About the Cast & Crew
Voiceover Cameo — Tony Kushner is best known for his highly acclaimed plays such as “Angels in America,” “A Bright Room Called Day” and “Homebody/Kabul.” He is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, an Emmy Award, two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards and an Oscar nomination — among many others. Among his numerous achievements he has also written the screenplays for Lincoln (2012), Munich (2005) and Angels in America (2003).
Producer — Julie Dorf has been doing fundraising in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1989 when she founded the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. She has also worked as a fundraiser for the Vanguard Foundation, as a consultant for the Open Society Institute, and as director of philanthropic services at Horizons Foundation. She is currently senior advisor at the Council for Global Equality. She was also co-producer of Jenni Olson’s The Joy of Life. In 1990 she co-directed the first documentary about gay life in the former Soviet Union, Outcasts in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Cinematographer — Sophie Constantinou has earned international acclaim for tackling difficult subjects with artistry and sensitivity. Her directing credits include Divided Loyalties (Golden Gate Award, 1998 SF International Film Festival), a personal exploration of the conflict in Cyprus and Between the Lines, a lyrical documentary about women who cut themselves. Her cinematography credits include PBS’s award-winning Maquilapolis; HBO’s Unchained Memories; PBS’ Presumed Guilty; and KQED’s Emmy-winning Home Front. Other current projects include: Green Streets, Lunch Love Community and Joann Sfar Draws from Memory. Sophie also shot Jenni Olson’s The Joy of Life.
Editor — Dawn Logsdon's career has been dedicated to making films about civic issues and city life. She directed and produced Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans which premiered nationally at the Tribeca International Film Festival and won the SFIFF Golden Gate Award for Best Documentary and was a PBS Black History Month feature presentation three years in a row. Dawn co-directed and edited Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton and Lindy Boggs: Steel and Velvet. Dawn edited the Sundance Award-winning Paragraph 175 by Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Freidman, Academy Award-nominated Weather Underground by Sam Green, Emmy award-winning Have You Heard from Johannesburg? by Connie Field, the Peabody award-winning The Castro and Jenni Olson’s 1997 short Blue Diary. She is also currently in production on Free for All: Inside the Public Library.
Executive Producer — Paul Marcarelli is an actor, writer and producer and co-founder of Table Ten Films. As an actor he is best known as "The Verizon Guy" (“Can you hear me now?”) in commercials for Verizon Wireless. His screenwriting credits include Clutter (the acclaimed comedy-drama starring Carol Kane) and The Green (the award-winning gay drama starring Cheyenne Jackson). He is also co-producer of the documentary, I Am Divine.
Executive Producer — Deb Kinney is a trust and estates lawyer. A prominent figure in Bay Area LGBT community activism, Deb is also a passionate believer in the power of film.
Consulting Producer — Michael Ehrenzweig's award winning documentaries and non-fiction features have been seen on PBS, The History Channel, HBO, National Geographic Channel, in theaters, and on television worldwide. He has worked as producer, line producer, production manager, and consulting producer on such films as The Celluloid Closet, Paragraph 175, The Cockettes, Freedom Machines, The Rush and Here's Looking At You Boy.
Associate Producers — Tom Rielly is best known as the Founder and former CEO of PlanetOut.com, which joined forces with Gay.com to create the largest gay and lesbian online company. He is also an accomplished actor, stand-up comic and satirist and is director of the TED Conferences TED Fellows program. In 1980 Tom played the role of Reissman in the feature film, My Bodyguard. You won’t be surprised to read that he also executive produced Jenni Olson’s The Joy of Life. Paul Lee specializes in producing films for first-time filmmakers, LGBT filmmakers, and in international co-productions. His short films include Thick Lips Thin Lips (1994), These Shoes Weren't Made For Walking (1995), and The Offering (1999), which has won more than 100 festival awards to date, and has been screened at over 500 film festivals! He is currently at work on his fourth film. He also Associate Produced Jenni Olson’s Blue Diary and The Joy of Life. Marc Henrich is a filmmaker, film teacher and editor who has taught editing and film history at UC Berkeley Extension, Academy of Art, and Film Arts Foundation. He has written, directed and edited several short films including:The Visit, In the Shadow of Fear. Marc was editor of Jenni Olson’s The Joy of Life.
Historical Advisor — Lisbeth Haas is a professor of history and feminist studies at the Uinversity of California, Santa Cruz, where she also chairs the feminist studies department. Her research and writing consider colonialism, imperialism, and their legacies, focusing on the multiethnic populations of California, integrating a concern for how people define their own histories and legal rights, and favoring the placement of U.S. history within the context of the Americas. She is the author of many books and publications including Conquests and Historical Identities in California, 1769–1936 (UC Press, 1995).
Historical Advisor — Steven Hackel is a professor of history at the University of California, Riverside where he specializes in colonial America, the Spanish borderlands, California missions, and California Indians. A leading scholar of Spanish California, he is the author of Junípero Serra: California’s Founding Father (2013). He is also the general editor of the Huntington Library’s Early California Population Project, a database of the baptism, marriage, and burial records from all of California’s twenty-one missions, and the director of the Early California Cultural Atlas, a spatial history of colonial California funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Voiceover Director — Sawyer Steele is Senior Producer for The Moxie Institute Film Studio + Lab and Senior Producer and co-founder of Let it Ripple: The Cloud Filmmaking Studio. He has produced, written and co-edited several award-winning films with acclaimed director Tiffany Shlain. His work with Shlain has been instrumental in pioneering a new type of participatory filmmaking they call “Cloud Filmmaking.”
Sound Designer & Recordist/Voiceover Recording — Jim Lively is a San Francisco audio engineer who has worked on innumerable independent film projects including Jenni Olson’s The Joy of Life.
Sound Mixer — Lora Hirschberg is an award-winning sound mixer whose credits range from mainstream blockbusters like Into the Wild, Panic Room, The Dark Knight and Inception (for which she won an Academy Award) to acclaimed independent documentaries like To Be Takei, How To Survive a Plague, Trembling Before God and Paragraph 175.
Sound Recordist — Lauretta Molitor has been working as a sound recordist in the San Francisco Bay Area since the early 1990s and has worked on such acclaimed documentary projects as The Celluloid Closet, We Were Here and Inequality for All.
Second Cinematographers -- Alison Kelly An MFA graduate of the American Film Institute Alison’s wide-range of experience as a cinematographer includes dozens of documentary, short and feature projects. Abigail Severance earned an M.F.A. in Directing from UCLA and works as a director, writer and teacher. She is writer/director of numerous award-winning short films and is currently in development on several features. Christian Bruno As filmmaker, Christian's work has received acclaim and awards at festivals around the world. He is currently in production on a feature documentary, Strand: A Natural History of Cinema. As a cinematographer he has shot for numerous narrative and documentary projects. William E. Jones is an artist, filmmaker and writer. His 1991 feature Massillon was a formative influence on The Royal Road writer-director Jenni Olson.
Assistant Editors — Ewan Duarte is an artist, writer and award-winning independent filmmaker. Alexis Hazelwood is a San Francisco-based filmmaker. Amanda Hudson is a San Diego-based photographer.
Closing Credits Music -- Chris Pureka
Post-Production Consultant -- Jesse Spencer
Post-Production Assistant -- Suzanne Smith
Production Assistant -- Ana Quintanilla
Map Animation -- Monica Nolan & Julie Ann Yuen
Titles -- Julie Ann Yuen, Suzanne Smith
Producer — Julie Dorf has been doing fundraising in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1989 when she founded the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. She has also worked as a fundraiser for the Vanguard Foundation, as a consultant for the Open Society Institute, and as director of philanthropic services at Horizons Foundation. She is currently senior advisor at the Council for Global Equality. She was also co-producer of Jenni Olson’s The Joy of Life. In 1990 she co-directed the first documentary about gay life in the former Soviet Union, Outcasts in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Cinematographer — Sophie Constantinou has earned international acclaim for tackling difficult subjects with artistry and sensitivity. Her directing credits include Divided Loyalties (Golden Gate Award, 1998 SF International Film Festival), a personal exploration of the conflict in Cyprus and Between the Lines, a lyrical documentary about women who cut themselves. Her cinematography credits include PBS’s award-winning Maquilapolis; HBO’s Unchained Memories; PBS’ Presumed Guilty; and KQED’s Emmy-winning Home Front. Other current projects include: Green Streets, Lunch Love Community and Joann Sfar Draws from Memory. Sophie also shot Jenni Olson’s The Joy of Life.
Editor — Dawn Logsdon's career has been dedicated to making films about civic issues and city life. She directed and produced Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans which premiered nationally at the Tribeca International Film Festival and won the SFIFF Golden Gate Award for Best Documentary and was a PBS Black History Month feature presentation three years in a row. Dawn co-directed and edited Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton and Lindy Boggs: Steel and Velvet. Dawn edited the Sundance Award-winning Paragraph 175 by Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Freidman, Academy Award-nominated Weather Underground by Sam Green, Emmy award-winning Have You Heard from Johannesburg? by Connie Field, the Peabody award-winning The Castro and Jenni Olson’s 1997 short Blue Diary. She is also currently in production on Free for All: Inside the Public Library.
Executive Producer — Paul Marcarelli is an actor, writer and producer and co-founder of Table Ten Films. As an actor he is best known as "The Verizon Guy" (“Can you hear me now?”) in commercials for Verizon Wireless. His screenwriting credits include Clutter (the acclaimed comedy-drama starring Carol Kane) and The Green (the award-winning gay drama starring Cheyenne Jackson). He is also co-producer of the documentary, I Am Divine.
Executive Producer — Deb Kinney is a trust and estates lawyer. A prominent figure in Bay Area LGBT community activism, Deb is also a passionate believer in the power of film.
Consulting Producer — Michael Ehrenzweig's award winning documentaries and non-fiction features have been seen on PBS, The History Channel, HBO, National Geographic Channel, in theaters, and on television worldwide. He has worked as producer, line producer, production manager, and consulting producer on such films as The Celluloid Closet, Paragraph 175, The Cockettes, Freedom Machines, The Rush and Here's Looking At You Boy.
Associate Producers — Tom Rielly is best known as the Founder and former CEO of PlanetOut.com, which joined forces with Gay.com to create the largest gay and lesbian online company. He is also an accomplished actor, stand-up comic and satirist and is director of the TED Conferences TED Fellows program. In 1980 Tom played the role of Reissman in the feature film, My Bodyguard. You won’t be surprised to read that he also executive produced Jenni Olson’s The Joy of Life. Paul Lee specializes in producing films for first-time filmmakers, LGBT filmmakers, and in international co-productions. His short films include Thick Lips Thin Lips (1994), These Shoes Weren't Made For Walking (1995), and The Offering (1999), which has won more than 100 festival awards to date, and has been screened at over 500 film festivals! He is currently at work on his fourth film. He also Associate Produced Jenni Olson’s Blue Diary and The Joy of Life. Marc Henrich is a filmmaker, film teacher and editor who has taught editing and film history at UC Berkeley Extension, Academy of Art, and Film Arts Foundation. He has written, directed and edited several short films including:The Visit, In the Shadow of Fear. Marc was editor of Jenni Olson’s The Joy of Life.
Historical Advisor — Lisbeth Haas is a professor of history and feminist studies at the Uinversity of California, Santa Cruz, where she also chairs the feminist studies department. Her research and writing consider colonialism, imperialism, and their legacies, focusing on the multiethnic populations of California, integrating a concern for how people define their own histories and legal rights, and favoring the placement of U.S. history within the context of the Americas. She is the author of many books and publications including Conquests and Historical Identities in California, 1769–1936 (UC Press, 1995).
Historical Advisor — Steven Hackel is a professor of history at the University of California, Riverside where he specializes in colonial America, the Spanish borderlands, California missions, and California Indians. A leading scholar of Spanish California, he is the author of Junípero Serra: California’s Founding Father (2013). He is also the general editor of the Huntington Library’s Early California Population Project, a database of the baptism, marriage, and burial records from all of California’s twenty-one missions, and the director of the Early California Cultural Atlas, a spatial history of colonial California funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Voiceover Director — Sawyer Steele is Senior Producer for The Moxie Institute Film Studio + Lab and Senior Producer and co-founder of Let it Ripple: The Cloud Filmmaking Studio. He has produced, written and co-edited several award-winning films with acclaimed director Tiffany Shlain. His work with Shlain has been instrumental in pioneering a new type of participatory filmmaking they call “Cloud Filmmaking.”
Sound Designer & Recordist/Voiceover Recording — Jim Lively is a San Francisco audio engineer who has worked on innumerable independent film projects including Jenni Olson’s The Joy of Life.
Sound Mixer — Lora Hirschberg is an award-winning sound mixer whose credits range from mainstream blockbusters like Into the Wild, Panic Room, The Dark Knight and Inception (for which she won an Academy Award) to acclaimed independent documentaries like To Be Takei, How To Survive a Plague, Trembling Before God and Paragraph 175.
Sound Recordist — Lauretta Molitor has been working as a sound recordist in the San Francisco Bay Area since the early 1990s and has worked on such acclaimed documentary projects as The Celluloid Closet, We Were Here and Inequality for All.
Second Cinematographers -- Alison Kelly An MFA graduate of the American Film Institute Alison’s wide-range of experience as a cinematographer includes dozens of documentary, short and feature projects. Abigail Severance earned an M.F.A. in Directing from UCLA and works as a director, writer and teacher. She is writer/director of numerous award-winning short films and is currently in development on several features. Christian Bruno As filmmaker, Christian's work has received acclaim and awards at festivals around the world. He is currently in production on a feature documentary, Strand: A Natural History of Cinema. As a cinematographer he has shot for numerous narrative and documentary projects. William E. Jones is an artist, filmmaker and writer. His 1991 feature Massillon was a formative influence on The Royal Road writer-director Jenni Olson.
Assistant Editors — Ewan Duarte is an artist, writer and award-winning independent filmmaker. Alexis Hazelwood is a San Francisco-based filmmaker. Amanda Hudson is a San Diego-based photographer.
Closing Credits Music -- Chris Pureka
Post-Production Consultant -- Jesse Spencer
Post-Production Assistant -- Suzanne Smith
Production Assistant -- Ana Quintanilla
Map Animation -- Monica Nolan & Julie Ann Yuen
Titles -- Julie Ann Yuen, Suzanne Smith
