advisory board

Barbara Kopple is a two-time Academy Award winning filmmaker whose documentaries include the legendary Harlan County USA, about the 1974 Kentucky mine workers strike and the critically acclaimed Shut up and Sing about the Dixie Chicks and the political fallout from their criticism of President Bush. Barbara has been awarded the Human Rights Watch Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award, the Los Angeles Film Critics Award, National Society of Film Critics Award, the SilverDocs/Charles Guggenheim Award, New York Women in Film & Television Muse Award, and the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize.

 Howard Zinn is a historian, playwright, and social activist, best known for his book A People's History of the United States. He was a shipyard worker and Air Force bombardier before he went to college under the GI Bill and received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. In 1956, he became a professor at Spelman College in Atlanta, a school for black women, where he soon became involved in the Civil rights movement, which he participated in as an adviser to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and chronicled, in his book SNCC: The New Abolitionists. Zinn collaborated with historian Staughton Lynd and mentored a young student named Alice Walker. When he was fired in 1963 for insubordination related to his protest work, he moved to Boston University, where he became a leading critic of the Vietnam War. Zinn's plays include Emma, and Rebel Voices.

Rachel Meeropol is a Kinderland alumn and an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights,  a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change, which was founded by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South.  Rachel is the author of the Jailhouse Lawyers Handbook and the editor of America’s Disappeared: Secret Imprisonment, Detainees, and the “War on Terror.  Rachel is currently lead counsel on Turkmen v. Ashcroft, the class action suit on behalf of Arab and Muslim men rounded up in immigration sweeps after 9/11, and Walton v. NYDOCS and MCI, a suit against the New York State Department of Corrections and MCI over their monopoly contract and the exorbitant telephone rates family members are forced to pay to speak with their loved ones in prison.  Rachel also is the co-vice  president of the New York City chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.  

Matt O'Neill is an Emmy-Award winning documentary filmmaker who works at DCTV and has made films for HBO, PBS, the Discovery Channels and others. O'Neill won a Columbia DuPont Award and three Primetime Emmy Awards for the 2006 documentary he produced and directed with Jon Alpert for HBO - Baghdad ER. Other programs he has produced and directed include James GAndolfini's Alive Day Memories, Bolivia: Coca and the Congressman, To Have and Have Not: The Changing Face of China and Turkey's Tigers for the PBS series Wide Angle; Siberian Adoption Story for the Discovery Health Channel and Venezuela: Revolution in Progress for the Discovery Times Channel.

Wendy Cohen is the Manager of Community and Alliances at Participant Productions, whose films include Syriana, Good Night and Good Luck, An Inconvenient Truth, and the Kite Runner. Wendy is the co-founder and National Director of Screening Liberally, which brings free, advance screenings of socially conscious films and filmmakers, directors and industry insiders to lead post-screening discussions. Before joining the Participant family, Wendy was the Community Manager at the Huffington Post. Born and raised in Montreal, Wendy came to New York to be the Outreach Coordinator for Arts Engine and the Media That Matters film festival. She was research and creative assistant for The Art of the Documentary (New Riders Press, 2005), part of the DocuClub screening committee and is a guest curator for festivals and screening series around New York. Wendy is currently a co-chair on the Urban Pathways Young Professional Board and associate producing a documentary film.

Chesa Boudin is a Camp Kinderland alumn, Rhodes scholar,  journalist, activist and the author of Letters From Young Activists: Today's Young Rebels Speak Out, (Nation Books, 2005), and a co-author of The Venezuelan Revolution: 100 Questions – 100 Answers (Thunder's Mouth Press). Chesa has been profiled in the New York Times, CNN and his writing has appeared in The Nation, Salon, and Topic Magazine. He lived in Venezuela while researching Latin American public policy as part of his master's degree from Oxford University and is currently writing a book about the shift to the left in Latin America through his own first hand experiences traveling through the region.

Olivia Greer is a producer at The Culture Project, overseeing Women Center Stage, an annual multi-disciplinary arts festival, and directs EMANCIPATE, a project that connects women activist musicians who are activists.  Olivia is an experienced consultant in development, strategy and communications in arts, foundation and social justice organizations. She has worked as an activist in labor, civil rights and other struggles, and as a writer and journalist - co-authoring Actions Speak Louder Than Bumper Stickers, released by Nation Books in fall 2006, and contributing articles to Alternet and openDemocracy. She is also a singer and songwriter, the recipient of 2 ASCAPlus awards for emerging songwriters. She has released two records to date, 4 Songs (2004) and The Park Slope Sessions (2005), and is currently at work on her first full-length record.

Morrie Warshawski, the proud father of two Kinderland alumnae, is a consultant, facilitator and writer who has spent 30 years specializing in the nonprofit arts sector and especially in working with independent media makers. His work is characterized by a commitment to the core values of creativity, thoughtfulness, tolerance and transparency. He was the Executive Director of two media arts centers (Bay Area Video Coalition and The Media Project, Inc.), and has consulted with dozens of independent filmmakers throughout the US.  Warshawski's organizational clients represent an eclectic mix of agencies large and small, throughout the US. Recent assignments have come from: Independent Television Service (ITVS), Center for Independent Documentaries, President's Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Oklahoma City Art Museum Media Center, National Alliance of Media Arts and Culture and The National Endowment for the Arts.  Warshawski is best known in the media landscape for his classic book on fundraising:  SHAKING THE MONEY TREE: HOW TO GET GRANTS AND DONATIONS FOR FILM AND VIDEO - 2nd Edition.  He also is the author of THE FUNDRAISING HOUSEPARTY: HOW TO PARTY WITH A PURPOSE AND RAISE MONEY FOR YOUR CAUSE.  He can be found on the Web at www.warshawski.com <http://www.warshawski.com> .