The Crew
Jeffrey Wengrofsky (Director and Producer) is guest curator of the 2018 Berkeley Video and Film Festival and curator of the Secrets film festivals: Secrets of Outer Space, Secrets of the Insect World, Secrets of the Intoxicated Life, Secrets of the Heart, and Secrets of the Deep – Dreams on Film. As director of the Syndicate of Human Image Traffickers – a company dedicated to making short documentaries – Jeffrey wrote, directed, and produced six films which have screened at DOC NYC, Boston LGBT Film Festival, Berkeley Video and Film Festival, Beacon Independent Film Festival, Stranger Than Fiction (IFC Center), etc. (www.humansyndicate.com) In 2015, he participated in the UnionDocs Summer Intensive Program to work on this very project and, in 2016, he had a three-part, two-month film residency at the Howl! Happening in New York City. A sample from this project was also viewed in a private screening for the British film industry and media on August 11, 2017 at the Framestore Premiere Theater in London, UK. Secrets of the Deep: Dreams on Film attracted 415 international submissions and screened eleven films on the oneiric aspects of the cinematic experience before a SOLD OUT audience at the Gene Frankel Theatre (NYC) on January 25, 2018. Secrets of the Deep: Dreams on Film will next screen at Reverb in Baltimore (MD) on Friday, May 18, 2018.
A native New Yorker whose family has lived in the Lower East Side for over 100 years, he’s chronicled the downtown New York counterculture for Coilhouse Magazine, Vehement Renaissance, The Sentimentalist, SOHO Weekly News, www.in-nyc.com, and Maximumrocknroll. Wengrofsky also served on the staff of Constellations: A Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory and Aperture Magazine. In 2003, he curated Profiles of the Downtown Music Scene – a three week retrospective, at The New School, on thirty years of independent music in New York City. In 2015-2016, he hosted Gift Horse: Inside New York Art, a podcast series on New York art and artists for Radio Iniciyativa (Lviv, Ukraine) with Leslie Hodgkins of the University of Minnesota. He is now a contributor to two British magazines – Trebuchet and Cold Lips – and is editing a book on Aristotle’s De Anima.
Samuel Pollard (Consulting Producer and Supervising Editor) has won Emmy Awards, George Foster Peabody Awards, the George Polk Award, and his editing for Spike Lee has received Academy Award nominations. Samuel also serves on advisory committees for the National Endowment for the Humanities; National Endowment for the Arts; and the Independent Television Service (ITVS). He currently teaches “The History of Editing” at New York University, where he was the inaugural winner of the 2008 Avid Excellence in Editing Award. Samuel produced and edited the award-winning Spike Lee documentaries When the Levees Broke, If God is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise, and Four Little Girls (all for HBO), and the features Inside Man, Girl 6, Clockers, Jungle Fever, and Mo’ Better Blues. He recently produced and directed August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand and Slavery By Another Name (both for PBS).
Paul Rachman (Associate Producer and Consultant) is best known as a founder of the Slamdance Film Festival and for directing American Hardcore, a documentary on the American punk counterculture that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was released by Sony Pictures Classics. In 2015, he directed and produced Lost Rockers, a documentary about obscure rock musicians with tragic biographies that premiered at Sundance. Paul made his film debut with Four Dogs Playing Poker (starring Forrest Whitaker, Balthazar Getty, Tim Curry, and Olivia Williams) in 2000 and was previously known for having directed music videos for Propaganda Films in Los Angeles.
David Kavanaugh (Director of Photography, Producer, Assistant Editor) has worked on set with Jonas Carpignano (Mediterranea), Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild), Alex Gibney (Mea Maxima Culpa), Sean Durkin (Martha Marcy May Marlene), and Laurie Anderson (Heart of a Dog) as well as on films by Robert Frank (Don’t Blink), Ramin Bahrani, Lisa Rinzler, Michael Ceustra, and Peter Sollett. He holds a BFA in Film from SUNY- Purchase. David has been working on short films with Jeffrey Wengrofsky as members of the Syndicate of Human Image Traffickers since 2010. www.humansyndicate.com
Jason Pollard (Editor) co-edited Pete Seeger: The Power of Song, a film that premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2007. He was the editor for the History Channel documentary Black Preachers in 2005 and also co-edited Sing Your Song, a documentary about the life of singer/activist Harry Belafonte that premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Jason also edited Slavery by Another Name – which aired on PBS in 2012.
Laszlo Santha (Creative Consultant) was a keynote speaker at CINE Golden Eagle Showcase in Washington, D.C. His films – Tattooed Walls, Inner Movie, and Dog Tax – have been selected for Montreal, Telluride, Berlin, AFI Los Angeles, Oberhausen, Fort Lauderdale, Charleston (Gold Award), and Krakow film festivals. He received Best Newsreel Award in the Hungarian Short Film Festival and Best Documentary at the Miskolc Documentary Film Festival. Laszlo teaches screenwriting in the Kanbar Institute of Film & Television at New York University.
Geoff George (Assistant Camera) is a Detroit-based cinematographer, photographer, and camera professional who has worked with Jim Jarmusch (Only Lovers Left Alive), Steven Quale (Into the Storm), and David Robert Mitchell (It Follows). Geoff is a graduate of the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor, where he received Highest Honors in Bachelor of Arts Film & Video Studies.
Alex Zarnoski (Assistant Editor) is the founder of AjazzNetworks.com and the creator of such web shows as Ajazz Tech, Ajazz Encrypted, The Daily Decrypter, The Tech Portal, and The Salinor Show. He currently writes for the edgy, yet informative, blog R.A.N.T., and produces for the video blog Internet Amazings.
Leslie Hodgkins (Assistant Editor and Assistant Camera) is the Associate Editor of the Bellevue Literary Press in New York City and occasional co-host of Gift Horse: Inside New York Art. Leslie previously worked for RE/Search Publications in San Francisco and is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Minnesota.
Hanna Park (Assistant Editor) holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Film and Television from New York University. She is currently an intern at Refinery29 and freelance editor.
