DB PRODUCTIONS - Key Persons
Andrew currently oversees post production for DB Productions. He has worked on film, television and commercial productions in Texas, North Carolina, and New York since 2009. His credits include HBO's Eastbound and Down, Amazon's Red Oaks, Sony Pictures' The Night Before and independent features Joe, Prince Avalanche, Manglehorn. His first documentary feature, Cancion del Cuerpo, was awarded the Best Film Hecho en Texas Award at the 2012 Cine Las Americas film festival. Andrew earned a B.S. in Radio - TV - Film and a B.A. in Theatre and Dance at the University of Texas at Austin.
André Robert Lee directed and produced The Prep School Negro and was producer of the documentary I'm Not Racist…Am I? André received a Fellowship in 2013 from Colorlines.com, a division of Race Forward, for whom he directed and produced the 12 month series Life Cycles of Inequity: A Colorlines Series on Black Men. André is currently developing a feature film about the life of Bayard Rustin, as well as two documentaries with the Maysles Documentary Center. He is a member of the Board of Directors for Ready Willing and Able: The Doe Fund, Inc., a juror for the Oscars© Student Competition, and an adviser for the Monument Lab in Philadelphia. He has served as a Reader for The Gates Millennium Scholars Program and as a speaker at The Gates Millennium Scholars Program Leadership Conferences. He has spoken and screened his films at over 500 high schools, colleges, universities and conferences around the world. Earlier in his career, André worked with The Ford Foundation, NBC, PBS, Miramax Films, Urbanworld, Film Movement, BET, Universal, HBO, Picturehouse, and Dreamworks.
Job Titles:
- Executive Producer
- Producer
Christine Bachas is an Emmy-nominated producer specializing in non-fiction and branded content for television, advertising, and the web. Her projects have taken her all over the world, and her credits include television series (Sundance Channel's Iconoclasts, Nickelodeon's Nick News with Linda Ellerbee,) feature-length documentary films (Naked States,) motion graphics for the 2016 Bethesda E3 Showcase, 3D animations for Toyota, game trailers for Marvel, and short-form content for Disney Channel, Disney Junior, Goldman Sachs, and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Christine is a proud alumna of the University of Virginia and received her master's degree from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Her not-so-secret superpower is that she can sleep anywhere - especially on potholed roads in the middle of Kenya.
Job Titles:
- Creative Director
- Branding Executive
Dru DeSantis is an experienced branding executive, not-for-profit communications consultant and documentary film producer. As a founding partner of New York-based DeSantis Breindel, Dru leads a team of creative and strategic professionals who bring an innovative, multidisciplinary perspective to addressing the challenge of establishing a strong and highly visible presence in the increasingly crowded marketplace for products and ideas. She has an extensive background helping organizations define their brand and communicate it across multiple media platforms. Dru has served as creative director on a number of award-winning films for a wide range of for-profit and not-for-profit organizations, including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, CeaseFire Chicago and Caring Across Communities.
Elizabeth Holder directs and produces documentary and fiction films. Her documentary I WANT SO MUCH TO LIVE is about the people and science behind Herceptin, the world's first "targeted therapy" for breast cancer (winner: Public Relations Society Bronze Anvil Award for Best Internal Film). Other nonfiction projects include RISK/REWARD (called "arresting" by The New York Times and "expertly crafted" by Variety), and critically acclaimed six-part documentary series THE HILL, about Congressional staffers. Holder's directing credits also include the fiction short WEEKEND GETAWAY (winner: Special Jury Prize at New York/ Avignon Film Festival); episodes of BLUE'S CLUES; and the mockumentary film THE ACTING CLASS. Holder is a member of the International Documentary Association and the Television Academy of Arts & Sciences. She graduated with honors from Smith College, and currently lives and works in Los Angeles.
Kristi Jacobson is a critically acclaimed filmmaker whose work has been broadcast on HBO, ABC, ESPN and PBS, and premiered at the Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals. Her 2012 film A Place At The Table examines the shocking paradox of hunger and food insecurity in the U.S., and features original music produced by Grammy - and Oscar - winning producer/composer T Bone Burnett. In TOOTS, she documented the life of NYC saloon-keeper Toots Shor, to much critical acclaim. Jacobson collaborated with Oscar-winning filmmaker Barbara Kopple on American Standoff. Her many television credits have earned an Emmy nomination and 6 Cine Golden Eagle Awards.
Jacobson directs corporate, brand, and non-profit shorts with DB Productions, for clients in financial services, real estate development, health care, and energy.
Lizz Morhaim's production credits include feature films, documentaries, commercials, and music videos. She has line produced many noted indie films such as Cold In July (Sundance and Cannes Film Festivals), We Are What We Are (Sundance and Cannes Film Festivals), How To Be A Man (Sundance NEXT FEST), and Sleepwalk With Me (Sundance Film Festival). She executive produced Rover (Slamdance), and has produced short films that have screened at the LA Film Festival, Woodstock Film Festival, and Aspen Shortfest. Since joining the DB team, she has produced content for Starbucks, Goldman Sachs, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She studied film at Wesleyan University.
Robin Honan is an Academy Award-nominated documentary producer and filmmaker, and produced on the Oscar-winning documentary FREEHELD (2008) as well as the 26-minute short BORN SWEET (2010). Her Oscar-nominated, HBO film MONDAYS AT RACINE (2013) celebrates a Long Island hair salon that offers free services to women undergoing cancer treatment, helping them restore a sense of beauty following the ravages of chemotherapy. Honan also produced the 2009 Sundance Channel feature length documentary LIVING THE LEGACY, which documents a year in the life of a free private school for underprivileged students founded by chocolatier Milton Hershey over one hundred years ago.
As a Producer/Director with award-winning DB Productions in New York City, Honan crafts intimate profiles and identity films for a wide range of non-profit and corporate clients. In 2012, she produced the short documentary FIRE WITH FIRE, which currently has over 3 million views on YouTube, and tells the tale of a renegade oncologist who has cured leukemia in ten patients, including three children, by using a disarmed form of the HIV virus to attack cancer cells. More recently, Honan directed and produced films for a landmark Alzheimer's clinical trial, as well as short documentaries about Head Start-Trauma Smart and The New York Foundling.
Ross Kauffman is the Academy Award winning director, producer, cinematographer and co-editor of Born Into Brothels, which won the Oscar® for Best Documentary 2005 as well as the Emmy for Best Documentary 2005. The film's accolades include National Board of Review Best Documentary 2004, LA Film Critics Best Documentary 2004 and the 2004 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award. With Katy Chevigny, Ross co-directed E-Team, an award-winning NetFlix feature documentary about Human Rights Watch emergency investigators. Ross executive produced the award-winning documentary In A Dream (directed by Jeremiah Zagar) and was a producer of Academy Award-nominated Postergirl. Ross is regarded as a top documentary cinematographer, and has worked on projects such as PBS's Half the Sky and Morgan Spurlock's Comicon. Ross has shot, directed and edited short documentaries and branded content for DB Productions since 2009.
Job Titles:
- Senior Writer
- Writer and Marketing Communications Specialist
Seth is an accomplished writer and marketing communications specialist. He is the author of several published works of fiction, including the novel Losing Isaiah, which was developed by Paramount Pictures into a feature film starring Halle Berry and Jessica Lange. Two other novels by Seth have been optioned by major studios. Seth has contributed frequently to The New York Times, particularly in the areas of Arts and Travel. At DeSantis Breindel, Seth works closely with the film team to develop treatments and scripts and lend overall guidance to the entire production process. He has been closely involved on an editorial level with several recent productions, including short films about nursing innovation (Transforming Care at the Bedside) green hospitals (Healthcare without Harm). In addition, Seth oversees the strategy and content development components of branding assignments, presentations, speeches, annual reports and web sites.
Stephanie Wang-Breal directs and produces independent documentaries, commercials, art videos for nonprofit organizations, and stories for various media outlets including CNN, UNICEF, MTV, Discovery and the Biography Channel. Her commercial clients include Apple, Tiffany's & Co., and Goldman Sachs. She directs corporate, non-profit and branded content for DB Productions.
Wang-Breal has extensive experience working with children and families. Her feature documentary, Tough Love, premiered at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and HotDocs Canadian International Film Festival in 2014. Tough Love was broadcast on PBS' series "P.O.V." in 2015. She is also the Director/ Producer of the Emmy®-nominated documentary, Wo Ai Ni Mommy (I Love You, Mommy). The film was awarded three Grand Jury Best Documentary Awards at the AFI/ Discovery Silverdocs Film Festival, the Asian American International Film Festival and the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, as well as a 2011 CINE Special Jury Award. The film was broadcast nationally on the award-winning PBS series "P.O.V." Wang-Breal is fluent in Mandarin and French.
Trotter Gollihar's editorial experience runs the gamut from documentary, comedy, music videos, to advertising. Since 2010, he has created content for companies like Dell, Office Depot, and Swingline, and his work with DB Productions includes films for Goldman Sachs, Stephens Inc., Vertex, and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Trotter has a B.A. in Radio, Television, and Film from the University of North Texas.
With an early foundation in advertising and brand films, Whitney Dow is considered a formative figure in documentary film today. He directed the well-known film Two Towns of Jasper, as well as I Sit Where I Want: The Legacy of Brown v. Board of Education, Unfinished Country, and When the Drum is Beating (about music in Haiti). Dow is also a prolific documentary producer, including on the films Freedom Summer, The Undocumented, Banished: How Whites Drove Blacks Out of Town in America, Toots and Among the Believers.
International film festivals and television networks around the world have exhibited his films, as have the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, and the Smithsonian Institution. Dow is recipient of the George Foster Peabody Award, Alfred I. duPont Award, Anthony Radziwill Documentary Achievement Award, and the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies Filmmaker Award as well as many film festival honors. He teaches filmmaking at Hunter College in NYC. Dow directs and produces corporate, brand, and non-profit shorts with DB Productions.
Xan Parker's producing credits include feature documentaries Academy Award-nominated LaLee's Kin (Sundance Film Festival, HBO), Racing Dreams, My Dog, Risk/Reward, All About Abe, and A Place At The Table; nonfiction TV series The Hill and Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman (both Sundance Channel); MTV's Made; scientific web series The Personal Genome; non-profit grantee profile films; and branding films and commercials. She has worked with Showtime, Criterion Collection, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Washington Sports & Entertainment, Columbia University and Good Magazine. Parker learned the ropes from the pre-eminent documentarians at Maysles Films. She has taught graduate level documentary film production at the New School for Social Research, lectured at New York University and consulted on programming for the PBS series P.O.V.