Barbara Newman, Co-Producer/Director:
A Creative Director/Writer for over 25 years, Newman’s iconic work has left an indelible mark on contemporary brand culture. She’s written award-winning campaigns that have been featured at Cannes, and has developed content across multiple media platforms for global brands around the world.
Her fascination with cultural anthropology has lead her finding the human story. Barbara is a relentless researcher and gifted interviewer. She digs deep and finds the pearls, stringing them into compelling narratives.
Documentary film credits include,Burning The Future: Coal in America—which received the International Pare Lorentz Award for best social documentary, (animation producer.) HBO’s Dear Talula, short listed for the Academy Award, where she acted as a writer/story consultant. Newman also consulted on Songs of Odessa, a feature length documentary about the music and life of composer David Nowakowsky.
Barbara wrote, produced and directed The Cowgirl’s Call: Writing and Riding, a multi-media Western experience with Amy Hale Auker, WILLA award winning writer, cowgirl poet and working cowboy. It premiered during the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers, in March 2015. She is also was a curator for The American West, an exhibit at The Berkshire Museum, a Smithsonian partner, Fall 2015.
Newman is on the Advisory Board of The Berkshire International Film Festival, and a Board member of The Berkshire Film & Media Collaborative. She was part of the think tank that envisioned the Fred Roger’s Institute for Children’s Media and Education.
Nancy Novack – Co-producer/Director
Emmy award-winning editor, Nancy Novack has been editing documentary and feature films for over 20 years. Her work has appeared on HBO, PBS, ABC, The Sundance Channel, The History Channel, The National Geographic Channel and The Discovery Channel; and has been featured at the Sundance, Venice, Tribeca, and New York film festivals. Her films have received numerous EMMY and Peabody awards, the Dupont award, and the George Polk award for Journalism. Recent credits include - For PBS: Cancer: The Emperor Of All Maladies, The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Clinton, Finding Your Roots, My Lai, Broadway: The American Musical; for ABC: Final Witness; for HBO: Southern Rites, Dear Talula; and Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke, which earned Ms. Novack an Emmy award for Outstanding Picture Editing of a Non-Fiction Program. She has also co-written and co-produced Songs of Odessa, a feature-length documentary about turn-of-the-century Odessa in Russia, told through the music and life of composer David Nowakowsky.
Theatrical features include: Boys, starring Winona Ryder and Lukas Haas; Drop Back Ten (Sundance Film Festival Official Selection); Off The Rez (Tribeca Film Festival); and the documentaries The Accidental Advocate (Impact Film Festival) and The Farm: 10 Down (a follow up film to the Academy Award nominated documentary feature The Farm: Life in Angola Prison,) which she also co-directed.
Nancy is currently a Professor at the University of Pennsylvania where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the Annenberg School of Communications.