The Film Team

Anne de Mare, Director/Producer
Anne is an Emmy-Award winning documentary filmmaker and recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Media and Journalism Grant. Her film about youth experiencing homelessness, The Homestretch, won the 2015 Emmy Award for Outstanding Long Form Reporting (Independent Lens). More recently, Anne produced and directed the 2023 documentary short This Is Where I Learned Not To Sleep, and the acclaimed 2018 documentary feature Capturing The Flag. She was Co-Producer on the PBS documentary Deej (America ReFramed), winner of the prestigious 2017 Peabody Award. She has been a Sundance Institute Fellow, part of the U.S. State Department’s American Film Showcase program, and an Associate Artist with Chicago’s legendary Kartemquin Films. Her work has been supported by Sundance Institute, MacArthur Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of NY, ITVS, Chicken & Egg Pictures, and POV/American Documentary Inc. (among others). Anne’s first feature, Asparagus! Stalking the American Life, explored the relationship between asparagus farmers in rural western Michigan and the changing global economy. That film was winner of the 2006 W.K. Kellogg Good Food Film Award as well as Audience Choice and Best Documentary awards at festivals across the country. In 2010 and 2011, she worked closely with the late, great historian Michael Nash and NYU Bobst Libraries to create an extensive filmed archive of women who worked in munitions factories during WWII, accessible online as The Real Rosie The Riveter Project.  Along with her long-time film partner Kirsten Kelly and award-winning animator Danielle Ash, Anne transformed their stories into The Girl With the Rivet Gun, a dynamic animated documentary short now in the permanent collection of the FDR Presidential Library.  Anne currently works as Producer for William Greaves Productions and does grant writing and special projects for the Flaherty Film Seminar.

Kirsten Kelly, Director/Producer
Kirsten is an Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker, senior producer and impact producer. Her Emmy-winning film, The Homestretch (PBS), was co-produced with Kartemquin Films and had over 800 community and school screenings in partnership with PBS’ American Graduate Initiative and MacArthur Foundation. Kirsten was Senior Producer on Transform Films/Odyssey Impact’s Golden Telly-Award winning digital series Healing the Healers, which examines multi-faith leader responses after mass shootings, domestic violence and the youth mental health crisis. Though her work at Odyssey, she was also instrumental in creating a “Trauma-informed Screening Guide” for educators and grassroots screening hosts which was featured in IDA’s Documentary Magazine in October 2021. Other Films include: The Girl with the Rivet Gun (animated short, AmDoc 2020; Jury’s Choice Award, 202) Black Maria Film Festival; FDR Presidential Library Permanent Archives), Stranger/Sister (UK InterFaith Week, 2020); Asparagus! Stalking the American Life (2008, PBS). Her projects have been supported by MacArthur Foundation, Sundance, ITVS, Kartemquin Films, Good Pitch, Bertha Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Chicago Media Project, Chicken and Egg, among others. She is a former theater director and a Graduate of The Juilliard School’s Master Directing Program, an Assoicated Artist at Kartemquin Films and a member of the Sundance Institute. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, son and overly-active Malinois. 

Andrew Schwertfeger, Producer
Andrew is an impact-focused filmmaker and investor, pursuing projects that will drive systemic change and have a positive and lasting effect on the world. He has been working in independent film for over 15 years, during which time he has produced, invested in or supported multiple films, including Executive Producing the Emmy-Award Winning film, The Homestretch. Andrew is a founding board member of CMP and serves on the board of directors of Evergreen Climate Innovations, a Chicago-based non-profit focused on advancing climate tech in the Greater Midwest through early stage seed investments and hands-on support to entrepreneurs. He also serves on the associate board of Chicago Scholars. Andrew is an avid cyclist and lover of the outdoors, and a proud husband and father of two young boys, who inspire him every day.

Cindy Waitt, Executive Producer
Cindy is an Executive Producer of Emmy nominated “Bully”, “Private Violence”, and the Peabody Award winning “Audrie and Daisy”. Prior to her 20 year career in philanthropy, Cindy worked with at risk youth and their families for 10 years. Cindy serves on the National Advisory Board for the Future’s without Violence International Center to End Violence, has been a member of the Clinton Global Initiative since 2006, and served as a judge in the Ashoka Changemaker’s 2007 competition “No Private Matter”. Under her leadership, Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention has been a lead supporter of the strategy of engaging men and boys in violence prevention. She also sponsored a five-year violence prevention in- school and community research project called the “Sioux City Project” and co-sponsored the first workplace bullying Zogby poll in America in 2007.

Gavin de Becker, Executive Producer
Gavin is an American author and security specialist, primarily for governments, large corporations, and public figures. He is the chairman of Gavin de Becker and Associates, which he founded in 1978. He is the best-selling author of The Gift of Fear, and several other books on violence prevention. His work has earned him three Presidential appointments. He was twice appointed to the President’s Advisory Board at the U.S. Department of Justice, and was a principal advisor on the federal research project into mentally ill people who stalk public figures. He served two terms on the Governor’s Advisory Board at the California Department of Mental Health. Mr. de Becker’s first book The Gift of Fear: Survival Signs that Protect Us from Violence was the Nation’s #1 Bestseller, on the New York Times Bestseller List for seventeen weeks. It is now published in 18 languages. Oprah Winfrey dedicated an entire show to commemorating the 10th Anniversary of the book’s publication. His second book Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children & Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane) was the #1 parenting book of 1999. Mr. de Becker’s most recent book JUST 2 SECONDS: Using Time and Space to Defeat Assassins presents the result of a study of more than 1400 attacks and incidents involving at-risk people. The book is used by protection agencies in 37 countries. Mr. de Becker is a Senior Fellow at the UCLA School of Public Affairs and a Senior Advisor to the Rand Corporation on public safety and justice matters.

Paul Lovelace, Editor
Paul is an Austin, Texas based filmmaker who has edited a wide range of documentaries, including IRIS (with the late Albert Maysles released by Magnolia Pictures), AFTER SPRING (Executive Produced by Jon Stewart) documenting the Syrian refugee crisis, RADIO UNNAMEABLE (released by Kino Lorber and aired on PBS), HOT GREASE for the Discovery Channel, among many others. In 2019, Paul edited DIANA KENNEDY: NOTHING FANCY which won the audience award at the 2019 SXSW Film Festival. Recently Paul co-produced and edited THE REVEREND, a feature length documentary about the New York musician Reverend Vince Anderson which won the audience award at the 2021 DOC NYC film festival and was released theatrically by Factory 25 in 2022. Paul is currently producing and co-editing a feature documentary about the musician Swamp Dogg. 

William Tyler, Composer Original Score
William is a guitarist and composer living in Los Angeles with deep roots in his native Nashville and Mississippi. He crafts instrumental soundscapes living somewhere between new age, folk, and avant garde classical. While his songs are wordless, he has a deep fascination with history, geography, and the natural world and how the different realms of the cosmic archetypes combine. He has largely released his albums through the North Carolina based independent label Merge and has also done a series of commissioned works for Duke Performances, Big Ears, Le Guess Who, Sydney Festival, as well as collaborated with artists such as Mary Lattimore, Marisa Anderson, pedal steel guitarist Luke Schneider, and Yasmin Williams. He completed his first film score for Kelly Reichardt's "First Cow" in early 2020. 

Amy Bench, Cinematographer
Documentary filmmaker and cinematographer Amy Bench is drawn to the immediacy of film and photography for telling stories of resilience and community. Her work explores immigration/migration narratives, communication access for the Deaf, reproductive justice, and LBGTQ+ rights, and involves both animation and live action as a way to connect emotionally with audiences. Her short film "More Than I Want to Remember" (2022) won an NAACP Image Award, a Social Impact Media (SIMA) Award, and was shortlisted for an Oscar in 2023. "More Than I Want to Remember" won Best Animated Short at the Tribeca Film Festival, Best International Short Documentary at Hot Docs, and is distributed by MTV Documentary Films on Paramount+. Her most recent short film, “Breaking Silence,” (2023) won both the Jury Award and the Audience Award in its category at SXSW. As a cinematographer, Amy collaborates closely with directors, often working in the cinema verité tradition. She was the cinematographer on the Emmy award-winning short “Trans in America: Texas Strong” (2019) about young trans activist Kai Shappley and her formerly conservative mother, Kimberly. “Texas Strong” grew into the feature “Mama Bears,” which will make its broadcast premiere on PBS’s “Independent Lens” in June 2023. She is a cinematographer on upcoming feature "Every Body" (Tribeca 2023) from Julie Cohen (RBG, Julia), and films and series from Kim Snyder (Newtown, Us Kids), Josephine Decker (Shirley), and Louie Psihoyos (The Cove).

Nelson Walker, Cinematographer
Nelson Walker is a New York-based cinematographer and documentary filmmaker whose work spans production, education, and film programming. He got his start in cinematography working alongside the late Albert Maysles, and since then his work has appeared in many notable films, such as MAKING A MURDER, IRIS, WATCHERS OF THE SKY, CIVIL WAR, THE FIGHT, CAPTURING THE FLAG, THE REVEREND and most recently NAM JUNE PAIK: MOON IS THE OLDEST TV and INVISIBLE BEAUTY. With his partner Lynn True, Nelson also shoots and directs his own films, including LUMO (winner of the Student Academy Award), SUMMER PASTURE (winner of the Peabody Award), and IN TRANSIT, which he co-directed with Albert Maysles and others. In addition to his work as a filmmaker, Nelson is founder of the Congo in Harlem film series (www.congoinharlem.org) and the Kham Film Project (www.khamfilmproject.org), which seeks to expand opportunities for Tibetan filmmakers. Nelson currently serves as Board Chair of Maysles Documentary Center, a Harlem-based non-profit cinema that uses film to promote  community, education, and social justice (www.maysles.org). Nelson is a graduate of Brown University and Columbia University School of the Arts.