Writer/Director – Ed Barnes

Born and raised in London, half-British half-French filmmaker Ed Barnes originally discovered a passion for dramatic storytelling when acting and directing for the theater. After graduating from Manchester with First Class Honors in Psychology, Ed shifted his attention towards film as his chosen medium. Now based in New York, and a recent Graduate of the NYU Graduate Film Program, Ed continues to write and direct his own films whilst also working as a cinematographer and editor. To date, Ed has shot dozens of short films, commercials, music videos and documentaries, including the award winning web series F to 7th, and was a recent finalist in the Arri Volker Bahnemann Award for Cinematography. In 2012 Ed was hired as the new editing instructor for NYU’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts summer high school program.

Producer – Mollye Asher

Mollye Asher is a NY based independent Producer and Director. Her feature producing debut Faith, Love and Whiskey, premiered at the 2012 Slamdance Film Festival and won Best Narrative Feature at the 2012 Dallas International Film Festival. Most recently, Mollye is the producer of Fort Tilden which won the Grand Jury Prize at SXSW 2014 and the Special Jury Prize at the IFFBoston. She is also a producer on She’s Lost Control, which had its World Premiere at the 2014 Berlinale, US Premiere at the 2014 SXSW and NY Premiere at the New Directors/ New Films. Mollye is currently in postproduction on Songs My Brothers Taught Me. The project has received tremendous support from the Sundance Film Institute, Film Independent, Millennium Entertainment, IFP, the Spike Lee Production Fund, and the Christopher Columbus/ Richard Vague grant. Mollye is a Film Independent Fast Track Fellow, IFP Narrative Lab fellow and an alumn of the NYU Graduate Film program.

Producer – Katrina Whalen

Katrina Whalen is an independent filmmaker based in New York. Originally from Wyoming, she was awarded the Yale University’s top artistic prize for her work in filmmaking and animation while attending as an undergraduate. She has spent the last ten years working in film production in New York and around the country, with a resume as a factotum that includes work on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Synecdoche, New York, Julie Taymor’s The Tempest, and Arnaud Desplichine’s Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian. More recently she has expanded her experience into television production, working as a design researcher on the TNT pilot for Public Morals and as the director’s assistant on the FX pilot How & Why. Currently enrolled as a Dean’s Fellow in NYU’s graduate film program, she is now preparing to shoot her thesis short film Bird Dog in Wyoming this fall.

Cinematographer – Ben Rutkowski

Ben is a directing and cinematography MFA candidate at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. He began his film studies at Vassar College where he was awarded the 2009 David C. Magid Memorial Prize in Cinematography. Since enrolling at NYU, he has directed five films and shot countless others, which led to a 2012 Kodak Student Cinematography Scholarship Award Nomination. Ben’s pre-thesis film, Glory Days was an official selection at the 2013 Slamdance Film Festival, 2012 Woodstock Film Festival, 2012 Sarasota Film Festival, and was nominated for the Spike Lee Award in Filmmaking at the 2012 Starz Denver Film Festival.

Production Design – Marci Mudd

Marci is a New York based production designer & art director. Originally from Montana, she has a background in film production and design and earned her MFA in Design for Stage & Film at NYU-Tisch School of the Arts.  She works primarily in film and TV but can also be found working on music videos & events and anything with a good story and a great group of people behind it.  Along with designing Ed Barnes’ Blackwell, she has most recently art directed two independent feature films here in NYC; Ava’s Possessions, a genre-bending thriller, directed by Jordan Galland, and Man with Van, directed by Ed Blythe.  She is a member of United Scenic Artists – Local 829. Check out her website at www.marcimudd.com

Costume Designer – Liene Dobraja

Liene Dobraja is a Latvian-born costume designer for theatre and film. She has worked in Germany, Russia, and the Baltics, and now works and resides in New York. Trained as a Fine Artist and a graduate of the prestigious Academy of the Arts in Riga, Latvia, Liene has found her place in costume design, and has been designing for stage, film and advertising since 2006. She is an MFA candidate ’14 at Design for Stage & Film: Tisch School of the Arts.