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Director / Producer RAHDI TAYLOR
Rahdi Taylor is multi-award winning writer and director who brings more than ten years of creative producing experience to Convention. Her previous film won the Grand Jury prize (the Paul Robeson Award) at the FESPACO film festival, as well as numerous other awards, grants and honors. She received a preemptive fellowship to study filmmaking at the University of Texas at Austin, where she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree.
Rahdi loves being an independent artist and supporting the arts community with teaching, mentoring and community service. She has served as Chair of the Board of Directors for AIVF (the national home for independent and alternative filmmakers). She has been a STAND Mentor at the Film Arts Foundation, and an artist in residence teaching high school-aged digital artists at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Rahdi is passionate about art, cultural politics and filmmaking. She is currently Director of Promotion at California Newsreel and is Adjunct Faculty at New College of California.
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Writer / Producer NORMAN SOLOMON
Norman Solomon has been a journalist, author, and syndicated columnist for more than two decades.
Concerned about the changing world of national politics over the last several decades, Solomon has made it a personal mission to tell the stories of characters he feels he knows. He hopes to shine the light on the fine difference between achievement and moral integrity that sometimes gets lost along the way.
A celebrated journalist and debut screenwriter, Norman Solomon's syndicated columns won the 1999 George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language. Solomon has appeared as a guest on hundreds of media outlets including the NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, C-SPAN, CNN's Crossfire and TalkBack Live, MSNBC, Fox News Channel, and NPR's All Things Considered, Morning Edition and Talk of the Nation. His op-eds have appeared in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times.
Solomon co-founded the National Radio Project and is currently executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.
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Executive Producer JENNY WARBRUG
Working for creative social change since the re-birth of the feminist movement, Jenny Warburg has been contributing to progressive media as a photojournalist for the last 2 decades. She serves on the Board of Directors for Ms. Magazine, the pioneering magazine for women in the United States. Over the last 18 years she has served on the Board of Directors of many nonprofit organizations including The Funding Exchange, The Fund for Southern Communities,The National Network of Grantmakers, and The Common Sense Foundation. Her roles on publication boards include the Independent and Ms. Magazine. Jenny Warburg partnered with Solomon to create Heart of the Possible, LLC, determined to champion the dream of Convention and turn it into a successful reality.
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Cinematographer VICENTE FRANCO
Vicente Franco is the Academy Award* nominated director and cinematographer who has been shooting for film and television since 1982. He worked as producer/director/writer for the Spanish Television Network (Univision) until 1989. As a TV producer and director, he was involved with such specials as the
1985 Peabody Award winner Mexico Earthquake Telethon.
He has produced, shot or edited documentaries about the 1984 democratic elections in Nicaragua, about the evolution of Luis Valdez's Chicano-Latino theater company, and a documentary about Cuban youth.
*Nominated for Best Documentary for Daughter from Danang, 2003.
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Editor ANGELA ALSTON
Angela Alston is a woman of color with 10 years experience as a producer and editor. She recently edited a feature-length documentary on indigenous peoples and water. Her previous work includes award winning short documentaries and art films on dance.
Her awards include Best Documentary for An Unavoidable Excess of Motion, Honorable Mention for Reclaiming Water, and Best Student Experimental Film for Lament.
Angela has received funding from Women In Film/Dallas, the Dutchess County Arts Council, and 911 Contemporary Arts Center. She has an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin.
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Producer JED RIFFE
Jed Riffe is a national Emmy nominated, award-winning filmmaker. Riffe is best known as the producer and director of Ishi, The Last Yahi, broadcast on The American Experience. Riffe recently produced and directed an HDTV shoot of the oldest paintings on earth at Grotte de Chauvet in the south of France.
Over the last ten years Riffe developed and produced five prime-time investigative and dramatic documentary films and enhanced programming for PBS, Japan's PBS, and the History Channel. He has provided contract services and licensed footage to National Geographic TV, WNET, WGBH, KPBS, CNN and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
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Assistant Producer KATHERINE COVELL
Katherine Covell's debut film as producer and editor, the graffiti documentary Paint Louis '98: Throwdown in the Show-Me State, won several awards, including a St. Louis / Mid-America Region 1999 Emmy Award, and was screened in festivals across the country. More recently, she was associate producer for the television documentary Who Owns the Past ? (2001), featured last November on the PBS series "Independent Lens." She also crafted a treatment for the PBS "Greenlight" series Beyond the Dream.
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STARRING
DAVID CLENNON as Congressman Chuck McGee
David Clennon, CBS star of The Agency is a veteran actor known to millions of viewers as the sleazy boss Miles Drentell on the long-running network series thirtysomething. This work won him an Emmy Award-nomination in 1991 as Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. He reprised the role in the series Once and Again. David gave a chilling performance as a U.S. embassy official in Missing, the acclaimed film about political repression in Chile. He has acted in many other movies including The Right Stuff, Bound for Glory, Sydney Pollack's The Way We Were, Coming Home and Being There.
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KATHLEEN ANTONIA as Melanie Johnson
Kathleen's background as a popular artist and activist who has helped raise money and awareness in the fight against AIDS, meant that she was keenly aware of the relationship between politics and creative expression.
She eagerly brought her talent, professionalism and experience to the set of Convention.
Kathleen first appeared on the professional stage in Alan Ayckborn's "Absent Friends". Most recently, she appeared with the African-American Shakespeare Company in its production of George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion". Kathleen appears in several Indie films including darling of Sundance "Dopamine", "South Side Thugs", "Rita Ride", "Shackled", and the lead role in "As I Lay Dying", an adaptation of William Faulkner's novel of the same name. Kathleen serves as a member of the board of directors of the San Francisco STOP AIDS Project, and practices as a member of the California Bar representing disabled persons.
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BARRY ALAN LEVINE as Greg Epstein
Raised in new Jersey, Barry is a Los Angeles based actor with strong artistic ties to the Bay Area. After receiving his formal training from the Bennett TheatreLab in San Francisco, Barry appeared on various stages throughout Northern California. He honed his craft working with a wide array of Bay Area theatre companies including Berkeley Repertory Theatre, California Shakespeare Festival, Marin Shakespeare Company, Unconditional Theatre, Exit Theatre, and Teatro Shalom. CONVENTION marks Barry's feature film debut in a leading role, and he has gone on to the lead role in the Idie feature "Want".
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