— Biographies —

 
Katherine Griffin  
Katherine Griffin (maggie thornton)
writer/director actress/producer/editor

Katherine Griffin is a Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowship Semi-Finalist (2012) and Emmy Award winning editor-writer-director from Bloomington, Indiana whose spirited adventure making her first indie feature The Innocents was profiled in the Los Angeles Times. The Innocents was subsequently listed as one of the twenty best dramas in Phil Hall's 'Encyclopedia of Underground Movies: Films from the Fringes of Cinema'. In a review for FilmThreat Magazine, Hall stated: "Griffin has a remarkable style, with intelligent dialogue that flavors a subtle direction."

Katherine has always had a passion for acting, writing and directing. She attended the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, and studied film in the Bay Area, then entered the Pacific Conservatory of Performing Arts in Santa Maria to continue her education in acting and directing. It was there that she began to write screenplays.

Since then, she has been a finalist in the Sundance Screenwriter's Lab, received the first ever Christy Fellowship from PCPA, worked as an editor for every major network on television, is a Nicholl Semi-Finalist, Emmy Award Winner and is currently assembling her second feature film, Butterflies and Lightning, with producers Michel Shane (I Robot, Catch Me if You Can), Sarah Finn (Crash) and Jon Bachmann (The Innocents).

 
Jon Bachmann   Jon Bachmann
producer/upm/1st ad/editor
   

Jon Bachmann is a Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowship Semi-Finalist (2012) and Emmy Award winning editor-writer-producer. An early interest in storytelling lead to his first award for fiction with the Villa Montalvo Young Writer's Competition while still in highschool.

Originally from the Bay Area, he moved to Los Angeles and co-founded Styopa Films where he has developed and produced a number of award-winning independent films including The Innocents, (listed as one of the fifty most memorable indie/underground dramas in Phil Halls' book: Films from the Fringes of Cinema), and Use As Directed.

His scripts have won awards in the UCLA Professional Program in Screenwriting, the Nate Wilson Joie de Vivre Award, and become a Semi-Finalist in the Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowship.

 
Kama Lee (jane)

Kama Lee studied acting at the Pacific Conservatory of Performing Arts in Santa Maria. Following her love of the stage she continued to study and perform with the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, played the lead in dozens of plays including Cinderella, The Wizard of Oz, and Jesus Christ Superstar, and co-starred in the ABC television movie A Stranger in the Family before landing the role of Jane, opposite Griffin, in The Innocents.

 
Kama Lee
 
Caitlin Manning
cinematographer

Caitlin's passion for taking pictures began as a child growing up in Puerto Rico. She moved to California to get her Masters degree in film at San Francisco State University. She has been a cinematographer on over 20 independent feature films and shorts. Her work has appeared at dozens of film festivals across the world including Sundance, Telluride and Toronto, has garnished numerous awards including the American Motion Picture Society's "10 best", the Black Filmmaker's Hall of Fame and the Eastman Kodak Scholar Award. She is currently making her directorial debut with the documentary Lafanmi Selavi.

 
Caitlin Manning
 
Leszek Drozd
composer

Leszek Drozd, born in 1969 in Warsaw, Poland, began his music education at 6 years old at the Primary School of Music. In 1991-94 he wrote and performed music as the drummer for the Pop Band ADD whose first recorded album in London retained the Top 10 place on the charts for 3 months. After receiving his Masters Degree from the Music Conservatory he moved to Chicago where he wrote and performed commercial background music and jingles for numerous advertising agencies and radio stations. The Innocents marks his feature film debut as a composer. He continues to compose music for films and radio as well as write and produce educational media for commercial and training purposes including a series of videos with Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist and film author Phil Hall.

  Leszek Drozd