Doctors for Global Health (DGH) is conducting it's first ever video contest with the theme: "Challenging Scarcity: Health Justice for All."
The panel of experts who will judge this contest are:
BEN ACHTENBERG — Project Director and Producer of the refugemediaproject.
Ben is an Oscar-nominated producer and distributor of documentary films on social issues. His productions on such topics as healthcare for the homeless, medical ethics, end-of-life care and disabilities have received many honors, including an Academy Award nomination (for Code Gray), seven CINE Golden Eagles and a first-place award in “Issues and Ethics” from the National Health and Medical Film Competition. Ben is a founder and board member of the Carmenta Foundation for Health Education and is a board member of the Ignacio Martin-Baro Fund for Mental Heath and Human Rights. He was until recently the owner and President of Fanlight Productions, a widely-respected distributor of documentaries on healthcare, mental health, aging, disabilities, and related issues.
JASMINA BOJIC Lecturer/Film Critic/Founder and Executive Director UNAFF/UNAFF Traveling Film Festival and Director, Camera As Witness Program
Ms. Jasmina Bojic has taught at Stanford University for the last seventeen years. She has been working as a journalist more than twenty-five years, covering many political and cultural events, including the Academy Awards, Cannes Film Festival, Sundance, Tribeca and other film festivals interviewing noted world politicians, scientists, directors, producers and actors. Ms. Bojic has served on juries at many international film festivals and has extensive connections with filmmakers and the film industry worldwide. She has worked as a producer/director on several documentaries and TV Programs dealing with human rights issues. Fifteen years ago she conceptualized and organized one of the oldest international documentary film festivals in the US – UNAFF (United Nations Association Film Festival) at Stanford University, which became Traveling Film Festival in year 2000. Ms. Bojic is Founder and Director of the CAMERA AS WITNESS program which extends the educational use of UNAFF documentaries throughout the academic year at Stanford.
MEL HALBACH is a director and producer for World Stories Film. His latest completed film, What Lights Nate, documents the personal journey of artist Nate Smith and his fire vortex performances at the Burning Man Arts Festival in Nevada. Over the past 18 years, much of this work has involved producing documentaries in developing countries. Mel’s travels to Vietnam between 1991-1997 culminated in his award-winning documentary The Long Haired Warriors. This documentary brought to light the lives Vietnamese women who were soldiers, activists and prisoners of war.The Long Haired Warriors was selected for screenings at over a dozen national and international film festivals and aired on selected PBS stations in the US. Other film awards include Best Documentary, Experimental for The Game at the Ann Arbor Film Festival; Best of Show for The Game at the 1991 Utah Film and Video Festival, and Honorable Mentions for his other short films at festivals in New York and Utah. Mel has twice been the recipient of the Mort Rosenfeld Award honoring Utah filmmakers of promise. Mel has produced and edited several Vietnam short films and was the Editor and Assistant Cinematographer for another feature length Vietnam documentary, Beyond Healing; Mission of Hope produced and directed by Carla Woodmansee. He has also produced documentaries for non government organizations in Cambodia, Vietnam, Kosovo, Slovakia, El Salvador and Mozambique.
LUKE WALDEN is a documentary filmmaker. He freelanced in New York from 2000 to 2006 for clients including the New York Public Library and the United Nations. As a volunteer for Doctors for Global Health he produced a promotional video for the Mbarara University of Science and Technology in Uganda in 2005. As an independent filmmaker his awards include the Audience Award for Best Documentary Short at the 2004 San Francisco Independent Film Festival for "We Can Do it Better", the Accolade Competition Award of Merit for Documentary Research, 2009 for "The Narcotic Farm" which he co-produced/directed with JP Olsen, the Radar Hamburg International Independent Film Fest Special Categories Prize, 2009 for "The Narcotic Farm" and, as Director of Photography, the SIGNIS prize at the 2008 Santiago Film Festival in Chile for "Slice", a narrative feature directed by Ginger Rinkenberger. Luke has taught photography at the University of Connecticut and Rhode Island School of Design, and film making at the New York Film Academy in New York. He currently teaches film making and visual communications at ITT Technical Institute in Portland, Oregon where he now lives.
MICHAEL BRONNER is a writer, filmmaker and journalist who spent many years at the weekday edition of CBS News/60 Minutes, reporting from the Middle East, Africa, Europe and Asia. He is an editor of Warscapes, the online magazine providing a lens into on going conflicts worldwide via literature, long-form reportage, art and image. He also freelances for Vanity Fair and others, writing long, literary investigative pieces. His credits in feature film includes United 93 and Green Zone. His work has been recognized with a Peabody Award, the Edward R. Murrow Award for Investigative Reporting, several Emmy nominations and the President's Choice Award for a Vanity Fair piece on the 9/11 attacks.
TONY NELSON has worked as a community organizer, teacher, and human rights activist around the issues of immigration, education, prison education, anti-neoliberalism, and US-sponsored torture. He currently works for the Mexico Solidarity Network as director and professor of their social movements based study abroad program in Mexico. When not in Mexico he is a community organizer at MSN's Centro Autónomo in Albany Park, Chicago, where the community comes together to organize for rights to education, housing, and dignity. Tony received a BA from Grand Valley State University (2003) and a MA from Syracuse University (2009) in the areas of communication theory, rhetoric, and philosophy.
MICHELE BROTHERS, MIA, DGH Europe Liason, DGH Board Member, who is Franco American, arrived in Paris in 1985 from her hometown of New York, where she had worked with the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). She was manager of International Development at Médecins du Monde in Paris and the MDM representative in New York with the U.S. delegation during 2000-01. Michéle founded and manages International Connections, a small consulting group based in Paris. She received degrees from McGill University in Montreal, Canada and a MIA from the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs in NY. She is a founding member of Women in Film France and is on the board of AARO (Association of American Residents Overseas). Michéle, who has previously been a DGH Advisory Council member, is particularly interested in DGH's whole approach and the use of the arts to reach out, exchange ideas with and inform populations about health and human rights concerns.
