Filmmaker Bios
Debra Chasnoff
Debra Chasnoff is an Academy Award®-winning documentary filmmaker whose work has fueled progressive social-change movements in many fields. She is a the executive director at GroundSpark and co-creator of The Respect For All Project, a program that produces media and training resources to help prevent prejudice among young people.
The Respect For All Project films by Chasnoff include: Let's Get Real (2003; director/producer), a powerful documentary about young teens' experiences with name-calling and bullying in which youth speak up about racial tensions, anti-gay taunting, sexual harassment and much more; That's a Family! (2000; director/producer), which looks at family diversity from a kids' perspective, and which was screened at the White House and has been embraced by scores of national children's advocacy, education and civil-rights organizations; and It's Elementary -- Talking About Gay Issues in School (1996; director/producer), which was hailed as "a model of intelligent directing" by International Documentary magazine and has served as a catalyst for schools all over the world to become more proactive in addressing anti-gay prejudice in the classroom.
Chasnoff's other film credits include One Wedding and a Revolution (2004; director/producer), an intimate look inside San Francisco city hall when the first same-sex marriage license was granted to Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon; Oscar®-winning Deadly Deception -- General Electric, Nuclear Weapons & Our Environment (1991; director/producer), a crucial component of a successful international grassroots campaign to pressure GE out of the nuclear-weapons industry; Homes & Hands -- Community Land Trusts in Action (1998; co-director), which is used extensively to inspire local communities to explore new models of creating permanently affordable housing; Wired for What? (1999; director/producer), part of the PBS series Digital Divide about the push to computerize education; and Choosing Children (1984; director/producer), which explored the once seemingly impossible idea that lesbians and gay men could become parents.
Chasnoff is a member of New Day Films, a national progressive film-distribution co-operative. She serves on the national advisory board for Frameline, the San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, and Jewish Voices for Peace. She has been honored by many organizations for her leadership, including the National Education Association, the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, Ally Action, Community United Against Violence, and the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network. She is a graduate of Wellesley College, lives in San Francisco, and is a mother of two.
Helen S. Cohen
Helen S. Cohen is co-creator of GroundSpark's The Respect For All Project and served as the project's executive producer until the end of 2004 when she became an independent producer.
Kate Stilley
With over fifteen years in documentary filmmaking, Kate Stilley has been an integral part in creating award-winning non-fiction films that have influenced audiences worldwide. Her work has been seen on major US media networks (ABC, CBS, PBS, Fox TV, A&E, Nickelodeon and NPR), and has won awards at film festivals nationally and internationally, including the prestigious CINE Golden Eagle Award in 2001. Projects she has worked on have won Emmy awards for editing, been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and have screened at the White House.
Stilley works in various roles in the documentary process including Producer, Editor, Post-Production Supervisor and Teacher. Her cross-department skills have afforded her long collaborations with various filmmaking organizations, including Canobie Films (Jyll Johnstone, Director) and GroundSpark (Debra Chasnoff, Director). Stilley currently is the Lead Editorial Instructor at the New Jewish Filmmaker Project and has taught editing at the Bay Area Video Coalition for five years. She currently sits on BAVC's Producer's Advisory Board and is a co-founder of "Citizen Film", a documentary collaborative started with partners Sam Ball and Sophie Constantino.
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Debra Chasnoff
Helen S. Cohen
Debra Chasnoff and Helen S. Cohen
