Micha Peled is one of the few people who has arrived in the United States by hitchhiking. He has worked as an importer of hammocks and sheepskin jackets, a tutor, a prison guard, a freelance journalist, a Nuclear Freeze staffer and the manager of a winning political campaign. Micha has guided adventure trips into the jungles of Thailand and Brazil, and published a slim volume of fiction, The Fisherman and the Nymph.

In 1992 Micha made his first film.  Will My Mother Go Back to Berlin?, was made for German tv, shown at the Berlin film festival and won awards on both sides of the Atlantic.  Micha left his job as director of Media Alliance, a media watchdog group, to become a full-time filmmaker, and never looked back. His second documentary, Inside God's Bunker, aired on television in 15 countries in Europe, the U.S., Australia and Japan.

Micha Peled believes globalization is the main theme of our times, and he is currently working on the third in a trilogy on this topic.  The first, Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes to Town, was awarded the Golden Gate Award from the San Francisco International Film Festival.  The second, China Blue, premiered at the Toronto Int’l Film Festival, won the Amnesty Human rights award at IDFA and the PBS/Independent Lens Audience Award.  It has been released in theaters in the U.S., Germany, the Netherlands and New Zealand and DVDs were released also in German, Spanish, Dutch, French, Italian, and Danish.

Micha’s films won two Hugo awards and two Cine Golden Eagle awards.  All have aired on PBS, the so-called public broadcasting system in the U.S.  They have been exhibited in numerous film festivals around the world, including Rotterdam, Marseilles, Amsterdam, Thessaloniki, Montreal, Buenos Aires, Mar del Plata, San Paolo, Hong Kong, Manila, Vancouver, Hawaii, and numerous human rights and environmental film festival in New York.

 
Micha has recently completed his first fiction short, "Delinquent," to be released in 2008.

Manuel Tsingaris is an award-winning editor based in San Francisco. Recent projects include:

•  "A Dream in Doubt" (Honorable Mention, SlamDance  2007), which follows a Sikh man's journey to find peace and justice after his brother is killed four days after 9/11.

•  "Long Gone" a documentary about hobos, was awarded best documentary, Slamdance 2003.

•  "Test of Courage: The making of a Firefighter" (Bronze Medal, Houston Int'l FF, 2000).

•  "Girls in Trouble: Teens in the Juvenile Justice System"  for MSNB Investigates

•  "Ties that Bind" an episodic program focusing on American subcultures for the Discovery Channel.

•  contributing Editor on the critically acclaimed mini
documentary series, "Life 360," a co-venture between ABC/Nightline and PBS.

 Miriam Cutler has scored numerous documentaries for PBS, HBO, and other TV
 networks, and many film festival favorites including: LOST IN LA MANCHA,
 PANDEMIC: FACING AIDS, SCOUTS HONOR, LICENSED TO KILL , CHINA BLUE and the soon to be released THIN, ABSOLUTE WILSON and OUT OF FAITH.  She has also scored for TV (CALIFORNIA AND THE AMERICAN DREAM, LIFE & TIMES, HOWARD STERN INTERVIEW) and numerous indie films and provided music for studio films like ARLINGTON ROAD, BACHELOR PARTY, and GRANDVIEW USA. Since 1988, Cutler has been resident composer Circus Flora, featured at Charleston's Spoleto Festival.
She has co-produced live jazz albums on Polygram/Verve for Joe Williams,
 Nina Simone, Shirley Horn, and Marlena Shaw and has produced independently
 released albums of her own songs and soundtracks.  She has served on
 Documentary Film Festival juries for the SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL, AMERICAN
 FILM INSTITUTE, the INDEPENDENT SPIRIT AWARDS, and the INTERNATIONAL
 DOCUMENTARY ASSOCIATION and has been a mentor for the SUNDANCE INSTITUTE’S
 Documentary Film Composer Lab.  She also serves on the board of THE SOCIETY OF COMPOSERS   AND LYRICISTS.