directed and produced his first solo film, BEYOND THE TEAM (23 min.), which screened at 21 film festivals around the world and earned him an award at the Los Angeles Sports Film Festival in the short documentary category.

MATTHEW ROME, DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Matt Rome is an Oakland, CA based cinematographer who focuses on documentary-style content for independent filmmakers, brands, and tech companies. His work has been featured at SFMoMA, the Mill Valley Film Festival, the Marfa Film Festival, and SXSW. his client work has taken him around the world shooting for the likes of Patagonia, Netflix, Lululemon, IGN, Pfizer, Apple, Google, Facebook, GoFundMe, AirBnb, UCSF, Shopify, Box, Visa, Square, Reuters, and the California Chamber of Commerce to name a few. He received a BS in Digital Filmmaking and Video Production from The Art Institute of San Francisco, CA in 2010.

JOHN SWIHART, COMPOSER | Official Site
Unique sounds and surprising instrument choices put John Swihart on a path to creating unpredictable contemporary scores. His distinctive style can be heard in both film and television. John Swihart was raised in Bloomington, Indiana, the son of a physicist based at Indiana University. He spent a portion of his formative years in Europe and Asia, where his father would sabbatical. John studied Piano at an early age but was not deeply absorbed by music until he was eight when he found the saxophone, which he played exclusively before switching to guitar at 12. Swihart would leave Indiana to attend the renowned Berklee College of Music, where he was struck by the level of commitment of his classmates to immerse themselves in musical experimentation. This made for an amazing culture of learning.

After years of performing in numerous bands, John put a studio together. The advertising work came, but the Emerson student short films that John worked on made it clear that long form would be the least restrictive and most creatively rewarding experience. From Boston to performing in Blue Man Group Las Vegas, and then to Los Angeles to pursue film and television composition where he scored a few Independent films before his breakout project NAPOLEON DYNAMITE. He has since scored over 50 films and several TV shows including HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER.

AARON FAGERSTROM, CINEMATOGRAPHER
Aaron Fagerstrom grew up in St. Louis and moved to San Francisco where he received his BFA from the Academy of Art. Along the way he made a couple of stops at the Art Student's League and National Academy of Design in New York to further expand his artistic knowledge. These explorations evolved into a career in cinematography, which he found to be an ideal language to apply his visual sensibility into something authentic, concrete, and meaningful. Over the years, his commercial work has attracted such clients as Reebok, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Google, Citibank, 23&Me, Carnival Cruise, Athleta, Western Digital, Men's Health, Jack Daniel’s, Westin Hotels, AirBnB, Pacific Gas & Electric, Realtor.com, Cartoon Network, Valve Software, Juul, Ariat, General Mills, and many others. In his free time, Aaron practices the piano, draws, takes landscape photos, geeks out on sci-fi books, pours over old art books, and follows developments in renewable energy.

NICKOLAS ROSSI, CINEMATOGRAPHER
As a cinematographer, Nickolas has worked extensively in the United States & Canada, Asia, Europe, and Mexico. His work has screened in numerous film festivals across the globe, as well as PBS Independent Lens, MTV/LOGO, and Fuel TV. His feature narrative work includes "Southern Baptist Sissies" with Emmy Award winner Leslie Jordan ("Will & Grace") and Dale Dickey ("Winter's Bone"), "Do Not Disturb" with Stephen Geoffreys ("Fright Night"​), and Corey Haim ("Lost Boys"​), and "Breath of Hate"​ with Jason Mewes ("Clerks"​) and Ezra Buzzington ("The Hills Have Eyes"​). His documentary film work includes the award winning feature documentary, "The Power of Two"​, the directorial debut of Academy Award® nominated producer, Marc Smolowitz. His camera work has also been featured in Lance Bangs' "Inside Portlandia", John Maloof's Oscar Nominated feature documentary,"Finding Vivian Maier"​, David Sington's docu-drama, "The Fear Of 13", and Jennifer Siebel Newsom's Sundance premiere, "The Mask You Live In"​. Nickolas' directorial debut, "Heaven Adores You,"​ about musician Elliott Smith, made it's premiere in May 2014 and has screened at over 40 festivals across 5 continents. It found worldwide distribution with EagleRock Entertainment in 2015.