Pan Left Productions: Director Bios

Director Bios

	Heather Lares A Pan Left member since 2000, Heather Lares has worked on several productions, including Border Crossing/ Cruzando Fonteras (produced with Jeff Imig), Shutting Down the Stacks: San Manuel, Poisoned! The Workers of Brush Wellman, and I Was a Teenage Prostitute (videographer). She says she makes videos because she has to. “ I feel compelled to provide a voice that talks about things that mainstream media doesn’t." Heather is a graduate of the University of Arizona Media Arts program.
	Jeff Imig Jeff co-founded Pan Left with Lisa Wise in 1994 when they were still in film school. Since then, he co-directed and co-produced Elephants and Grass, Solidarity is Stronger than Granite and Unity Crosses Borders/Unidos Cruzaremos las Fronteras. He also produced I Was a Teenage Prostitute and Border Crossings. His last project was Immokalee about the struggle for human rights in the tomato picking fields of South Florida. Jeff continues to serve on Pan Left's board and practices law in Tucson.
	Mary Charlotte Thurtle
	Daniela Ontiveros Coming Soon!
	Sonya Diehn Sonya Angelica Diehn completed her B.A.s in Linguistics and Fine Arts at Pitzer College (Claremont, CA) in 1998. A Tucson native and desert rat, she returned to her Arizona hometown in 1999 to work on environmental protection & sustainability, the impacts of globalization, and in alternative media projects. In September of 2000, she co-founded the Arizona Independent Media Center, and continues to produce independent projects. She has been a member of Tucson non-profit video production company Pan Left Productions since 2001, and in July 2003 released her first solo video Oasis Under Siege: A Journey Through the Dying River. In April of 2004, Sonya left Tucson and her five-year position with the Center for Biological Diversity to travel in South America for a fifteen months. In her journey she continued to produce progressive independent video and work independently as a journalist. Sonya Diehn is currently based out of Tucson as a reporter and environmental editor for the Courthouse News Service.
	Lucy Del Giorgio
	Nancy Potter Bio is not available.
	Lisa Wise Bio is not available.
	Linda Bohlke Bio is not available.
	Lenay Dunn Bio is not available.
	Michelle Brown Bio is not available.
	Myra Lesser Bio is not available.
	Robert Luna Bio is not available
	KT Good KT has been producing socially conscious film and video for more than 15 years. Queer in America is her first feature-length work. Her other works--including experimental documentaries-- have dealt with a range of issues: racism and classism,democratization of art, homelessness, and issues of concern to the LGBT community.
	David Aispuro Bio is not available.
	Beverly Seckinger Bio is not available.
	Yuri Makino Yuri Makino is an award-winning writer-director of documentary and fiction short films, which have screened at dozens of national and international venues. Yuri received her MFA from the Graduate Film Program at New York University and a BA with Highest Honors in Film Studies and in German Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. She lives in Tucson, Arizona, where she works as an independent filmmaker and Associate Professor in Media Arts at the University of Arizona. Yuri recently completed a short film based on Alma, her feature-length script, which was awarded semi-finalist status at the 1999 Sundance Institute Feature Film Lab, the 2000 Roy W. Dean Grant, two grants from the Amazon Foundation, and various grants from the University of Arizona. Yuri received a Hanson Film Institute grant and an Arizona Commission on the Arts Artist project grant to fund 111 Degrees Longitude, a video collaboration being produced with a Montana filmmaker. Her poetic documentary, Tokyo Equinox, completed in 2004, has had more than 20 screenings nationally and internationally. In 2003, she was awarded the Arizona International Film Festival Best of Arizona Award and an Honorable Mention from University Film and Video Association for Llama Walks, a personal documentary about her family. In 1999, Ms. Makino was the recipient of the Arizona Commission on the Arts Visual Fellowship for her narrative short, Umeboshi (Pickled Plums).
	Sharon Hoffman Sharon Hoffman, PhD, is a storiographer, photographer, and first time filmmaker. As a storiographer, Sharon guides others in the telling of their stories and brings theses stories to a larger audience through creative arts and visual media. Her black and white photography reveals the essence of those photographed. Her photography and other media have been featured in an interactive San Francisco exhibition exploring one woman's confrontation with breast cancer. Sharon's participation in On Bodies is a direct application of her approach to story. Her goal is to transform the way we interact with each other locally and globally by creating deeper understanding and awakening compassion.
	Eva Darrington Eva’s personal connection with the history and evolution of Sound Circle and her belief in the healing influence of creative media are two cornerstones of this documentary project. She believes it is time for visual media to truthfully and respectfully portray women relating to their bodies, discovering the wisdom of their bodies, and navigating the world in life affirming ways. The On Bodies project provides a necessary point of access to positive, authentic images for women and girls, informing and empowering them in their relationships with themselves, with other women, and with men. Eva is a holistic psychotherapist, specializing in addiction and body-centered therapies. Her own recovery from addiction and her daily practice of conscious relationship with food and body inform her life and her work. She is currently a music programmer/producer for KXCI Community Radio in Tucson, has performed as a singer, actor, and Afro-Cuban drummer, and is currently studying film and television production.
	Roberto deRoock Roberto Santiago deRoock, son of everywhere else, was born and raised in Aztlan. He is currently struggling with the jockocracy of US higher education where he studies entropology in words caught between pages and lines in dusty books. Sometimes he does other stuff like work on videos - he is currently locked in a death-grip with Globalized Instability: Testimonies from the Panama-Colombian Borderlands, a project about the spread of the Colombian civil war into Panama.
	Francesca Meza Bio is not available.
	Gordon Simmons Bio is not available.
	Frank Barrera Frank Barrera is a NYC-based cinematographer who will shoot just about anything for food. Recent work includes episodes of WNYC's Cool in Your Code; Discovery Channel's B Smith with Style and a music video for the reggae artist Empire Isis. He was also the Director of Photography for Tim McCann's narrative feature Runaway (Tribeca Film Festival 2005). As director, Frank began production on the documentary None of the Above back in 1998. It is the story of Puerto Rico's epic struggle for self determination. For three years, the production found itself based in Tucson, Arizona, where Frank was living with his wife Sarah. It was here that he became associated with the avante gard talents of Pan Left. Together they worked to develop the structure of this very large story. However, NYC was calling Frank and he answered by returning to his native city back in 2003. As None of the Above enters its final phase of production Frank will continue to turn to Pan Left for the kind of support that can only come from a bunch of wild-eyed desert filmmakers.
	Ryn Shane-Armstrong Born and raised in the dirty, dirty south, Ryn Shane-Armstrong desperately misses sitting on the front porch in his underwear, drinking cold beverages conveniently contained in 40-ounce bottles, and gently humming his approval of the world under the purple pall of a humid summer night. Now living in the relentlessly dry desert lands of Tucson, Arizona, however, Ryn aspires to get off his ass and soak the brow of his fellow persons with unapologetically affected vision. He hopes to break the fever of indifference with good goddamn stories. Pussy: The Racecar No Man Would Drive is Ryn's fourth project officially but his first as a member of Pan Left Productions. Ryn will be moving into free-form documentary and video poetry after the ghosts of higher education have released him from obligation.
	Austin Mills Austin Mills is a precocious young man who seeks to make a difference in the world. Born and raised in Tucson, Arizona, he attends Tucson High Magnet School. He began his activism career by participating in numerous anti-war demonstrations with his family prior to the war in Iraq. His first act of civil disobedience was to alter the "freedom fries" sign in his middle school's cafeteria. He can been seen around Tucson wearing T-shirts that depict American casualties of war in caskets and that identify George Bush as an international terrorist. March to Freedom is his first documentary.
	Dale Roose Battling a disabling illness, Dale Roose earned an Associate Degree in Liberal Arts with High Honors and hopes to find a scholarship to continue his education at Prescott College, minoring in science. While in school, he began to discover the high degree to which people hold false memories and false beliefs and fear the unfamiliar and the threat that poses to democracy, freedom, and the general well-being of the public. Dale is currently working on a documentary, After the Trigger: Chronic Disease Demystified: , to explain a complex biochemical mechanism common to a set of diseases which include: fibromyalgia (FM), multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), and gulf war illness (GWI). False beliefs about these diseases are common and have caused unnecessary disability and suffering.
	Stephanie Faust Stephanie has been involved in film for three years and has worked as a director as well as a director of photography on the independent film Bells and Whistles. She co-produced and co-directed the short action film Bitch Fight. Stephanie is the stage manager for the National Association of Latino Independent Producers and is an active member of the association. When she's not working on films, Stephanie teaches media and filmmaking to youth.
	Max Barnhart TBA
	Michelle Davis Bio not available
	Damian Nelson Bio not available.
	Jason Aragón J.M. has been involved in production for over eight years in Tucson, Arizona. He graduated from the University of Arizona Media Arts program in 2000 and then went into local studio television, where he became a studio television director. He then moved into independent film and joined the Pan Left in 2004. With the Pan Left collective he has designed and taught workshops in pre-production, production, and editing. In 2006 his documentary PRESENTE was a finalist in the Arizona International Film Festival. In 2008 his short Palestine En Solidaridad was accepted into SXSWclick Fest and the AFI Film Festival. He continues to work with activists and grassroots organizations in Tucson to produce documentaries that deal with the life and culture along the border region.
	Angela Soto Angela Soto was born on January 25, 1961, in Tucson, Arizona, the youngest of five. Her mother, Vicenta Soto, a seamstress/farmer/housekeeper raised Angela as well as her three sisters and her brother on her own. Angela found her mom and sisters to be her source of strength and inspiration. She believes that they are all very strong, loving, and amazing women, and she hopes she can tell all their stories one day. As a youngster in the 1960s, Angela was the first in her family to love school. She went on to be the only one in her family to go to college, majoring in journalism where she could pursue the joy of telling people’s stories. She has worked at the Arizona Daily Star for 20 years, starting in the library and moving to the local news desk where she now writes for the Neighbors Page. About 25 years ago she picked up her first still camera, taking pictures and telling stories for fun. Not long after, the video camera made it into her hands. Through classes at Access Tucson she was determined to do more films and to show them to an audience besides her family. Two years ago she showed her first short film, The 2004 All Souls Day Procession, in the All Souls Day Film Festival. It was a 10-minute photographic show of the All Souls Day Procession. The following year she made another 10-minute short film titled, El Dia de Un Muerto. It is the story of a deceased little girl who comes to the All Souls Day Procession to be reunited with her mother. El Dia de Un Muerto was shown at the All Souls Day Film Festival in December 2005 as well as at Nuestras Raices Film Festival in February 2006. In March 2006 her full-length feature film, Mia’s Journal was shown at the 2006 Wingspan Film Festival, drawing the largest festival audience. In 2009, Angela's film La Virgen De Guadalupe was selected to screen at the Boyle Heights Latina Independent Film Extravaganza (BHLIFE), and I AM--which tells some touching coming out stories in the Latino community--showed at the LGBT Tucson Latino Pride Event. The film Recently, up and coming singer and songwriter Joleen Dedmon and filmmaker Angela Soto teamed up to test the water in bringing Dedmon's song, Everything I Need to life. Angela currently lives with her partner of five years, Linda Dols. They have three dogs and one cat. Angela’s next project is a film about her mother called “Green Corn Tamales.” It’s a story about her four teenaged great-nieces and how the Hispanic culture, food, art, language and history is fading from their lives. When they make green corn tamales with their great grandmother, they learn why they have the privileges they have today while hearing her tell her life story.
	Germar D. Townsend Germar began his life in media at a very young age. At age seven he was featured in a cable reality series focused on youth—Small Talk. After spending much of his teen years performing and producing, Germar landed at Georgia State University. At GSU, Germar was an interdisciplinary studies major with a concentration in Multi-media Technology and Relations. Those studies included courses in film, recording technology, entertainment business, journalism and public relations. After a few years of working in independent production, Germar completed a Master’s program at the University of Colorado at Denver in Recording Arts. His post-graduate gigs have included teaching digital video, video production at First Beach Productions, Peachtree City UMC and CU Online and audio production for Aldea Spiritual Community, Iliff Park and a professional basketball team. When Germar isn’t in a studio, he’s working with teens as a counselor, coach, mentor or instructor. A term with AmeriCorpsVISTA, as Youth Development Director, sparked his desire to advocate for the youth of Greater Tucson. This passion led to his involvement with Pan Left and the production of his first documentary, AT RISK: in their own words.*
	Ria Tsinas Ria Tsinas applies her gift of gab and love of music to Pan Left’s production of Roller Girls. Despite her intimidating appearance, she is a talented interviewer and awesome organizer. Her good spirits and sense of community make fun happen.
	Steev Hise Steev Hise is a mediamaker, activist, and reluctant computer geek, originally from Iowa. He is actively involved with the Independent Media Center, is a member of the managing collective of the Tucson-based Dry River Radical Resource Center, and has been a Pan Left member since Fall 2005. Steev has been been doing a mix of artistic and political video work since 1992, media activism since 2000, and did graduate study in new media and electronic art at California Institute of the Arts. In 2004-2005 Steev produced and directed On The Edge, a documentary about the femicide in Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua City, Mexico. Steev has presented his work across the Americas, in Europe and Australia. He is the founder of Detritus.net, a website devoted to artistic appropriation, and his personal website is detritus.net/steev
	Salomon Baldanegro Sal is a Tucson native; he graduated from The University of Arizona with a BA in Media Arts. In 2006, he worked with the Arizona International Film Festival, to plan and coordinate the festival. He also worked with the National Association of Latino Independent Producers' Academy as a production assistant, working with some of the leading Latino professionals in the industry. In 2007, he was promoted to Location Manager for the academy. His current project, They Called Them Agitators, has been percolating for a long time. Baldenegro grew up listening to stories of the Chicano Movement from his parents, Salomón R. Baldenegro and Cecilia Cruz, both of whom were heavily involved in the movement. He and his brother participated in many marches, picket lines, and other movement activities when they were children. This exposure kindled an intense interest in this dynamic and productive aspect of history.
	David Gilmore
	Hess Rose DeRooy
	Jody Yazzie Member since 2007. Bio not available.
	Brandon Marshall Member since 2007. Bio not available.
	Jean Jessup Member since 2007. Bio not available.
	Oscar Jimenez Oscar Jimenez is a performer, costume artist, writer and filmmaker. He was born and raised in Arzona along the Mexico/U.S. border and is heavily influenced by border culture in his work.
	Jamie A. Lee (Producer/Director/Editor) is an award-winning independent filmmaker who runs Visionaries Filmworks, a production company dedicated to social justice media. She is also a Producing Member and former Co-Executive Director of Pan Left Productions, a social justice filmmaking collective in Tucson, Arizona. Lee is the recipient of the 2009 Arizona Commission on the Arts Artist Project Grant to assist her in post-production on her latest documentary film project, aguamiel: secrets of the agave. aguamiel: secrets of the agave is Lee's fourth documentary feature (http://www.aguamiel-documentary.com). Lee screened clips of this collaborative film project and presented with her co-director at the 2008 Women's World Congress in Madrid, Spain and the 2008 National Communications Association (NCA) Annual Convention in San Diego. Lee's last film, Green Green Water (©2006), about the Cree Nations in northern Manitoba who are organizing to critically re-consider the construction of large-scale hydroelectric dams premiered at the imagineNATIVE Film Festival (Toronto), the American Indian Film Festival (San Francisco), and the Planet In Focus Environmental Film Festival (Toronto). The film is currently being considered for distribution through Native American Public Television and will have its U.S. National Cable Broadcast Premiere on Free Speech TV on March 7, 2009. The film project's video blog was a featured podcast in 2005 on Apple iTunes and has been featured in WIRED Magazine for innovative use of Video Blogging for networking and fundraising. (www.greengreenwater.com) Lee's first film, Treading Water: a documentary (©2001) was awarded Grand Jury Prize for Best Feature Documentary by an Emerging Filmmaker at the 2002 Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival and has broadcast on PBS affiliates throughout the Midwest. Lee's second film, THIS obedience (©2003), was awarded the Audience Award for Best Feature Documentary at the 2003 Central Standard Film Festival and is currently being distributed through American Public Television and the National Film Network. Lee is currently teaching documentary film at City High School in downtown Tucson and facilitating Grrrls Literary/Media Activism Workshops through Kore Press. She is also directing the Arizona LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) Storytelling Project: Community Histories, a Pan Left-supported project, to lay the groundwork of an Arizona LGBT Archives to be housed and accessible through the University of Arizona's LGBT Studies Institute. If you're interested in this project, email jamie@panleft.org. Public Presentations of my work Family in the Northland (1992) director/editor/director of photography PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS: University of Wisconsin in Superior That Red Van (1992) director/editor/director of photography PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS: Broadcast on the University of Wisconsin in Superior’s Public Access Channel Coming Out (1993) director/editor/director of photography PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS: 1993 University of Minnesota’s National “Coming Out Day” Celebration Treading Water: a documentary (2001) director/editor/director of photography/graphic designer PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS: 2002 Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival North Carolina Gay and Lesbian Film Festival Winnipeg LGBT Film Festival Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) & American Sociological Association (ASA) 2007 Annual Conference in NY, NY Broadcast on Minnesota PBS affiliates Featured and interviewed in an episode of the national PBS LGBT newsmagazine “In The Life” in October 2004. Blind Lust (2002) director/editor/director of photography PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS: 2002 Minneapolis 5 x 24 Short Film Festival THIS obedience (2003) producer/director/editor/director of photography www.thisobedience.com PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS: Inside Out Toronto Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival WORLD PREMIERE San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival U.S. PREMIERE North Carolina Gay and Lesbian Film Festival Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival Indianapolis LGBT Film Festival Central Standard Film Festival Tampa International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival Reel Affirmations International GLBT Film Festival Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival Winnipeg Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival Reeling 2003 Chicago Lesbian and Gay International Film Festival PrideFest5, Utah State University’s Gay and Lesbian Film Festival Reel Indentities 2004, New Orleans LGBT Film Festival Witness Our Welcome Conference at University of Pennsylvania Affirmation (Gay and Lesbian Mormons) Conference Together in Faith Conference Gather Us In Conference CELEBRATE! Ecumenical Youth Conference 2003 Voting Member Mailing supported by a grant from the Headwaters Fund For Social Justice in which a VHS copy of the film was mailed to each of the 1,200 ECLA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) Voting Members prior to the ELCA Churchwide Assembly. 2003 College & Seminary Outreach Tour supported by a grant from the Larsen Foundation (Hamline University, Luther College, Concordia College, UC-Davis, Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry at the Pacific School of Religion, Luther Seminary, University of Minnesota – Duluth, Texas Lutheran University, University of South Dakota, Cornell University, Princeton Theological Seminary, Western Michigan University, Oregon State University, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, Gustavus Adolphus College) Currently being distributed by American Public Television, National Film Network, Wingspan Ministry, and Lutherans Concerned/North America (LCNA). Green Green Water (2006) producer/co-director/editor www.greengreenwater.com PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS: imagineNATIVE Film Festival (Toronto, ON) WORLD PREMIERE American Indian Film Festival (San Francisco, CA) U.S. PREMIERE Planet In Focus International Environmental Film Festival (Toronto, ON) Native Spirit Film & Video Festival (London, UK) Cambridge Film Festival (Cambridge, UK) Environmental Film Festival sponsored by SK Eco-Network (Saskatchewan, SK) IFP/PHX (Independent Feature Project/Phoenix) Cinema Lounge (Phoenix, AZ & Tucson, AZ) National Film Board of Canada’s Citizen Shift “Water” Tour screening in Calgary, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Halifax, Hamilton, Lethbridge, Winnipeg, and Welland Duluth Environmental Film Festival (Duluth, MN) See the Light Energy Festival (Minneapolis, MN) Northern Lights Film Festival (Ely, MN) Bell Museum of Natural History (sponsored by EcoWatch, Fresh Energy, and Amnesty International’s University of Minnesota Chapter) Washington DC Environmental Film Festival (sponsored by NRDC) Manitoba Advanced Screening Tour (sponsored by Interfaith Task Force on Northern Hydro Development, University of Manitoba Aboriginal Students Association and Student Care) City Pages Get Real: Documentary Film Festival 2005 VLOG (video blog/video podcast) launched on Apple iTunes to over 15,000 subscribers for which we were featured in WIRED magazine in a story about creative filmmakers using the web for outreach, networking, and fundraising for social justice documentary films. Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) & American Sociological Association (ASA) 2007 Annual Conference in NY, NY American Sociological Association 2007 Annual Conference in NY, NY 2008 Expo Zaragoza International Water Conference in Zaragoza, Spain Scheduled for broadcast on Free Speech TV in March 2009. Currently in distribution negotiations with Native American Public Television. “aguamiel: secrets of the agave” (in post-production) co-producer/co-director/editor/director of photography www.aguamiel-documentary.com PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS: 2008 Women’s Worlds Congress in Madrid, Spain 2008 National Communications Association Annual Convention in San Diego, CA “We Are What We Eat: nourishing gestures” (in post-production) producer/director/editor/director of photography “imagine” (ready for post-production; organizing music rights) producer/director/editor/director of photography
	David Arv Bragi
	Piper Weinberg Member since 2007. Bio not available.
	Stories from Our Streets: Dunbar/Spring & Barrio Anita Youth Video Project The youth video project "Stories of Our Streets" was funded by the city of Tucson's Youth Summer and School Year Enrichment and Employment programs.Read about the project »
	Pan Left Collective
	Noel Hennessey A dancer of 10 years and lifelong singer, Noel is a natural and gifted performer. She sings in a Worship Band and in 2010 will sing the National Anthem at an NBA game in Phoenix. She also provided the narration for an award-winning film from the 2009 MLK Day Film Projet. Noel graduated from Colorado State University with a bachelor’s degree in Communication and a concentration in Media Studies. Although, Noel is an award-winning, “hobby” photographer, whose photos from travels abroad have earned top spots at art auctions; it wasn’t her “eye” that brought her to the Pan Left Collective. After months of working as a camp counselor, living with impoverished youth abroad and working with teens on Tucson’s south side, Noel decided to help the young voiceless find their voice. That decision led to her first production, AT RISK: in their own words.