About - The Filmmakers

Director/Producer Socheata Poeuv
Socheata Poeuv made her filmmaking debut with the feature documentary NEW YEAR BABY which won the 'Movies That Matter' human rights cinema award (an Amnesty International initiative) on its premiere at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam. The film went to sold out screenings on three continents and to win nine international awards including awards in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, the $25,000 AFI Dallas Target Filmmaking Award and the Crystal Heart Award for expressing "hope and respect for the positive values of life."

NEW YEAR BABY aired on national PBS in 2008 and was a finalist for the PBS Independent Lens Audience Award. PBS also created a 30 city national outreach and educational tour to disseminate the film. PBS went on to submit the film for both Emmy and Peabody Award consideration. Poeuv is working with the Open Society Institute to take a Cambodian language version of the film across Cambodia, partnering with human rights organizations.

Socheata Poeuv is the founder and CEO of Khmer Legacies, and organization whose mission is to create a video archive about the Cambodian genocide. Khmer Legacies has a goal of videotaping thousands of testimonies of Cambodian survivors by having the younger generation interview the older generation. The organization is housed at Yale University.

In 2007 Socheata Poeuv was awarded the Echoing Green Fellowship. The international fellowship is awarded to social entrepreneurs creating innovative high impact social change organizations. She was also appointed a Visiting Fellow at the Yale University Genocide Studies Program. At Yale, Poeuv speaks to classes about and works with faculty on contemporary genocide issues and social entrepreneurship. At 28 years old, she was awarded the 2008 Jewish World Watch iWitness Human Rights Award, the youngest recipient in the award's history. She is also the recipient of the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship. In 2010 she was appointed a U.S. State Department Cultural Ambassador to Southeast Asia.

Socheata left NBC News Dateline in 2007 and previously was on staff of ABC News World News Tonight with Peter Jennings and the NBC News TODAY show where she worked with Ann Curry. She also co-founded Broken English Productions in New York City and has written for several publications including the Open Society Justice Initiative. In addition to building Khmer Legacies so that it can complete its mission of documenting the Cambodian genocide, Poeuv travels regularly to inspire professionals and students to make a large impact in their communities and the world. She has spoken at the United Nations, both the Yale Law and Yale Divinity School, Northwestern Law Schools and the Harvard Kennedy School among many venues.

Socheata graduated cum laude with a B.A. from Smith College and studied one year at Hertford College, Oxford. She is in graduate studies at the Yale School of Management. She is also a visiting fellow at Yale University. socheatapoeuv.com

Producer/Writer Charles Vogl
Charles Vogl is a documentary film producer and co-founder of Broken English Productions LLC in New York City. He focuses on creating high social impact through non-fiction media. Some recent projects include the following:

He produced the independent feature documentary NEW YEAR BABY which has won nine international awards to date, including the 'Movies That Matter' human rights cinema awards (an Amnesty International initiative.) The film aired on national PBS' Independent Lens Series. PBS also created a national education and outreach tour to disseminate the film. The U.S. State Department screened the film in Southeast Asia in 2010. Vogl collaborates with education and human rights organizations to distribute the film internationally and to classrooms across the United States.

Vogl worked with Directors Sarah and Emily Kunstler on the feature documentary WILLIAM KUNSTLER DISTURBING THE UNIVERSE (ITVS / CPB), about the legacy of the most famous constitutional lawyer in 20^th century America. The film premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival then released theatrically in the United States before airing on national PBS' POV in 2010.

He also worked with Director Chris Wong on WHATEVER IT TAKES (Sundance Institute / CAAM / CPB), following one year in the life of a rookie Asian American high school principle in the South Bronx. It aired nationally on PBS's Independent Lens series in 2010.

Vogl consulted on Cynthia Wade's documentary BORN SWEET about a Cambodian teenager's dream to overcome arsenic poisoning and become a karaoke star. The film premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Earlier Vogl also worked with Cynthia Wade on the Sundance Film Festival premiere of her HBO documentary FREEHELD which went on to win an Academy Award.

Vogl's newest documentary film project is working with Director David Nakabayashi of Industrial Light and Magic. The working title is SMOKE AND MIRRORS. It is a window into the unseen lives of the men and women who made the groundbreaking models and effects for STAR WARS. They forever changed both filmmaking and, by inspiring a generation of engineers, the world at large.

Vogl was a founding Executive Board Member for the Yale Law School - Visual Law Project. He collaborated with Rebecca Wexler and the Yale Law Information Society Project to use cinematic arts to grow a public conversation on how law impacts society. This includes creating a non-fiction media curriculum for the Yale Law School launched in 2010.

Vogl is a recipient of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting INPUT Fellowship and the Working Films Documentary Institute Residency at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Vogl's work has been funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Independent Television Service, the Open Society Institute, the Movies That Matter Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts.

Earlier in his career Vogl worked for New Regency Productions at Fox Studios in Los Angeles and in Exhibition Development and Research at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.

Vogl has a B.S. from the University of Southern California Annenberg School. He is in graduate studies at Yale University where studies ethics and religion. At Yale he was named a Jessie Ball duPont Foundation Scholar. charlesvogl.com

Producer Jason Bolling
Jason Bolling currently works as a freelance artist for MTV Networks and has produced segments and series for the Emmy award winning journalist Linda Ellerbee. Jason graduated from New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, with a major in film and television and a minor in psychology. He also wrote, directed, and produced the short film Asylum, which debuted at the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center. darkmattercreative.com

Editor Sandra Christie
Sandra Christie's numerous credits include: the Sundance Freedom of Expression Award winner "Family Name", part three of the nine part series for PBS' "An American Love Story", the Emmy nominated series "Jazz" produced by Floretine Films and the PBS series "This Far By Faith" produced by Blackside, Inc. and "Matters of Race" produced by Roja Production. She was also associate editor of the Peabody Award-winning documentary "Malcolm X: Make It Plain". She has a B.A. in film production from Hunter College.

Associate Editor Jacob Okada
Jacob Okada worked as assistant editor for the PBS series Matters of Race and the upcoming Citizen King, a biography on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Jacob is the recipient of the Warner Brothers Pictures Production Award for his documentary Curtis. Curtis was also an official selection of the 2004 Sundance Festival. Jacob was also awarded NYU's prestigious Russell Hexter Filmmaker Grant and graduated from the New York University Tisch School in Film Production. jacobokada.com

Animators Paul & Sandra Fierlinger
Among accomplishments in a long career, Paul Fierlinger created "Sesame Street's" Teeny Little Super Guy series in 1971, which runs to this day. He was nominated for an Academy Award in 1979 for "It's So Nice to Have a Wolf Around the House". In 1997, Paul received a PEW Fellowship in the Arts award for the body of his work. In 2002, the Fierlingers received the Peabody Award for the PBX film "Still Life with Animated Dogs". He now also teaches animation at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design.

Composer Gil Talmi
Gil Talmi is a world-renowned Emmy nominated composer. His music can be heard in a variety of feature films, documentaries and television programs. Gil's most recent work includes music for "The Mummy Who Would Be King", a documentary for Nova/PBS, a TV series for Bravo called "TV Revolutions" and music for the Mayan exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In addition to this, Gil has written music for Warner Bros., Paramount, BBC, CBS, NBC, HBO and various independent productions. thoughtsingreycircles.com

Trailer Editor/Post-production Andrew Pakenas
Andrew Pakenas is an award winning filmmaker in New York City. He has been with Emmy award-winning Lucky Duck Productions for five years as an Editor and Technical Supervisor. He makes documentary and news magazine style programs for Nickelodean, A&E, lifetime, HBO and others. He is also a founder of SpinnMedia, a DVD authoring and duplication company also in New York City. He graduated from Ohio University with a major in video productions.

Post-production Elliot Mebane
Elliot Mebane is founder and President of Roguish Studios, an internet development and consulting firm whose clients include Hilton Hotels, Honda, Fox Broadcasting, non-profits and celebrities. He is a Board Member of the Los Angeles Macromedia Flash Users Group and contributes Cinematography and Post-Production skills to "Tashpix", a filmmaking collective that produces narrative and art short films. / info[at]roguish.com roguish.com

Audio Design Nathan Smith
Nathan Smith is President and founder of NL3 Audio. He is an industry leader in sound design for film, television and games. His film credits include "The Matrix" and "Go". He was lead Sound Designer for the best selling Pixar/Disney "Incredibles" video game and his clients include Lucas Arts, Electronic Arts and Microsoft. Nathan is a graduate of the University of Southern California.

Associate Producer, Development & Events Angela C. Gee
Angela brings more than 8 years of expertise planning and developing advertising and event strategies. She is now at US Concepts, an award winning event marketing agency in Manhattan where she designs strategic campaigns that connect brands effectively and efficiently. Specifically, she specializes in entertainment marketing; creative development, music, comedy, and celebrity integration. She has developed premium sponsorship opportunities for brands including Tanqueray, Baileys, Ford Motor Company, and Mercedes Benz. Angela has created events from coast to coast working with celebrities like Mike Epps, Damon Wayans, and John Legend.

Associate Producer, Events & Development Amy Yan
Amy Yan is a member of Standard & Poor's Structured Finance Product Management and Marketing group, handling event planning, advertising, promotion and marketing analysis. She has also worked with Perry Ellis Menswear's retail-marketing department and in the media planning department of Young & Rubicam advertising agency.

Production Coordinator Hoa Duong
Hoa Duong has coordinated numerous community health, education, research, media, and development projects in the U.S. and abroad for 8 years. She conducted the oral history project Conversations with Survivors of the Killing Fields to document Cambodian refugee women's experiences escaping the Khmer Rouge regime and subsequent life in America. Hoa co-produced the multi-lingual public health video Tuberculosis: The Illness, Lifestyle, and Treatment to educate Laotian, Vietnamese, and Cambodian residents. Hoa received the Commitment to Social Change in the City Award. She is also founder of the Pan Asian American Community House at the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned degrees in Urban Studies & Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.