Current Instructors
| MICHAEL A. BEHRENS Michael A. Behrens runs the San Francisco Film Society’s Professional Development Program. Since its inception in 2008 the program has helped hundreds of media makers create and complete their films. Behrens is an award winning artist, nonprofit business consultant, and film producer with 18 years’ of experience. His clients have included Paramount, Disney, Volkswagen, Fox, Burger King, National Theatre of Finland, Oregon Shakespeare Festival and many others. Recently he helped produce Jeff Rosenblum’s first documentary The Naked Brand (2012) for the Questus Agency (Ad Agency of the Year 2011). Previous award-wining films Michael has produced: My Garbage My Neighborhood (2011), Kunjo (2010) and Climate Change (2009). He is currently producing the documentary film, 780 Frederick. Michael holds a Master of Nonprofit Administration from the University of San Francisco and has lectured at Saint Mary's College, California Art Institute, The National Acting School of Finland, Illinois State University, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Zhu Hai University and others. He was awarded the Rex Rabold Fellowship, USF Merritt Scholarship, and has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, US State Department and the People’s Republic of China. ANNA BODEN Anna Boden has made three feature films in collaboration with her filmmaking partner Ryan Fleck. Their first feature, Half Nelson, which Anna co-wrote and produced, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2006. Half Nelson lead actors Ryan Gosling and Shareeka Epps both earned Independent Spirit Awards for their portrayals, and Ryan Gosling also received Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award nominations. Half Nelson was honored with Gotham Awards for Breakthrough Director, Breakthrough Actor (for Shareeka Epps), and Best Film. Anna went on to co-write and direct her next two features with Ryan. Sugar, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008, received a Gotham Award nomination for Best Ensemble Cast; an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Screenplay; and an American Film Institute (AFI) Award as one of the year’s 10 most outstanding achievements in film. Their most recent film, It’s Kind of a Funny Story, based on the young adult novel by Ned Vizzini, was released by Focus Features in 2010. Anna and Ryan have also collaborated on several documentaries, including Have You Seen This Man? (2002) and Young Rebels (2005); and on the short film Gowanus, Brooklyn (2004), which was a forerunner to Half Nelson. DEBBIE BRUBAKER Debbie Brubaker is a seasoned producer in the world of indie feature films, including Peter Bratt’s La Mission, which premiered at Sundance and opened the San Francisco International. Feature narratives she has produced include The Darwin Awards, Dopamine, Unflinching Triumph: The Phillip Rockhammer Story, Swing, Teknolust, Bartleby, and The Californians. Recent projects include All About Evil and One Way to Valhalla. Currently Brubaker is working on a documentary with Jennifer Seibel Newsom, Miss Representation. AURORA GUERRERO Aurora Guerrero is a queer Xicana raised in the Bay Area. She has over 10 years of filmmaking experience as a writer/director. Her debut feature Mosquita y Mari premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival and went on to screen in competition at the San Francisco International Film Festival. During its making Mosquita y Mari was awarded a 2011 SFFS/KRF Post-Production Grant, 2011 LG Cinema 3D Fellowship, 2005 Sundance Ford Fellowship, and 2005 Paul Robeson Development Grant, and was selected to participate at the Sundance Indigenous Filmmaker Lab, Tribeca All Access Program and Film Independent Producer’s Lab. Guerrero has also directed short narrative films including Pura Lengua (2005 Sundance Film Festival) and Viernes Girl (winner of the 2005 HBO/NYLIFF short film competition). Guerrero is a 2012 Sundance Institute/Time Warner Storytelling Fellow. HILARY HART Former Director of Publicity at the San Francisco Film Society since 1998, and a veteran of the SFFS publicity staff since 1993, Hart previously worked as publicity coordinator at San Francisco International LGBT Festival and director of publicity at Cinequest, San Jose Film Festival. She has attended Sundance and Telluride for over 15 years. Hart learned the basics of grassroots publicity while working at a Bay Area repertory movie theater and later Landmark Theatres for 19 years, before segueing to the film festival world. MATT NOTARO Matt Notaro is a editor/designer running a post-production studio in the Mission District of San Francisco. Matt has worked with production companies including Kontent Films, Remedy Editorial, and Heist Projects, and agencies including McCann-Erickson, Ogilvy One, and Venables Bell & Partners. Some of his commercial clients include Sony, Nike, HP, Target, T-Mobile, Intel and Visa. SAM POLLARD Sam Pollard's professional accomplishments as a feature film and television video editor, and documentary producer/director span almost thirty years. He recently served as Executive Producer on the documentary Brother Outsider, Official Selection 2003 Sundance Film Festival. His first assignment as a documentary producer came in 1989 for Henry Hampton's Blackside production Eyes On The Prize II: America at the Racial Crosswords. For one of his episodes in this series, he received an Emmy. Eight years later, he returned to Blackside as Co-Executive Producer/Producer of Hampton's last documentary series I'll Make Me A World: Stories of African-American Artists and Community. For the series, Mr. Pollard received The George Peabody Award. Between 1990 and 2000, Mr. Pollard edited a number of Spike Lee's films: Mo' Better Blues, Jungle Fever, Girl 6, Clockers, Bamboozled. As well, Mr. Pollard and Mr. Lee co-produced a couple of documentary productions for the small and big screen: Spike Lee Presents Mike Tyson, a biographical sketch for HBO for which Mr. Pollard received an Emmy, and Four Little Girls, a feature-length documentary about the 1965 Birmingham church bombings which was nominated for an Academy Award. Mr. Pollard began this journey in 1972 as an apprentice in a WNET-sponsored film-training workshop. Under the tutelage of a number of veterans in independent filmmaking, he spent the remainder of the 1970s polishing his editing skills on everything from celebrity profiles to Dateline: Israel, a film series about the history of Jerusalem. His feature experience as an editor started in the mid- 1970s with films like Just Crazy About Horses, Body and Soul, Private Resort and Style Wars. In between films, throughout the 1980s, he edited for the highly acclaimed children's programs NBC's Vegetable Soup and The Children's Television Workshop's 3-2-1-Contact for which he received two Emmys. In the early 1990s, there was Fires In The Mirror, a performance art film directed by George Wolfe, starring Anna Deveare Smith. In 1993, he produced for The American Experience a documentary called, Goin' Back to T-Town, about life in a black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma during legal segregation. From time to time, he serves on advisory committees for the National Endowment for the Humanities; National Endowment for the Arts; or the Independent Television Service (ITVS). LISA ROSENBERG Lisa Rosenberg is a screenwriter whose writing credits include independent features, The Riddle and Savage Dawn; the dramatic short, Friends; the treatment for The Oddest Couple documentary for KCET; the PBS children’s series Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego home version; and many short educational dramas that air on PBS stations. She was a writer/producer on the Los Angeles Emmy award-winning non-fiction public television series, Psychology: The Study of Human Behavior for KOCE. She also wrote for the Internet-based dramatic and documentary political series, Reinventing America I and II. Currently, she is marketing her dramatic feature based on Edie Meidav’s award-winning novel, Crawl Space, and writing a romantic comedy. Rosenberg has also been a story analyst for Tri-Star Pictures, ITC, and Zoetrope, and consults privately with writers, who have won or placed in the Nicholl, Slamdance, and Zoetrope Screenwriting Contests, won or been finalists for the Kenneth Rainin Foundation Awards and the Golden Gate Awards, presented films at Sundance, Cannes, and the Berlinale, and sold or produced screenplays and films in the United States and Germany. GEORGE RUSH George Rush is an attorney, sales rep and producer of hundreds of films including Everything Strange and New, Audience of One, D tour and It Came from Kuchar. MICHELE TURNURE-SALLEO Michele Turnure-Salleo heads the Film Society’s fiscal sponsorship, grants and residencies programs. Turnure-Salleo has produced and directed projects for film and television for more than 15 years in Sydney, Berlin, Vancouver, Banff and Marseille. She was associate producer of Regret to Inform, an Oscar-nominated documentary about the effect of the Vietnam War on war widows. | PAST INSTRUCTORS Dominic Angerame Rod Armstrong Steven Arvanites Peter Belsito Richard Beggs Brian Benson Les Blank David L. Brown Carey Burens Edward Burns Linda Butler John Carlson Eugene Corr Lawrence Daressa John Dilley Michael Dougan Jack Curtis Dubowsky Mike Epple Karen Everett Jörg Fockele Peter Franck Klara Grunning-Harris Christie Herring Brook Holston Christopher Horton Sade Huron Amir Jaffer Barry Jenkins Aaron Kerner Jacob Krueger Karen Larsen David Walter Lech Richard J. Lee Richard Levien Sydney Levine A.D. Liano Damian Lucas Erin Markey Chris Martin Joseph Mendoza Patricia K. Meyer Christopher Million Holly Million Jason Mitchell Jim Morton Deborah Nadoolman Landis Hiro Narita Bill Nichols Jennifer Nowicki Clark Dan Olmstead Stephen Parr Joanne Parsont Miguel Pendás Marty Pistone Shaka Jamal Redmond Dawn Rich Danae Ringelmann Judith Roscoe Jay Rosenblatt Debra Russell Tiffany Shlain Britta Sjogren Marc Smolowitz Karolina Sobecka Maryam Soleiman Matthew Tabak Cliff Traiman Sean Uyehara Federico Veiroj Emily Verellen Marcus Villegos Daniel Vitaglione Morrie Warshawski Susan Weiner Brooke Wentz Banker White David Winton Jason Wolos Tiffany Woolf Ben Zweig |