Film Forum

JESSE MOSS – Co-Director / Writer / Producer Jesse Moss co-directed BOYS STATE with Amanda McBaine. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, the 2021 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary, and was shortlisted for the Academy Award. It was released by Apple and A24. Barack Obama included BOYS STATE on his list of favorite movies of 2020. Moss’s film THE MISSION, also co-directed with Amanda McBaine, premiered at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival and is currently in theaters in the United States and the UK, via National Geographic Documentary Films. He also directed THE OVERNIGHTERS, which won the Special Jury Prize at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, was shortlisted for the Academy Award, and released by Drafthouse Films and Netflix. He has twice been nominated by the DGA for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary. His past work with Netflix includes The Family, a 5- part series, and Payday, an episode of the series Dirty Money. In 2008, he co-directed FULL BATTLE RATTLE with Tony Gerber, which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival and won the Special Jury Prize at SXSW.

TONY GERBER – Co-Director / Writer Tony Gerber is an Emmy and PGA award-winning writer, producer, and director. He has written and directed over a dozen documentaries for National Geographic, filmed in some of the most remote and dangerous regions of the world. In 2018 Gerber wrote, directed and produced Kingdom of the White Wolf, a 3-part series (for Disney+) filmed in the High Arctic. His other directing credits include FULL BATTLE RATTLE, with Jesse Moss (Berlinale premiere and SXSW Special Jury Prize), THE NOTORIOUS MR. BOUT about the Russian arms dealer (Sundance 2014), and CNN Films' WE WILL RISE: MICHELLE OBAMA’S MISSION TO EDUCATE GIRLS AROUND THE WORLD (Television Academy Honors, CINE Golden Eagle). Gerber has collaborated with artists Matthew Barney, Allora & Calzadilla, Blane De St Croix, and Ann-Sofi Sidén on various film and installation projects. He recently produced the Emmy-nominated, Oscar-shortlisted short documentary Takeover (Tribeca, 2021) about a group of Puerto Rican activists, the Young Lords, who take over a decrepit hospital in the South Bronx. This award-winning doc will be adapted into a feature film for the independent studio Sister, produced by Gerber with Oscar-nominated screenwriter José Rivera writing the adaptation. In 2005, he co-founded the New York-based production company Market Road Films with two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage. He has been a board member of UnionDocs since 2020. Photo by Josiah Bania

JANESSA GOLDBECK – Vet Voice Foundation, Game Producer Janessa Goldbeck is CEO of Vet Voice Foundation, a national nonprofit organization with over 1.5 million members that mobilizes veterans to have a voice in our democracy. Goldbeck, a Marine Corps veteran, deployed overseas as a Combat Engineer Officer, managing engineering, logistics, and explosive ordnance disposal missionsin support of NATO operations.

Supported by a Humanities New York Action Grant

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