Producer/Director/Editor

Jasmine Dellal was raised in England, but also spent much of her childhood with her grandmother in India. She received her Bachelors degree in Modern Languages (French and Spanish language & literature) from Balliol College, Oxford University. In 1993, Dellal completed a Master's degree in Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, where she studied under the acclaimed documentarian Marlon Riggs.

"AMERICAN GYPSY: A Stranger In Everybody's Land" was the first feature documentary to be produced and directed by Jasmine Dellal. It aired on national US television (PBS' POV series), won awards, and played in U.S. art theaters and in festivals around the world. (For more see: www.americangypsy.com).

While at Berkeley, Dellal produced, directed and edited "In His Own Image," a profile of a homeless photographer, for which she won a student Emmy Award. She then co-produced/directed "She Says," a half-hour documentary about strong American women dissociating themselves from feminism in the nineties. From 1993-95, Dellal was Associate Producer and Assistant Editor of Marlon Riggs' "Black Is...Black Ain't," which showed on TV and theatrically in 1996 (and won top awards from: Sundance, Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, San Francisco International Film Festival, etc.) She then worked with Marco Williams on "-ISM(N.)," an educational project about diversity on campuses. Now based in New York and San Francisco, Dellal also works as a freelance journalist; AVID editor; producer and advisor to independent documentaries.

Roko Belic - Wadirum
click here for a photo (he's on the left, on the right is his brother Adrian)

Director/Producer/Editor, FREEDOM WRITERS

Roko Belic started his filmmaking life in third grade with his brother, Adrian, when a friend of theirs (see Christopher Nolan - "Memento" and "Following") borrowed a super-8 movie camera from his parents. Heavily influenced by Star Wars, the young team experimented with special effects and the surreality of film. Later, because the knob on his family's single television had broken off (and his mother used a wrench to lock the TV to the local PBS channel), Roko became enchanted with programs through which he could explore the world around him. In 1989 he enrolled at the University of California at Santa Barbara and majored in studio art. He studied Russian, Swahili, and Arabic languages and during the middle of his term he took a year and half hiatus to work and then travel around the world.

Having made films throughout his educational career, GENGHIS BLUES was the first of his professional efforts. It was nominated for an Academy Award in 2000 and won the Sundance Audience Award in 1999, amongst many, many other international accolades.

When he's not hard at work on the FREEDOM WRITERS documentary, Roko is often to be found consulting, teaching, editing or building a shed to house an AVID and his grandmother's furniture. At the beginning of this year, he spent a month in India filming the Kumbha Mela for "Twilight Man", the part-fact/part-fiction tale of a wandering wise man and a westerner who find they have something to teach each other.

October Films - Denman Rooke

Coproducer, GYPSY CARAVAN

October Films in London has produced more than 80 documentary, current affairs, science, history and education films. Founded in 1989, October's annual turnover has grown to more than £5 million ($7 million), often working with international co-funders such as HBO, Discovery, TLC, Telefilm Canada, Arte, Canal+, NHK, The History Channel, ChinaTV and Odeon Films in Germany. October has won or been nominated for more than 45 international awards for Best Documentary, including the Prix Italia, Prix Europa, Emmy, the UK's Grierson, BAFTA's Flaherty Award, the Canadian Academy's Gemini and the CINE Golden Eagle. Having specialized in making high quality television documentaries, October is now expanding into drama and documentary features for cinema release.
(www.octoberfilms.co.uk)

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