SAVE THE DATE: Thursday, February 23, 2017, noon - 3pm
Panelists
DEXTER DAVIS
Dexter began his career in entertainment at 23 years old when he formed Dexter Davis Productions, a company that specialized in organizing creative fundraising events for non-profits in San Francisco. In 2000 started the boutique production company StoneCreek Entertainment. Davis expanded the company, changed the name to D Street Media Group and relocated to Europe to learn first-hand the global film business. In 2004 he executive produced his first feature “The Reception,” which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2005. Dexter continued to produce films, including indie hits like “Rivers Wash Over Me” and “Somewhere Slow” with Jesslyn Gilsig (Glee, Vikings) and David Costabile (Breaking Bad, Billions.) He formed D Street Releasings in 2006 to distribute international films in the U.S., and brokered a first of its kind co-marketing deal with Volkswagen AG to support the marketing campaigns for foreign language
films in North America.
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In 2014 Dexter joined the board of Ghana’s National Museum on Slavery and Freedom where he serves with Nobel Peace Prize recipient Kofi Annan and world renowned architect David Adjaye. Davis has produced four additional films with a number of films going into production in 2017, including the heist film “The Blue Mauritius” starring Eric Dane (Grey’s Anatomy, The Last Ship) and Brian Cox (X-Men, Bourne Identity) and legendary French actor Gerard Depardieu. Following is ‘Team Joy,’ which he’s executive producing for Joe Newcomb, the Oscar winning producer of ‘Dallas Buyers Club,’ and ‘Moto Anjos,’ a Brazilian action film set in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Aside from film and television production, Davis is building a state-of-the-art film and TV studio in the beautiful town of Port Shepstone. A municipality in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. Dexter returned to the Bay Area in 2013 and chose Oakland to call home and has since joined the tourism bureau board of “Visit Oakland,” with a mandate to bring more film and television productions to the East Bay.
JENNIFER DeVERE BRODY
Jennifer DeVere Brody is a Professor in Theater & Performance Studies and an Affiliate in the Center for Comparative Studies of Race and Ethnicity (CCSRE). Her work has appeared in Theatre Journal, Signs, Genders, Callaloo, Text and Performance Quarterly and in several edited volumes. Her books, Impossible Purities (Duke University Press, 1998) and Punctuation: Art, Politics and Play (Duke University Press, 2008) both discuss relations among and between sexuality, gender, racialization, visual studies and performance. She has served as the President of the Women and Theatre Program, on the board of Women and Performance and has worked with the Ford and Mellon Foundations. She received that Monette-Horwitz Prize for Independent Research Against Homophobia. She co-produced “The Theme is Blackness” festival of black plays in Durham, NC when she taught in African American Studies at Duke University. Her research and teaching focus on performance, aesthetics, politics and subjectivity as well as feminist theory, queer studies and contemporary cultural studies. Currently, she is working with colleagues the re-publication of James Baldwin’s illustrated book, Little Man, Little Man and a new book about the intersections of sculpture and performance. She held the Weinberg College of Board of Visitors Professorship at Northwestern University.
MYRTON RUNNING WOLF
Dr. Running Wolf holds masters degrees from Tisch School of the Arts at NYU and the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. He completed his Ph.D. in Theater and Performance Studies at Stanford University. Behind-the-scenes, Myrton worked in Production Management for Walt Disney Studio’s ABC Television Group on primetime network series LOST, Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Brothers & Sisters, and Criminal Minds. He was also a Creative Producer for The CW and NBC network television affiliates. His professional performance experience includes roles in feature films The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The New World, Into the West, several network television shows, and theater productions in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area. As an award-winning writer/director/producer, his film and stage work has played across the nation. As an academic, he has taught at Stanford and Occidental College, lectured at Vassar College and Santa Clara University, and led workshops on theater making, identity politics, and the politics of ethnic minority inclusion/participation in mainstream media at numerous tribal and junior colleges.
FELIX R. SANCHEZ
Mr. Sanchez is a principal with Terra Strategies LLC, a government affairs and public relations firm in Washington, D.C. Mr. Sanchez is also the co-founder and pro bono Chairman of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts (NHFA), which he co-founded in 1997 with actors Jimmy Smits, Sonia Braga Esai Morales and Merel Julia. The non-profit foundation has become a leader in promoting Latinos in the media, entertainment and telecommunications industries. For the last several years, Mr. Sanchez, as NHFA Chairman, led the fight to desegregate the Kennedy Center Honors, which resulted in major administrative and personnel changes at the Kennedy Center, which yielded the following Latino honorees in 2013, Carlos Santana and Martina Arroyo and in 2015, Rita Moreno. Mr. Sanchez's efforts, on behalf of NHFA, led to the induction of 22 new Latino members into the Association of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Oscars).
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In November 2016, Mr. Sanchez launched PitchNY, with Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Office of Motion Pictures and Television and NBCUniversal for undergraduate students in New York State. Mr. Sanchez also developed Quórum Call a content pitch program established for NHFA’s graduate students principally at NYU, Columbia, Harvard, Yale, Northwestern, USC, UCLA and UT Austin. Mr. Sanchez also led the advocacy and strategy to convince Saturday Night Live to hire for the first time in 40 years, their first Latina cast members. In 2013, Mr. Sanchez’s work was honored with the 2013 Advocacy Award by the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP). In 2016, the Government of Mexico presented Mr. Sanchez with the Ohtlí Award, its highest national honor presented to Mexican American and Latino philanthropy leaders. Mr. Sanchez serves on the Latino Jewish Leadership Council and the Kennedy Center Latino Advisory Board. Mr. Sanchez is a CNN contributor and has two children, Isabella Sanchez, a student at Boston University, and Philippe Sanchez who recently joined West Point’s Class of 2020.
PETER SOBY
Peter Soby is a film writer/producer and a C5/C6 quadriplegic due to a spinal cord injury at the age of 19. He is proud to represent the disabled community in many different aspects of the arts and entertainment industries. Peter got his start in the entertainment business working at Largo Entertainment at 20th Century Fox Studios and Shoreline Pictures before striking out on his own to independently produce. One of Peter's proudest accomplishments in the entertainment industry is resurrecting/owning the 1961 cult-classic film entitled, CARNIVAL OF SOULS. He helped oversee the negative restoration of the film by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences, and he then collaborated with the esteemed Criterion Collection Company to release a special edition, digitally-enhanced restoration Blu-ray of the film. Peter has produced feature films, short films, theatrical plays and music videos. Most recently, Peter produced the music video for Paula Cole's 20th anniversary re-recording of "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?". Behind the camera, Peter recently produced and directed a short film entitled, ANOTHER GRACE & JOHNNY ADVENTURE: ZOMBIE ISLAND which made its world premier as part of the Los Angeles Comedy Film Festival. In front of the camera, Peter is the producer and host of a bi-weekly, live-streaming, sports psychology based show called "Distill It with Richard Listens" on the UBNRadio/TV Network. Peter is also a proud member of the distinguished artist group, the MFPA (Mouth and Foot Painting Artists), as he creates his paintings holding the paintbrush in his teeth. Finally, Peter is working alongside fellow filmmaker and disability advocate, Tracie Laymon, on their venture called Able Talent. They are building a platform to manage, advocate and promote disabled talent to and for the entertainment industry, including compiling the industry's largest database of all ages and ranges of disabled artists, actors, performers, athletes, etc.
PETER SOBY
Peter Soby is a film writer/producer and a C5/C6 quadriplegic due to a spinal cord injury at the age of 19. He is proud to represent the disabled community in many different aspects of the arts and entertainment industries. Peter got his start in the entertainment business working at Largo Entertainment at 20th Century Fox Studios and Shoreline Pictures before striking out on his own to independently produce. One of Peter's proudest accomplishments in the entertainment industry is resurrecting/owning the 1961 cult-classic film entitled, CARNIVAL OF SOULS. He helped oversee the negative restoration of the film by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences, and he then collaborated with the esteemed Criterion Collection Company to release a special edition, digitally-enhanced restoration Blu-ray of the film. Peter has produced feature films, short films, theatrical plays and music videos. Most recently, Peter produced the music video for Paula Cole's 20th anniversary re-recording of "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?". Behind the camera, Peter recently produced and directed a short film entitled, ANOTHER GRACE & JOHNNY ADVENTURE: ZOMBIE ISLAND which made its world premier as part of the Los Angeles Comedy Film Festival. In front of the camera, Peter is the producer and host of a bi-weekly, live-streaming, sports psychology based show called "Distill It with Richard Listens" on the UBNRadio/TV Network. Peter is also a proud member of the distinguished artist group, the MFPA (Mouth and Foot Painting Artists), as he creates his paintings holding the paintbrush in his teeth. Finally, Peter is working alongside fellow filmmaker and disability advocate, Tracie Laymon, on their venture called Able Talent. They are building a platform to manage, advocate and promote disabled talent to and for the entertainment industry, including compiling the industry's largest database of all ages and ranges of disabled artists, actors, performers, athletes, etc.
