Acclaimed film director Sydney Pollack, whose distinguished career includes an Academy Award as best director for Out of Africa (1985), and two best director nominations, for They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, and Tootsie, began his career as an actor. Pollack has become one of the worlds most versatile and fascinating film directors, producers, and actors, whose oeuvre includes The Way We Were (1973) director, The Electric Horseman (1979) director/actor, Three Days of the Condor (1975) director, Absence of Malice (1981) director/producer, and The Firm (1993) director, producer. More recently, he has collaborated with director Anthony Minghella on well-received projects like The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) executive producer, and Cold Mountain (2003) producer. As a character actor, Mr. Pollack has worked with a variety of directors, including Stanley Kubrick, Eyes Wide Shut (1999), and Woody Allen, Husbands and Wives (1992). In his own recent film, The Interpreter (2005), he was executive producer, director, and actor, managing to reinvent the intelligent suspense thriller 30 years after Three Days of the Condor, to critical accolades in all categories. Pollack has never been an artist who rests on his laurels. He realizes that as movies have become targeted to a narrower audience in recent years, there is great importance in encouraging film directors, actors, and producers to make independent films—a precious necessity for creative artists who must constantly reinvent the art form every time they make a movie. His first documentary, a study of his friend and famed architect, Sketches of Frank Gehry, was completed in 2005. We are honored to have him as Advisor to the Board of Directors for the Mendocino Film Festival.

Director of Programming for the Mill Valley Film Festival, Zoe Elton oversees the content and production of this annual festival of international, independent film and video. Annually, the festival shows films from over 40 countries, and hosts around 200 guests.

She frequently conducts interviews with guests such as Helen Mirren, Forest Whitaker, Laura Linney, and Ram Dass. She has served on numerous panels and juries, including the national nominating committees for the Rockefeller Foundation, the Haas Foundation’s Creative Works Fund and the IFP/Someone to Watch Award.

Born and raised in Hereford, England, she wrote and directed work at the Bay Area Playwrights’ Festival, West Coast Playwrights, Intersection for the Arts, KQED-TV, as well as in her native London.

Writer-Director Will Geiger was born in New York and lived in various parts of the U.S. as the son of an F.B.I. agent. Ocean Tribe, his first feature film, premiered at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival and won Geiger the award for Best Director in 1998. Ocean Tribe went on to win the Grand Prize award at the Charleston International Film Festival and Best Drama at the Houston International Film Festival. In 1999, as part of the Seattle International Film Festival’s innovative Fly Filmmaking program, Geiger produced the narrative short Red Man in two days with two rolls of 16mm film. Red Man is currently playing on the Independent Film Channel. Geiger recently finished writing and directing the feature film Elvis and Anabelle. which tells the story of a young mortician and a rebellious beauty queen. The film stars Max Minghella (Art School Confidential), Blake Lively (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants), Joe Mantegna, Mary Steenburgen and Keith Carradine and will be released in the early spring of 2008.

The son of Jamaican immigrants, Carl Lumbly started his career as a journalist but soon moved into acting and improvisational comedy.
A veteran of the stage, Lumbly has also appeared in numerous feature films including Escape from Alcatraz, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, The Bedroom Window, Everybody's All American, To Sleep with Anger, PacificHeights, How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Men of Honor.
On television, Lumbly starred in Cagney & Lacey, ABC's Going to Extremes and M.A.N.T.I.S. He played recurring roles on ER and EZ Streets, and guest starred on series including The West Wing and The X-Files. He received critical acclaim for his role as Father in the ABC remake of Sounder, and earned a NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor for his work in Buffalo Soldiers.
Lumbly recently completed filming the lead role in the independent feature, Namibia: The Struggle for LIberation, co-starring Danny Glover.

Jim is a Market Research Practitioner, Marketing Consultant, and Media Adviser. Since 1978 he has been extensively involved in Consumer, Political, Advertising and Entertainment Research. He has completed well over a hundred feature film studies (including Star Wars, Return of The Jedi, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Terminator 2) and hundreds of television pilot studies (including 24, Ally McBeal and Dharma and Greg) for major studios, networks and production companies. Currently he is Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Onadime®, a real-time animation and voice recognition lip-sync software company which is presently involved in television and animated features development and production. In the world of music, he was Executive Producer for the legendary “Rockabilly King” Carl Perkins (Blue Suede Shoes) on his last CD "Go Cat Go!”. From 1984 to 1986 McCullough served as Vice President of the San Francisco Rock 'n' Roll Museum. From 1996 to the present he has served as a San Francisco Film Commissioner. For more information go to: jwmccullough.com

Mike’s current board of director roles at DVD rental market leader Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) and The Sonoma Film Society provide a strong indication of his love of independent movies. Mike has more than 35 years of experience in the software industry, including four technology start-ups. Twice in his career, Mike has created market-leading enterprise software companies: Computervision in the CAD/CAM market and Cadence in EDA (Electronic Design Automation). There are very few operational challenges Mike hasn't faced and tackled successfully somewhere along the line. Before joining Foundation Capital in 1998, Mike was CEO, co-founder, and chairman of the board of Intrinsa Corporation, a software applications company that was acquired by Microsoft. Mike currently serves on the boards of Netflix (NFLX), Responsys, Boardvantage, ONStor, Jasper Design Automation, VaST and Vivecon. Mike has been a passionate runner for more than 30 years, and has successfully completed 20 marathons. Mike has an affinity for California wines. Mike received a BSEE from the University of Maryland.

Gail Silva was the primary force behind Film Arts Foundation for over twenty-five years, first as co-director, then executive director and finally president. In 2002, her years of dedication to artistic excellence and advocacy were recognized by the presentation of the California Arts Council’s “Directors Award.”
Gail has assisted hundreds of independent filmmakers develop and complete their projects, by advising them on conceptual project development, effective fundraising strategies and connecting them with potential donors, institutions and foundations. She continues this work by consulting on financial strategies and on the marketing and distribution side: analysis of target markets, including selecting the most appropriate festivals and recommending effective distributors. Gail also advises arts organizations on financial management, organizational effectiveness, and donor and board development.

George holds a Master's Degree from the Center for Experimental and Interdisciplinary Arts at San Francisco State University.  His experiences in the realm of film include many years as an instructor for the Foothill-De Anza and San Mateo Community College Districts and as the co-director of a stock footage archive.  Mr. Russell has lived part-time in Mendocino since 2001 and has written three book-length works of fiction here.  He was the Co-Curator of the Mendocino Film Festival in 2007 and is honored to be its Program Director for 2008. 

Pat Ferrero is a filmmaker, curator and teacher. She is a Professor of Cinema at San Francisco State University where she has taught film production for the past thirty years. As a filmmaker, her documentary films have screened nationally on PBS and been invited to screen at film festivals all over the world including Sundance, New York, San Francisco, Hawaii and the London International Film Festivals. Honors have included funding for her films from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and Humanities (NEH) as well as Rockefeller and Guggenheim Fellowships. She is an active member of the independent social issue documentary film distribution collective New Day Films.

She has been commissioned to make films for exhibits by the Oakland Museum, the African Museum at the Smithsonian, the SFMOMA and most recently for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh where she has nine films on American Indian culture and environment issues on permanent display.

Pat currently divides her time between her home in Mendocino and her teaching and film production work in San Francisco. She was the Program Director of the 2007 Mendocino Film Festival. This year she is curating the Films on Art category and continues to act as an advisor to the festival.

Richard Heinberg is the author of eight books including The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies, Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World, The Oil Depletion Protocol, and Peak Everything. He is a Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute and is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost Peak Oil educators. He is a recipient of the M. King Hubbert Award for Excellence in Energy Education (2006) and has appeared in many recent documentaries including The End of Suburbia and Crude Impact. Richard has been associated with many Peak Oil response efforts around the world, including Oil Independent Oakland, the Transition Town movement in the UK, and the worldwide Relocalization Network.