Devyani Kamdar, Executive Director
Devyani has an entrepreneurial background in publishing. She has worked in editorial and finance on numerous large-format photography books, including the best-selling Day in the Life series. Three of the books Devyani worked on were New York Times bestsellers: A Day in the Life of America, A Day in the Life of the Soviet Union and Christmas in America. Devyani was named a literary laureate of the San Francisco Public Library for her work on One Year Off. Devyani was director of finance on A Day in the Life of Africa, a charitable project which benefited AIDS education programs in Africa. In 2005, the start-up she co-founded, DeVie LLC, produced the popular Pink Ribbon Men of Marin Calendar featured on Anderson Cooper, CNBC, and Evening Magazine, among others. The Pink Ribbon Men project raised awareness and money for breast cancer research and education. Devyani’s involvement in film began during a stint in Japan in the 1980′s when she acted in the Japanese movie Maboroshi no Mizumi (Lake of Illusion) directed by Shinobu Hashimoto, was a regular cast member of the TV series “Tadaima Houkago”, and had a guest role in an episode of the TV series, G-Men. A Stanford graduate with degrees in International Relations and Japanese, Devyani is a world champion XTERRA triathlete, who continues to enjoy cycling and running.
devyani@paloaltoinstitute.org
Alex Ippolite, Managing Director
@aippolite
Alex recently served as the Database Analyst and web technology staffer for the Sundance Film Festival and Sundance Institute. She brought her extensive background in web and application technologies specific to the entertainment industry to Sundance and now looks forward to growing the Palo Alto Film Festival. Alex likes to spend her free time playing in the Santa Cruz Mountains with her husband and young daughter.
alex@paloaltoinstitute.org
Alf Seccombe, Director of Media and Programming
@alfseccombe
Alf is an award-winning filmmaker whose short films have played at Rotterdam International Film Festival and San Francisco International Film Festival. Prior to joining PAI, he consulted for eight years at Sundance Institute in the Feature Film Program International. As a recipient of an AMPAS Foundation grant, Alf worked with the Romanian New Wave production company Strada Film. He has also received grants from the Milos Forman Foundation and the North Carolina Humanities Council. He received a Master of Fine Arts in Film from Columbia University. Currently, one of Alf’s short films is playing on the Brazilian online festival, Fluxus.
alf@paloaltoinstitute.org
Kaitlin Sullivan, Art Director
@kaitlins
Kaitlin designs all visual elements of the Festival in addition to curating Interactive. Prior projects include work for Tesla Motors, Stanford Sports Medicine, Woodside Capital Partners, and other Bay Area start-ups. Kaitlin received her degree in Communication Design from Parsons School of Design. She is a member of the AIGA.
kaitlin@paloaltoinstitute.org
AJ Sakaguchi, Development Associate – Community & Education Outreach
@ayajensak
AJ Sakaguchi is a recent graduate of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine with a double major in French and Government and Legal Studies with a minor in Africana Studies. She is originally from Mountain View, California where she was an intern for Assemblywoman Sally Lieber for three years. She has experience working with several non-profits, including the Center for International Policy, the Exploratorium, and the Korematsu Institute for Civil Rights and Education. She attended her first short film festival in Clermont-Ferrand, France last year where she taught English to students at Université Blaise-Pascal.
aj@paloaltoinstitute.org
PAIFF also benefits from the advice of the PAI Board and Advisory Board.
Advisory Board
Britt Bensen
Britt is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-founder of On Demand Weekly (www.ondemandweekly.com). He is the former head of Affiliate Marketing and VOD for Sundance Channel. Prior to Sundance Chanel, Britt worked for Miramax Films and BMI.
Mike Bunnell, Sci-Tech Oscar Winner, CEO of Fantasy Lab, Inc.
Michael Bunnell is president and CEO of Fantasy Lab, Inc., a video game studio that is using film language to create compelling interactive entertainment. Michael’s ground-breaking computer graphics research in global illumination recently won him a Sci-Tech Oscar. His technology has been implemented in renderers at Pixar, Dreamworks, and Sony Pictures/Imageworks and used in over thirty major motion pictures, such as Iron Man 2 and Toy Story 3. In the past he worked at Silicon Graphics on image processing and digital video editing tools. Later he became a member of NVIDIA’s compiler team, helping to introduce programmable graphics processors to the world. He has written several chapters for the popular GPU Gems series of books and has spoken at the Game Developer’s Conference and Siggraph.
Tanuj Chopra, Film Director
Tanuj Chopra is an award-winning filmmaker from Palo Alto. In 2003, his New Delhi based short film, Butterfly, won three best film awards in addition to screening at over 30 festivals across North America, Europe, India and Pakistan. His first feature film “Punching at the Sun” premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the 2006 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. Variety called his feature “distinctive, original and iconoclastic”. Tanuj holds a BA in Art Semiotics from Brown University and an MFA from Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Columbia School of the Arts Dean’s Fellowship and the Columbia FOCUS Film Fellowship. In addition to making films, he currently serves as program coordinator for the New Voices for Youth initiative sponsored by the Palo Alto League of Women voters.
Susan Dawson, Co-founder of TED
Susan Dawson is a consultant and philanthropist living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Previously, she spent ten years as President and Executive Director of the Sapling Foundation, where she focused resources on economic well-being and environmental and human health in the developing world, primarily sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, and launched the TED Fellows program. She has served on a variety of corporate and non-profit Boards, and is on EDF’s National Council. Her current focus is on hunger, food security and agriculture.
Harry Gould, Senior Vice President Worldwide Alliances at Informatica Corporation
Harry Gould has over 25 years of leadership experience in the enterprise software space. He is currently serving as the Senior Vice President Worldwide Alliances at Informatica Corporation where he is focused on global growth and performance excellence. Gould also serves on the board of three non-profit agencies, including Chairman of the Board at the BizWorld Foundation. Gould has a BA from UCLA and graduated Cum Laude.
Cris Ippolite, iSolutions Inc., President
Cris Ippolite is the president and founder of iSolutions, Inc., a Los Angeles-based information system firm specializing in development of systems for the entertainment industry. Cris is entering his 20th year as a consultant with a résumé that includes working with Disney, The Oscars, Sundance Film Festival, NAACP Image Awards, Sony Pictures, Stanford University, Starz, USC Football, National Institute of Health and countless others. Cris is also a regular speaker at several technology conferences as a noted as an expert in his field and serves as a technology trainer both in classrooms and online. With exposure to the film industry for most of his career, he brings both his love of Film and an industry insider perspective to PAIFF.
George Kembel, Co-founder and Executive Director of the Stanford Institute of Design (d.school)
George is co-founder and Executive Director of the Stanford Institute of Design (d.school) and has taught on subjects ranging from human values and innovation in design to creativity and visual thinking. A serial entrepreneur who has co-founded several design-centered corporations, George has also won national and industry awards for entrepreneurship and excellence in design.
Jennifer Knoll
Jennifer is Director of Partnerships, outreach and advocating for the green community at DotGreen, a non-profit organization working to establish the .green internet registry. DotGreen promotes the green movement and supports environmental organizations and projects. Jennifer attended University of California in Santa Barbara before beginning her career in the motion picture industry at Industrial Light & Magic, the acclaimed visual effects division of LucasFilm, LTD in Marin County. She worked as an Optical Coordinator, Assistant to the Head of Post Production and Visual Effects Coordinator on blockbuster movies such as the Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, The Abyss, Ghostbusters sequels, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Hunt for Red October. In addition, Jennifer directed product sales for Knoll Software whose products included the graphics tools Cybermesh, Missing Link and Lens Flare Pro.
In-Ah Lee, Producer
In-Ah Lee is a producer based in Los Angeles and Cologne. Lee produced The Way I Spent the End of the World for Romanian director Catalin Mitulescu (Cannes 2006, Un Certain Regard, Best Actress Award), a French Romanian co-production, and Grace Lee’s American Zombie (Slamdance 2007) in Los Angeles and recently completed production on Au Revoir Taipei (Berlin 2010, Forum, NETPAC Award) by Arvin Chen. Her upcoming projects include In the Miso Soup with Wim Wenders, Arvin Chen’s Nanjing East Road, Letters to Matschek by Niels Mueller and Janissary by Peter Antonijevic.
Kieran Ridge, Film Educator
Kieran Ridge is founder and director of the Filmbridge program at The Marin School, in Sausalito, California. In addition to teaching high school students about the art and science of film, the program presents screenings, with filmmakers in person, to audiences in the San Francisco Bay Area. Kieran’s guests have included winners of the Oscar, Cesar, Berlinale, Sundance Grand Jury, Independent Lens and Golden Gate awards. Most recently, Kieran hosted John Avildsen, director (Rocky; The Karate Kid Triology), at Kerner Optical film studio, and Debra Granik, director, with Jennifer Lawrence, actress (Winter’s Bone), at The Marin School. Other regular program partners include the de Young Museum, the San Francisco Film Society and the the California Film Institute.
Collaborators
Michael Bodie, Director of Online Video Content
Bodie is an award winning filmmaker and producer. As the content producer for the Sundance Institute, Bodie was integral to the inception and direction of their multi-camera, live-stream coverage of the 2010 and 2011 Film Festivals. He directed the eight-part documentary web series “Sundance Directors Lab” about the Sundance Institute’s prestigious workshops. Previously at Sundance’s Feature Film and Theatre Programs, Bodie participated in the development of projects including the films “Me and You and Everyone We Know”, “Paradise Now”, and “A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints”, and the plays “Grey Gardens” and “Passing Strange”. In 2005 Bodie co-produced a staging of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “I Am My Own Wife”, directed by Moisés Kaufman and starring original cast member Jefferson Mays, in Krakow, Poland. Bodie has taught digital video production, acting, directing, and improv at various schools and universities including USC, Cal Poly Pomona, and the International School of Brussels, Belgium. He has his MFA from UCLA’s School of Film in Television.
Sarah Musgrove, Volunteer Manager
Sarah began her career in events for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences where she supported the logistic team for their annual events including, The Academy Awards and Governors Awards. She quickly became passionate about utilizing events as a platform for marketing brands and supporting community initiatives. In 2010 she began working in engagement marketing producing a wide array of field marketing initiatives including; in-store retail demonstrations, mobile marketing tours, grassroots sampling campaigns, and corporate events. Through these events and promotions, she has learned that having a strong team is the foundation of each event’s success.
sarah@paloaltoinstitute.org
Michelle Rick, Blogger
@themrick
Michelle Rick graduated from the University of California at Davis in 2010 with degrees in communications and sociology. She loves movies with spunky characters and a rockin’ soundtrack, pop culture and candy. She previously interned at Frameline in San Francisco and has lived in Northern California her entire life.
Jenni Rowland, Programming/Guest Services Manager
Jenni has provided Programming and Guest Services support to various Bay Area festivals, including the San Francisco International Film Festival, the Mill Valley Film Festival, and SF Sketchfest. She graduated from UC Santa Barbara in 2004 and is currently working toward completing her Master of Arts degree in Cinema Studies at San Francisco State University. A Northern California native, Jenni now lives in San Francisco.
jenni@paloaltoinstitute.org
Yvette Dickson-Tetteh, Programming Intern
Yvette Dickson-Tetteh, 19, is currently a student at Stanford University double majoring in Anthropology, with a focus on Culture and Society, and French. She is very active in film and hopes to go on to produce documentary films after university. Yvette plans to spend her Summer 2012 in Ghana making her first documentary! After a fun and successful first year with The Palo Alto Int’l film festival Yvette is thoroughly looking forward to working with the team to produce another great film fest.
submissions@paloaltoinstitute.org
