Filmmakers

Filmmakers’ Statement: We have been researching the role of on-line pornography in our culture for over ten years. We find our cultural climate is changing and there is a growing number of people questioning on-line pornography’s powerful influence on our sexuality. We are hopeful that our film will contribute to the serious conversation that our society needs to have about on-line pornography and its effect on our sexual lives and the healthy sexual development of our children.
 

Deb Ellis and Alexandra Halkin met when they were involved in the independent film community in Chicago. In the 1990’s Ellis and Halkin collaborated on a documentary short, Skin Deep: Norplant in Poor Communities, distributed for many years by Women Make Movies. 

Deb Ellis (Co-Director) is a documentary filmmaker whose work includes the Academy Award short-listed film, Howard Zinn: You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train. This film was released theatrically on over 100 screens across the country, has had several multi-year broadcast contracts, and is still actively distributed on DVD and streaming video by First Run Features.  Deb is currently finishing a film about Iraq and Afghan War veterans AWOL in Canada, Peace Has No Borders. Deb is Associate Professor in the Film and Television Studies Program at the University of Vermont.
 

Alexandra Halkin (Co-Director) founded the Chiapas Media Project, an award winning bi-national organization that has trained over 200 indigenous men and women in video production in Chiapas and Guerrero, Mexico. A Guggenheim Fellowship and Fulbright recipient, Alexandra has produced five documentary shorts in Mexico, many of them award winning and her work has been broadcast and screened at film and video festivals worldwide. In 2010, she founded the Americas Media Initiative (AMI) a non-profit organization that works with Cuban filmmakers living in Cuba. 

Fenell Doremus (Producer) has worked in documentary film since graduating from the University of Wisconsin with a BA in Sociology. Fenell began her career as an Assistant Editor on the award-winning Hoop Dreams and went on to serve as staff Producer at Kartemquin Films for the next eight years. Fenell was Co-Producer and Co-Editor of the Palestinian segment of The New Americans. Hailed as "Totally engrossing…filled with many unexpected riches…" by The New York Times, the series was nationally broadcast on PBS’ Independent Lens in 2004 and won multiple awards at festivals worldwide. Fenell has worked as field producer and coordinating producer for Hedrick Smith Productions (PBS series Seeking Solutions), The Kindling Group (The Calling, 2011 PBS) and Kartemquin Films (5 Girls, 2003 PBS). Fenell is currently Producing Cooked, based off of Eric Klinenberg's book Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago, with acclaimed Peabody award-winning director Judith Helfand. 

ADVISORY BOARD

Russell Banks is the internationally acclaimed author of eighteen works of fiction, including the novels Continental Drift, Rule of the Bone, The Book of Jamaica and Lost Memory of Skin, as well as six short story collections. Two of his novels, The Sweet Hereafter and Affliction, have been adapted into award-winning films.  Banks has been a PEN/Faulkner Finalist (Affliction, Cloudsplitter, Lost Memory of Skin) and a Pulitzer Prize Finalist (Continental Drift, Cloudsplitter). His work has received numerous other awards and has been widely translated and anthologized.  Banks is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was New York State Author (2004-2008).

Andrew Bartnick For over 20 years Bartnick has worked as an investigation and mitigation specialist at every level of government. In 1999, he moved to Vermont to help start the Federal Public Defender’s Office where he was the lead (and often only) defense investigator. During his time there, he gained experience working cases brought by the DEA, ATF, FBI, ICE and Vermont Joint Drug Task Force Teams. His death penalty defense experience was put to the test twice since coming to Vermont when he was entrusted with the tremendous responsibility and honor of working on the only capital cases brought in this district since 2000. He has worked on numerous sex offense cases and lends a unique view to the project.

Timothy P. Foley, Ph.D is a licensed psychologist in Pennsylvania and New Jersey with specializations in forensic psychology and the assessment and treatment of clients charged with various sexual offenses. He has evaluated and treated hundreds of individuals charged with possession and distribution of child pornography. Dr. Foley has testified in Federal and state court on numerous occasions.        

Faye Ginsburg, Ph.D Professor of Anthropology at New York University, Founder and Director of the Center for Media, Culture and History at NYU. Recipient of MacArthur, NEH and Guggenheim awards among others for her research, she writes extensively on media in relation to social activism, and has curated showcases at MoMA, American Museum of Natural History, and the National Museum of the American Indian.

Nicole Pittman is the Juvenile Justice Policy Analyst for the Defender Association of Philadelphia and leading expert on the impact of sex offense registries on children in the juvenile justice system. She has also served as a consultant on legal and legislative issues related to juvenile sexual offending behavior and the use of forensic science to better defend juveniles in delinquency proceedings. As a Soros Senior Justice Advocacy Fellow hosted by Human Rights Watch, Nicole researched and wrote “Raised on the Registry: The Irreparable Harm of Placing Children on Sex Offender Registries in the US,” was released in 2013. In November 2013, Nicole received the “Distinguished Research of the Year Award” from the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA), an international scientific and public policy professional organization dedicated to preventing sexual abuse through evidence-based practice.

Gordon Quinn is Artistic Director and founding member of Kartemquin Films. Roger Ebert, of the Chicago Sun Times, called his first film Home for Life (1966) "an extraordinarily moving documentary." With Home for Life Gordon established the direction he would take for the next four decades, making cinéma vérité films that investigate and critique society by documenting the unfolding lives of real people. At Kartemquin, Gordon created a legacy that is an inspiration for young filmmakers and a home where they can make high-quality, social-issue documentaries. Kartemquin’s best known film, Hoop Dreams (1994), executive produced by Gordon, was released theatrically to unprecedented critical acclaim. The film follows two inner-city high school basketball players for five years as they pursue their NBA dreams. Its many honors include: the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival, The Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, Chicago Film Critics Award – Best Picture, Los Angeles Film Critics Association – Best Documentary and an Academy Award Nomination. Other films Gordon has made include Vietnam, Long Time Coming, Golub, 5 Girls, Refrigerator Mothers and Stevie.  Gordon executive produced Mapping Stem Cell Research: Terra Incognita and The New Americans (he also directed the Palestinian segment of this award winning, intimate, seven-hour series). Recently he produced a film that deals with the human consequences genetic medicine, In The Family, and executive produced two films, one about community based conservation in Africa, Milking the Rhino, and At The Death House Door on a wrongful execution in Texas.  In the role of director, he recently completed Prisoner of Her Past, about a Holocaust survivor suffering from late-onset post-traumatic stress disorder, and co-directed the 2011 release A Good Man, about the dancer Bill T. Jones. 

Tracy Heather Strain is an award-winning film and video director, producer, and writer of documentaries and non-fiction media, primarily for public television. Her PBS series credits include Discover: The World of Science; The Great Depression; America’s War on Poverty; I’ll Make Me a World: A Century of African-American Arts; Race: The Power of an Illusion; Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?; and American Experience. Tracy is also a Professor of the Practice in the College of Media, Arts and Design at Northeastern University, where she teaches introductory documentary production to undergraduates.