Team

Lead Team

AAM Sheila website Delancey SHEILA GANZ, Director/Producer/Editor.  On Life’s Terms: Mothers in Recovery was nominated for a regional Emmy® 2016.  Ganz is a recipient of the City and County of San Francisco Board of Supervisors Certificate of Honor, and California Legislature Assembly District 27 Certificate of Recognition for “Outstanding contribution for raising awareness about rehabilitation efforts for women battling substance abuse.”  Ganz wrote a 22 page Study Guide to accompany the film.  Her first documentary Unlocking the Heart of Adoption explores the lifelong process of adoption for adoptees, birthparents and adoptive parents in same race and transracial adoptions with illuminating historical background (www.unlockingtheheart.com), aired on public television, 2003-2006, and The Documentary Channel, 2012-2014; and, is in distribution to adoption agencies and educational institutions worldwide.  Ganz wrote a Discussion Guide and three hour Curriculum on the Issues of Loss and Identity for the film.  Ganz received the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute’s Angels in Adoption Award, 2006.

Ganz was inspired to make Unlocking the Heart of Adoption after hearing numerous adoption stories in adoption support groups and her own experience as a birthmother.  Ganz become pregnant as the result of rape.  In 1969, in an attempt to move to another state, she totaled her car and fractured her pelvis at five months pregnant.  After recuperating in a hospital, she went into a home for unwed mothers in Pittsburgh, PA.  Sheila unwillingly relinquished her baby for adoption.  She later found her daughter.  Ganz is an activist for adoption reform and testified before the California State Judiciary Committee for adult adoptees’ civil right to their original birth certificate and birthmother rights.  Over the years, Ganz wondered, “Why can’t there be homes to help mothers keep their children?”  She decided to make her next film about family preservation and reunification.

From 2005-2007, Ganz was an instructor at Film Arts Foundation and guest-lectured on filmmaking at City College of San Francisco and Academy of Art University.  From 1984-1989, Ganz wrote two full-length stage plays, Pretend It Didn’t Happen about her experience as a birthmother, and Leaving Joe about domestic violence, both plays had staged readings in San Francisco.  Ganz attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and has an MA in Interdisciplinary Arts and BA in Sculpture, San Francisco State University.  Her paintings and sculptures have exhibited in and around Boston and San Francisco.  Ganz is also a martial artist.  She has a Black Belt in Karate, Karate Do, San Francisco, CA.  Ganz is committed to making a difference in the lives of mothers and children by giving a voice to their untold stories.     

AAM---Regina-good  REGINA K. SCULLY, Executive Producer, is the founder and CEO of Artemis Rising Foundation, an organization created to illuminate, promote and educate society on often forbidden and dark subject matters by utilizing the power and influence of media as a change agent. As a social artist and education activist, Ms Kulik Scully is trailblazing new frontiers by uniquely marrying her philanthropic organization and media with quality healing outreach programs to positively impact those adversely affected by a deeply flawed system.  One such program is the Artemis Rising Invisible War Recovery Program, CA – developed for Veterans suffering from Military Sexual Trauma (MST) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Among her numerous benchmark documentaries, Ms Kulik Scully is an Academy Award nominated executive producer, most recently for the 2013 powerful documentary entitled The Invisible War – a film about the epidemic rapes of women and men in the military. Ms Kulik Scully also executive produced the 2011 Sundance award winning documentary, MissRepresentation, exposing the gender bias that still exists in our country based on the limited portrayals of women and young girls in our media, politics and entertainment. Ms Kulik Scully helped spearhead the development and distribution of its critically acclaimed corresponding national curriculum (www.MissRepresentation.org).

Ms Kulik Scully is one of the leading communications and media consultants in the country, speaking at schools, conferences, and companies, globally. A 30-year veteran in the fields of Journalism, Public Relations, Brand Marketing and Filmmaking, she has a proven track record of building and producing successful premier brands, projects, and films, that integrate cause-related issues, social media, and outreach campaigns. Ms Kulik Scully also is the Founder and CEO of RPR Marketing Communications, a premier Public Relations Agency, NYC, specializing in exclusive consumer products and brands.

In addition to filmmaking, Ms Kulik Scully is deeply passionate about education reform and has helped launch some of the most efficacious inner city charter schools in the country: the SuccessAcademySchools, in NY (www.successacademies.org); and the Making Waves Academy Schools in Northern California (www.makingwaves.org).

AAM---Debbie-good  DEBBIE BRUBAKER, Producer, is a seasoned producer and line producer in the world of “indie” feature films. Her many film credits include: recently finished producing Second Unit for the ABC mid-season show Red Widow which started airing in March; and with Woody Allen’s latest film Blue Jasmine.  One of her productions was recently released Knife Fight, directed by Bill Guttentag.  Brubaker worked on the audience pleaser at Sundance 2009, Peter Bratt’s movie, La Mission.  She also produced an unleashed comedy/horror pic All About Evil directed by Joshua Grannell; and One Way to Valhalla directed by Karen Goodman Hawk, currently playing on Showtime.  Other feature narratives include: Finn Taylor’s Cherish and Dopamine, Darwin Award Winner at Sundance; Swing and Unflinching Triumph: The Phillip Rockhammer Story directed by Mark Decena, a big hit at the Sundance Film Festival 2003, Teknolust, directed by Lynn Hershman Leesom, Bartleby , and The Californians by Jonathan Parker.  Brubaker is in development on several film projects, 504, directed by Mark Briemhorst, I’ll See You Again, directed by Steven Charles Jaffe, and BusTrip, directed by Paul Oja.  She is about to start pre-production on Noah Pritzker’s movie Quitters.  Currently Brubaker is working on a documentary with Jennifer Seibel Newsom, The Mask We Live In, as a counterpart to her last documentary Miss Representation, Sundance Film Festival 2012

AAM---Nora-good  NORA KROLL-ROSENBAUM, Composer, writes music for concert halls, film and theatrical stages internationally, film scores include The Shattering, The Apocalypse According To Doris, Joburg, Mesmerize Me, Back To The Front, and Temporary Obsession, among others, in addition to collaborative work on numerous projects including Kinect Disneyland Adventures, Craft in America, VITO, In Justice, American Masters, Ace Ventura Pet Detective Jr., Kung Fu Panda 2 Video Game, The Tournament, among others.  Kroll-Rosenbaum won the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award for her work, Two Songs from Days of Innocence,  published by Boosey & Hawkes and released by Vital Records.  From 2003-2005, Kroll-Rosenbaum served as the Director of the Composers’ Forum at The Juilliard School, and as a Teaching Artist for the New York Philharmonic.  As a co-founder and six-year co-director of the interdisciplinary new music group, VisionIntoArt, she collaborated on creating multimedia programming and music for over 30 productions that were presented throughout the United States. Kroll-Rosenbaum has received grants from The American Music Center, Meet the Composer, The New York State Council on the Arts, ASCAP, NFAA, among others.  In 2009, Kroll-Rosenbaum served as co-librettist and executive music producer for the Carnegie Hall world premiere of Langston Hughes’ Ask Your Mama, a multimedia collaboration between Jessye Norman, Laura Karpman and The Roots.

AAM---Vivien  VIVIEN HILLGROVE, Consulting Editor, has 40 years of film editing experience.  Hillgrove has worked on features, and specialized in dialogue editing, working as the dialogue editor on The Right StuffNever Cry Wolf, and One from the Heart, and as dialogue supervisor on AmadeusThe Mosquito Coast, and Blue Velvet.  As picture editor, she cut Emiko Omori’s Hot Summer Winds and Philip Kaufman’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Henry and June.  She was consulting editor for the documentary Unlocking the Heart of Adoption with Sheila Ganz.  Hillgrove edited several documentaries, including The Forest through the TreesYakoanaThe Indigenous People’s Earth SummitHeart of the Sea, and First Person Plural and In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee, with Deanne Borshay-Liem, as well as documentaries by Lourdes Portillo, including The Devil Never Sleeps and Senorita Extraviada, which won a Special Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival 2002.

AAM---Jennine  JENNINE LANOUETTE, Story Consultant, in the past 18 years has worked with Pixar Animation Studios, Independent Television Service, Film Arts Foundation, Squaw Valley Community of Writers Squaw Valley Community of Writers and numerous screenwriters, directors and documentary filmmakers including: Smitten and Following Sean, POV (2007).  She teaches screenwriting at Lucasfilm and Pixar.  Her articles on story structure have appeared in Release Print magazine. As a free-lance journalist, she has written for PremiereThe Village VoiceMs., Sight and Sound, Screen International, and The Independent. Currently, she is working on a book entitled “Beyond Thrills and Chills: Toward a New Understanding of Character and Theme in Screenplay Structure.”

AAM - ChrisRiley website CHRIS RILEY, Producer of Marketing and Distribution, has over two decades of strategic planning, on the ground community organizing and social activism across issues of women’s rights, economic justice and LGBT civil rights; consulting for various political campaigns and organizations, and has recently served as Field Director for both MassEquality and Equality California; and transferring that field knowledge to work on films such as The Campaign, The Genius of Marian POV 2014, Sweet DreamsOut in the Silence, and Impact Stories.

AAM---Janet-fb  JANET FOUTS, Social Media Strategist, speaker, trainer, CEO, Tatu Digital Media, a San Jose inbound marketing firm with over 15 years of experience in online marketing and social media, working in the trenches with businesses of all types and sizes, and author of “Social Media Success!”, “#Social MediaPR tweet”, “Google+ for Business tweet” and “#Social Media Nonprofit tweet.”

Team

Finishing Editors
Inome Callahan
Nathaniel Dorsky

Camera Persons
Song Chen
Karil Daniels
Anjoo Khosla
Amal Kouttab
Alisha McCutcheon
Frances Nkara

Production Assistants
Maria Engle
Rebekah Machado
Andrea Shippy
Rae Greco Viera

Technical Advisors
Lisa Colvin
Christian Gainsley
Shirley Gutierrez
Vanessa Martinez
Chris Novak
Jesse Spencer
Chelsea Walton

Expert Advisors
Barry Lester, PhD
Linda Hughes, MA
Lee Breault
Brown Center for the Study of Children at Risk
Brown University

Robert Lindsay, M. Ed., CEAP
National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence

Sheigla Murphy, PhD
Center for Substance Abuse Studies
Michael Jang
Institute for Scientific Analysis

Lynn Paltrow, J.D.
National Advocates for Pregnant Women

Please contact us at: (415) 564-3691 or sheila.ganz@gmail.com  @pandorasbp if you or your group would like to host a fundraising screening.

© 2023 Sheila Ganz