Filmmakers & Key Media Team

DIRECTOR AND PRODUCER: NANCY BUIRSKI
The Loving Story is produced by Nancy Buirski’s production company Augusta Films, LLC. Buirski is the Founder and was the Director of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, the acclaimed international festival based in Durham, NC, chaired by Martin Scorsese and attended by such luminaries as Scorsese, Sydney Pollack, Sheila Nevins, Ross McElwee, Abbas Kiarostami, Mira Nair, Michael Moore, Ken Burns and Ric Burns, among many others. Buirski produced five collections of documentary shorts in collaboration with Docurama and The Katrina Experience, a collection of feature-length documentaries for libraries and schools. She served as the Executive Producer of Pangea Day Film Content. She is currently Producer of Althea (Dir: Rex Miller) and Harlem Woodstock (Dir: Alex Gibney) and produced Time Piece, the innovative cross-cultural omnibus documentary combining stories of Turkish and American filmmakers. Following The Loving Story, Buirski is directing Tanaquil Le Clercq: Afternoon of a Faun. Prior to her work in film, she was a documentary photographer, writing and photographing Earth Angels: Migrant Children in America, and the Foreign Picture Editor at The New York Times.

 

PRODUCER AND EDITOR: ELISABETH HAVILAND JAMES
Elisabeth Haviland James is a producer, director and editor based in Durham, NC, where her company, Thornapple Films, is headquartered. She is currently directing and producing, Lucy: A Portrait, an experimental documentary about writer and psychologist, Lucy Daniels. She is also adapting Pulitzer Prize winner Doug Marlette’s novel Magic Time for the screen. James was a consulting producer to the narrative feature Oka! Amerikee. Her other recent credits include Producer of The Good Fight and Co-Producer of The Lord God Bird- both directed by George Butler. She served as Director of Photography and Editor on Brothers in Arms, featuring Senator John Kerry, during the 2004 election. Ms. James has worked as a director, producer, cinematographer, photographer and editor with a number of media clients, including Augusta Films, White Mountain Films, Roland Films, National Geographic, PBS and MTV. She is a graduate of the M.A. Program in Documentary Film and Video at Stanford University, where she produced and directed four award-winning short documentaries. Her thesis film, Net Loss, was awarded the Nicholas Roosevelt Award for Environmental Journalism. Her other short documentaries include Flaunt, Worms at Work, and Precipice – a national finalist for the 2002 Academy Award in the Student Documentary category.

 

WRITER: SUSIE RUTH POWELL
Powell came of age in the Jim Crow era of 1950′s North Carolina. She majored in English at Bennett College, Greensboro, NC, one of only two black women’s colleges in the US. When she turned 21 in 1964 she tried to register to vote in rural NC without success. Powell studied literature at Smith College, completing a Masters. She enrolled in law school at Case Western Reserve in 1970 in the first wave of women law students and was one of two black women to graduate. Soon after passing the Ohio bar she sued the U.S. on behalf of poor people living in substandard federal housing in the case Garden Valley Tenants Association v. James Lynn. Powell practiced poverty law in NC and Ohio, taught contracts and trial practice at North Carolina Central School of Law. Turning to writing, she has published short stories and articles, is the editor of OBSIDIUM magazine of literature and has served on the literary panel of the NC State Arts Council for four years. Powell is currently focusing on a fictional account of the Wilmington race riots of 1898, the seminal event that ushering in Jim Crow to NC.

 

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: MARSHALL SONENSHINE
After beginning his career in law, Marshall Sonenshine became a banker with Salomon Brothers in 1986. In 1989, he joined Wolfensohn & Company, the M&A boutique headed by former Salomon Brothers’ head of banking Jim Wolfensohn and US Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, and became Partner in 1992. He served as part of the leadership team that merged Wolfensohn first into Bankers Trust, where he headed both the Media and Aerospace/ Transportation M&A practices, and later into Deutsche Bank, where he was asked to serve as Co-Head of M&A. Mr. Sonenshine is an Adjunct Professor of Finance and Economics at Columbia Business School and is a frequent speaker and expert on financial markets and corporate transactions He has advised on numerous leading transactions worldwide, such as Disney / ABC, Sony / Columbia Pictures, AIG / International Lease Finance, GE / GPA Group plc, Chancellor / Capstar (Later Clear Channel), and the Restructuring of the Philadelphia Inquirer and News. Mr. Sonenshine is Chairman of the Harvard Law School Fund, Trustee and Chairman of Development for Jazz at Lincoln Center and for the International Center of Photography, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the New York Tri State Committee of the Democratic National Committee. He and his wife, Dr. Therese Rosenblatt Sonenshine, live in New York and have three sons.

 

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: SCOTT BERRIE
Scott Berrie founded Impulse Creative Productions, LLC in 2008 to produce feature films across a variety of genres. Impulse focuses on original stories about characters that overcome obstacles, taking audiences on transformational journeys. Scott is currently producing Jerusalem, I Love You, a narrative film and part of the Cities of Love™ films including Paris, Je t’aime and New York, I Love You. Before founding Impulse, Scott co-founded Scojo New York, LLC and Scojo Foundation in 1999 with the mission of bringing up-close vision to the world. In 2006 he was awarded the Stewart Satter Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Scott is Vice President of the Russell Berrie Foundation; a trustee with the Shalom Hartman Institute and PAX. Mr. Berrie earned a Master’s of Business Administration from NYU’s Stern Executive MBA Program. He has a Masters in International Affairs and a Certificate in Middle Eastern Studies from Columbia U.

 

CO-PRODUCER: PATRICIA ROMEU
Patricia Romeu is a media producer, researcher, and consultant based in New York City and is the Co-Producer of  The Loving Story.  Other credits include Supervising Producer of the award-winning PBS series’ School: The Story of Public Education and Post-Production Producer/Archival Supervisor of Great Directors, a documentary film that celebrates important films and filmmakers of our time.  Ms. Romeu was the Director of Education for The Global Film Initiative in its inaugural year where she collaborated in the development of its film education program.  She has taught at Barnard, Emerson College, The University of the Arts, and Drexel University and is a graduate of the MFA in Media Arts program at Temple University.

 

SUPERVISING PRODUCER: NEDA ARMIAN
Neda Armian is a NY-based film producer of feature films and documentaries. Her current feature, Union Square, with writer-director Nancy Savoca, stars Mira Sorvino and Tammy Blanchard premiered at the Toronto Film Festival 2011. She is also producing Predisposed, with Jesse Eisenberg, Tracy Morgan, and Melissa Leo, and The Longest Week with writer-director Peter Glanz. Armian produced Rachel Getting Married, written by Jenny Lumet and directed by Jonathan Demme. She was co-producer on the Oscar-nominated documentary The Betrayal – Nerakhoon; producer of Jimmy Carter: Man From the Plains; executive producer on Right to Return: New Home Movies From the Lower 9th Ward; producer on the documentary Time Piece; producer on the the Emmy Award-nominated and Peabody Award-winning documentary Beah: A Black Woman Speaks, for HBO; and producer on the feature film The Truth About Charlie, starring Mark Wahlberg, Thandie Newton, and Tim Robbins. Through Armian Pictures, she developed and produced The Situation with Connie Nielsen and Damian Lewis. Directed by Philip Haas, the first feature narrative produced about the Iraq war. In addition to multiple original projects, Armian is developing adaptations of Elizabeth McCracken’s critically acclaimed <u>Giant’s House</u> and Keith Donohue’s <u>Stolen Child</u> with Marc Platt Productions and Ron Nyswaner adapting.

 

CONSULTING PRODUCER: RIC BURNS
Ric Burns has been writing, directing and producing historical documentaries for nearly 20 years. Best known for his epic series New York: A Documentary Film, other credits include Coney Island, The Donner Party, The Way West, Ansel Adams, Eugene O’Neill, Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film, and most recently We Shall Remain. He has won numerous awards and prizes for his critically acclaimed documentaries including several Emmys, Alfred I. du Pont-Columbia University Awards, American Cinema Editors Award, Cine Golden Eagle Award, the Christopher Award, Erik Barnouw prize, Peabody Broadcasting Awards, Writers Guild of America Awards, D.W. Griffith Award of the National Board of Review for the best television program, National Educational Media Network’s Gold Apple Award and the Producer of the Year of Award from the Producers Guild of America.

 

COMPOSER: DAVID MAJZLIN
David Majzlin is an Emmy®-nominated composer whose film credits include Stille, (Best Score – Avignon Film Festival), Being Reel, (Grand Prize – Project Greenlight Competition), Herb and Dorothy, (Silverdocs & Hamptons Fest Audience Awards), Virgin Larry (Winner – Coen Brothers Audience Award – Brooklyn Int’l Film Festival), Youth Knows No Pain (HBO Films), and Sins Of My Father (HBO Films). He also wrote additional music for The Eye Has To Travel (Samuel Goldwyn Films, Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival), Sunshine Cleaning (Nomination – Grand Jury Prize – Sundance Film Festival) – starring Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, and Alan Arkin, and source music for The Ghost Writer (dir., Roman Polanski, starring Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Catrall), All Good Things (dir., Andrew Jarecki, starring Ryan Gosling, Kirsten Dunst, Frank Langella), and The Joneses (starring Demi Moore, David Duchovny, and Lauren Hutton).

 

CINEMATOGRAPHER: REX MILLER
Director/Cinematographer/Rex Miller’s photographs have appeared in major international publications such as Time, NY Times, Rolling Stone, Spin. He has been working on documentaries for over 10 years and is currently directing and producing Althea, about the legendary African American tennis star. A previous film, SOMAY KU: A Uganda Tennis Story, won Best Documentary at the Malibu Film Festival and aired on the Tennis Channel. He recently directed a documentary project for The Tennis Channel, Who’s Next, a pilot for a series on up-and-coming junior and professional players. Another, in-production, looks at life at and around the tennis court at San Quentin Penitentiary. His recent work as DP includes Cynthia Hill’s Private Violence a film on Domestic Violence.

 

CINEMATOGRAPHER:  STEVE MILLIGAN
Director of Photography Steve Milligan received his first camera credit for Doubletime, which opened the South by Southwest Film Festival in 2007.  Since then he has served as cinematographer on feature and short form documentaries, commercials and narratives.  His collaborators include Emmy winners Ted Bogosian and Gary Hawkins, and Oscar winner Vanessa Roth.  His most recent film, American Teacher, produced by Dave Eggers and Nínive Calegari, will be released to theaters by First Run Features later this month. Steve is a teaching fellow at Duke University, where he conducts workshops in narrative and documentary cinematography, and advises the student-run production company, Freewater Productions.

 

SOUND: MARK BAROSSO
Mark Barroso is a 20-year veteran sound recordist for network news and magazine programs, as well as an award-winning documentary filmmaker living in Pittsboro, NC. Prior to that, he was an Emmy award-winning investigative producer in Tampa, Florida.

 

CONSULTANT AND PHOTOGRAPHER: JENNY WARBURG
Jenny Warburg is a freelance photographer, political activist, and former social worker living in Durham, NC. Her photographs have appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, US News and World Report, People, Rolling Stone, and Mother Jones among many others. They have also appeared in books, documentary films and in TV documentaries for Lifetime, Oxygen, CNN, PBS and the Oprah Winfrey show. For numerous years Jenny has been informally documenting the life of her friend Gloria Steinem. She has covered every political convention since 1988, most recently the campaigns of Senator Hillary Clinton, President Obama, and Senator John McCain. Jenny has also spent more than a decade documenting the activities of ultra-conservative religious groups, violent extremists, and neo-Nazi organizations for publications and groups that monitor the far right.

 

PUBLICITY/SOCIAL MEDIA: ERICA ROSEN
Erica Rosen is a freelance consultant with over seven years of experience in brand development, strategic marketing, and social media outreach. While working across a variety of clients and industries, she has developed extensive knowledge in the areas of media and youth markets.  Her projects have a specific focus on social impact and change, taking her everywhere from Thailand to Ecuador to her own backyard in Brooklyn, NY. Prior to joining The Loving Story team, Erica was a Strategist at Sterling Brands, a leading brand consultancy in New York City.

 

PRODUCTION INTERN: TESSA HAVILAND
Tessa Haviland received her B.A. from Kalamazoo College in French and with Honors in History. She was a 2009 James Bird Blach Prize recipient. She has a great interest in film and has previously worked with professor and filmmaker Maggie Annerino.

 

BOOK OPTION:

Virginia Hasn’t Always Been For Lovers
By Phyl Newbeck

 

Download the Full Film Credits

 

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