Interim Board Members Through Spring 2012
Sharon V. Anderson is a Certified Public Accountant based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and long time SDF Board member. Anderson is also Treasurer for the Board of Directors of the public access station, The Peoples Channel.
Vivian Bowman-Edwards is a filmmaker and visual artist whose work includes Show Up, Speak Out: The Public Life of Betty Ann Knudsen, as well as various short documentaries which have screened on television and at film festivals in the US and Europe. Her first documentary, Searching, screened at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in 2000, and Bowman-Edwards was field producer for the MSNBC award-winning one-hour television documentary, The Battle for America's Schools. She has taught workshops at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, and is currently the owner/editor of Doc.List, a North Carolina-based email newsletter about news, events, and topics related to documentary work. She serves on the New Projects Committee for SDF.
Rebecca Cerese is an award winning filmmaker who graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill with a degree in Communications and English. She has worked for Video Dialog, Inc. for over 12 years before starting her own company, Shelter from the Storm Productions. Her documentaries include, February One – The Story of the Greensboro Four, Change Comes Knocking – The Story of the North Carolina Fund and Durham – A Self Portrait. Recent projects include Landscapes of the Heart – The Elizabeth Spencer Story and a television series entitled, Exotic Pet Vet. Cerese currently serves as the Vice President of the Peoples Channel, the public access station in Chapel Hill and Durham, and has served on the board of the North Carolina ACLU.
Dr. Steven Channing brings a wide range of experiences as an historian, author, and Emmy Award winning filmmaker. Over the past two decades his documentaries have explored many American stories, from The Lost Colony to February One, The Story of the Greensboro Four. His Durham: A Self-Portrait was broadcast on Fox50, while Change Comes Knocking: The Story of the North Carolina Fund, and Down Home: Jewish Life in North Carolina have recently been broadcast on PBS in North Carolina.
Kenny Dalsheimer is an award winning filmmaker, video producer and media educator. He founded The Groove Productions in Durham, North Carolina in 1996. His films, A Weaverly Path (2011), A New Kind of Listening (2009), Bending Space (2007), Shine On (2000), and Go Fast, Turn Left (1998), have screened at US and international film festivals, aired on PBS stations around the southeast, and screened in communities across North Carolina through the NC Humanities Council's Road Scholars Program. Since 2001, Dalsheimer has worked as an arts educator with the Durham Arts Council and taught workshops at alternative schools and juvenile justice programs. He also produces documentary-style videos for non-profits and other organizations. He received his M.A. in Anthropology from Duke University and taught at Carolina Friends School for ten years.
Elisabeth Haviland James is a producer, director and editor based in Durham, North Carolina, where her company, Thornapple Films, is headquartered. James was the Producer and Editor of The Loving Story (airs on HBO in early 2012), and was a consulting producer to the narrative feature Oka! Amerikee. 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. 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, including Precipice, a national finalist for the 2002 Academy Award in the Student Documentary category. Her thesis film, Net Loss, was awarded the Nicholas Roosevelt Award for Environmental Journalism. James' media clients include Augusta Films, White Mountain Films, Roland Films, National Geographic, PBS and MTV.
Titus Brooks Heagins is a documentary and fine art photographer. His work explores the lives of people often as the "Other." His projects have taken him to Africa, Asia, South America, Europe, and throughout the Caribbean, where he has worked extensively in Cuba and Haiti. His photography is included in the collections of several museums, including the Smithsonian Anacostia Museum and the North Carolina Museum of Art. Heagins holds an AB from Duke University and an MFA from the University of Michigan.
Cynthia Hill is a North Carolina-based filmmaker whose works include the feature-length documentaries, Tobacco Money Feeds My Family and The Guestworker, as well as various films documenting southern life and culture. In 2011, Hill completed an 18 part multi-media project on domestic violence called Survivor to Survivor, and continued post production work on the feature-length documentary Private Violence. A native of Pink Hill, NC, Hill began her production career as an editor at GLC Productions, a New York City post-production facility whose clients included MTV, PBS, Lifetime, Nickelodeon, and many others.
Malinda Maynor Lowery is an Assistant Professor of History at UNC-Chapel Hill and stays involved in documentary film as an occasional producer, editor, and Secretary of the board of directors of the Independent Television Service (ITVS). Born in Robeson County and raised in Durham, she is a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina and her work in both history and film concerns Native American issues.
Beverly Meek is Outreach and Communications Assistant in the Vice Provost Office for the Arts at Duke University. She is responsible for campus-wide arts communications, the Arts & Engagement initiative, community outreach, marketing and publicity for special arts projects, residencies and events, and grant writing. Previously she was Director for Marketing and Audience Development for Duke Performances, Assistant Dean and Marketing Coordinator in the division of Student Affairs at Duke University, Program Administrator for the NC Arts Council, Company Manager for the African American Dance Ensemble, and Assistant Director, Presenting Services for the Durham Arts Council. She holds a MA from Duke University, a BS from Cornell, and completed the UNC-Chapel Hill Arts Management Institute. She is currently a board member of the City of Durham Cultural Advisory Board, President of Mallarme Chamber Players, and serves on the Duke University Martin Luther King Commemoration Committee. Beverly is a southerner by birth, having grown up in rural northwest Georgia on her family's farm.
Scott Misner is an experienced communicator and instructor. He produced a weekly television news-variety show and is a graduate from Purdue University and the University of North Carolina. Scott launched a public relations firm in 2001 and works with statewide and national media in the court of public opinion. He serves as chief strategist for this idea factory that helps North Carolina organizations find their creative voice. Fifteen years of broad experience enables him to tell good stories and know how to participate as a brand with consumers.
Judy Van Wyk is an award winning former television producer. She produced numerous hour-long programs for the Discovery Network, including Genetic Promises, which received the prestigious 2002 Freddy Award for documentaries dealing with clinical and basic science. Recent projects include a biography of Wendell H. Murphy, a controversial figure who pioneered industrial swine production in North Carolina, and a short film about an Iraqi journalist forced to flee Baghdad during the height of the Iraq War. Van Wyk is chair of SDF's New Projects Committee.
Tom Whiteside has been making, curating, and exhibiting film since 1979, when he graduated from the University of North Carolina with a degree in Radio, Television and Motion Pictures. Interests include experimental film, regional film history, and the intersection of motion pictures with music and fine arts. He worked as a Visiting Artist in the North Carolina Community College system for four years, and was an Artist-in-Residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, California. He was an Arts Administration Fellow at the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, DC in 1990. Founder and director of Durham Cinematheque, he has presented more than 60 unique film programs in downtown Durham since 1991. His work has been shown at the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, Black Maria Film Festival, and many other venues.