Czech-Canadian Katerina Cizek has shot documentary films around the world. From people-smuggling - to water crises - to youth gangs - she exposes tough yet often overlooked human rights issues. She received a degree in anthropology, and worked as a journalist in print, radio and TV before happily escaping to the independence of documentary filmmaking and new media.

Mostly involving human rights, Cizek's previous films and media projects include: a critical look at the velvet revolution in the Czech Republic, (WAITING FOR A MIRACLE); a critically acclaimed account of the Rwandan genocide, (THE DEAD ARE ALIVE: Eyewitness in Rwanda); the verité INDIAN POSSE: life in Aboriginal Gang Territory; an investigation in the trafficking of humans (IN SEARCH OF THE AFRICAN QUEEN: A People-Smuggling Operation); and THE WATER WARS about the battle over water in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Sandra Dametto is a web and video producer with a passion for documentary. Recent web credits include the new Cirque du Soleil website which was honored with four awards, including Best of Show, at the 2002 Digital Marketing Awards. In 1998, Sandra co-directed and co-edited "Oh Mother!", a one-hour documentary for WTN. In 1997, she produced, co-directed and co-edited "Groove", a musical short for Bravo! Her video short Teleseek (1997) travelled with the Short Attention Span Video Festival and her first documentary "Love Heals" (1993) is archived with the CDC (US), the AIDS Clearinghouse (Ottawa) and with the AIDS Committee of Toronto. Sandra is founder of Girl at Work Productions and is currently co-producing Go! a media installation/dance project. She has a B.A. in Communications and an M.A. in Media Studies from Concordia University in Montreal.

Barry Duncan is an award-winning teacher, author, consultant and founder and past president of the Ontario based Association for Media Literacy. Co-author of the best selling text book, Mass Media and Popular Culture, (Harcourt - Canada), he has presented workshops and keynote addresses to over 10, 000 teachers in Canada and the United States and at international conferences in the UK, Brazil and Spain.

Now semi-retired, he was head of English and Media Arts at the School of Experiential Education in the Toronto Board of Education, an enriched, senior secondary public alternative school where he pioneered interdisciplinary curriculum. Today, based in Toronto, he continues to write and lecture extensively on global studies and media literacy around the world.

Eric LeMoyne creates music scores and soundtracks for film and television productions. His composing career dates to about 1986 when his Fender Rhodes piano got too heavy to lug around anymore. Today he works with other fine musicians when the budgets are big and with big computers when the budgets are small. His journey to find the right music for a project is always an exercise of discovery, of trying to reveal the music that lies within the images and story. And not getting fired. Music of course comes from the soul but when it is in the service of a story it must come from the soul of the film. Montreal is home to his life and his studio. He is a member of the GCFC, the AfofM, SOCAN and SODRAC.

Joey R.B. Lozano. uses his personal video camera to assert indigenous land rights, and to investigate corruption and environmental degradation in the Philippines. Joey is a human rights activist. He's also one of the country's leading independent (and self-taught) investigative reporters. He freelances for the Philippine Daily Inquirer, covering Indigenous peoples' rights and the environment, the two most dangerous beats in the Philippines. Joey’s investigations began in 1987, when he helped ABC’s 20/20 uncover the "Tasaday hoax", a highly successful fraud to pass off local tribespeople as a newly discovered Stone Age culture. He soon embarked on his own, digging into illegal logging, gold mining and land-grabbing. His exposés quickly made him the object of repeated assassination and abduction attempts, in a country that is one of the more dangerous places to practice human rights work and media. Since 1986, over 40 Filipino journalists have been murdered in the line of duty, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Joey is a partner and board of director of the New York-based human rights organization WITNESS. Joey and Renee Lozano, also a community worker, live in South Cotobato with their five children.

Francis Miquet is a founding partner of Necessarylllusions. He was associate & line producer, cinematographer and sound editor on their 1992 international hit MANUFACTURING CONSENT: Noam Chomsky and the Media. Miquet acted as producer and cinematographer on other Necessary Illusions documentaries (HO KANADA, THE QUEBECANADA COMPLEX, SEEING IS BELIEVING). He was also cinematographer on the National Film Board of Canada's festival favourite CINEMA VERITÉ directed by Peter Wintonick. He co-produced, shot and edited with the late Frank Cole, the critically acclaimed epic documentary LIFE WITHOUT DEATH, winner of several international films awards including "Best Feature" at Visions du réel in Switzerland.

Miquet's video-documentary INTRUSIVE DEVICES won the Award of Excellence at the National Fine Arts Video Competition in St- Louis, MO. His photo-essay, QUE SE RINDA TU MADRE, shot in Nicaragua during the Contra War, was exhibited in several galleries in Toronto. He is currently in research and development of a feature documentary film entitled CITY OF BEES which explores man's fascinating relationship with bees through the ages.

Christopher Murtagh is currently the webmaster and system administrator for McGill University's Web Communications Group. He is co-developer, along with designer Eric Smith, of the McGill Gateway, a custom-built database-driven web publishing system. Christopher also designed and maintains the server system that runs the Gateway. Prior to joining McGill, he worked as a computer consultant and freelance audio engineer. With over a decade of formal classical music and jazz training, Christopher has also studied mathematics, computer science, sound recording and music technology. His 5-channel audio software has had several thousand downloads. Christopher also serves as technical advisor to Montreal's KORE ensemble and as chief technical officer and co-owner of Ombú Productions.

Catherine Olsen is the series producer, programmer, and commissioning editor for CBC Newsworld's documentary series The Passionate Eye, a position she has held for the last eight years. From 1993 – 2000 she was also the host of The Passionate Eye Sunday Showcase. The series feature some of the best political and social issue documentaries from around the world…"a showcase for award-winning documentaries that challenge what's wrong in the world and celebrate what's right." Award-winning documentaries she has commissioned or programmed include; Seeing is Believing, My Left Breast, In the Shadow of a Saint, Scenes from a Corner Store, Murder on a Sunday Morning, Southern Comfort, The War Room, Just Melvin, Long Nights Journey into Day… to name just a few. For more info check out www.newsworld.cbc.ca/docs.

Alex Roslin is a Montreal freelance writer and researcher. He has won numerous investigative reporting prizes, including a prestigious award from the Canadian Association of Journalists in 2000. The Quebec Community Newspapers Association has named him the most outstanding journalist of the year. He now works for CBC-TV's investigative show Disclosure. His print work has appeared in the Toronto Star, Montreal Gazette, Saturday Night Magazine, National Post, Kitchener Waterloo-Record, Outdoor Canada and other major Canadian and U.S. publications. He helped found and edit a magazine serving the Cree First Nations of James Bay and is presently working on a book about police officers who batter their spouses. Alex enjoys kung fu, scuba diving and his wife's beautiful smile.

Eric Smith is the information architect and designer for McGill University's website at www.mcgill.ca. He is the co-author with Christopher Murtagh of the University's web publishing software. Prior to becoming a web professional, he worked as a freelance journalist and as a researcher and producer for CBC Radio Current Affairs in Montreal.

Analee Weinberger has worked in the fields of visual arts and social welfare for the last fifteen years. She has a strong interest in curriculum development in both media education and social justice, and she has taught photography as well as social policy and administration at the university level. While working in community organizations and provincial social welfare agencies, Analee developed and facilitated workshops on the topics of conjugal violence, advocacy for people with mental disabilities, welfare legislation, and media literacy for NGOs and social workers. She has an MSW in social policy from McGill University.

Analee's arts and human rights related articles and photographs have appeared in a variety of local and national publications. She continues to push the boundaries of alternative photographic techniques, particularly Polaroid emulsion transfers and manipulated SX 70.

With over 25 years as a "professional", Peter Wintonick has produced, directed and edited all manner of independent film, video and new-media - an array,which includes dramatic features, theatrical docs and socio-political works. Wintonick is known for producing and directing (with Mark Achbar) MANUFACTURING CONSENT: Noam Chomsky and the Media. It's the most successful documentary in Canadian history. He directed the award winning CINEMA VERITE: Defining the Moment — about the contemporary legacy of that revolutionary movement. Wintonick has worked for major movers, shakers (and snakes) in the Motion Picture Jungle. He has also aided and abetted the development of many independent filmmakers. In the early nineties, he created the world's first virtual film festival. With co-producer Francis Miquet, Necessary Illusions produces non-fiction media on a whole range of social and cultural issues.

Elana Wright is a Montreal arts and entertainment publicist who got her career start promoting grassroots events in the feminist and lesbian and gay communities. A graduate of Concordia University, she studied Women Studies and Communication Studies. She has worked for organizations as diverse as the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival, the Montreal International Festival of New Cinema and New Media, the National Film Board of Canada, and Divers/CitÈ, Montreal's pride celebration. From theatre to comedy to books to music to film, Elana does work she loves, promoting Montreal's vibrant culture. The community work closest to her heart is with Dykes on Mykes on CKUT FM, where she has been a producer and host for 7 years.

Produced by Necessary Illusions Productions
in association with CBC-Newsworld/SRC/RDI
With the assistance of:
Canadian Television Fund created by the Government of Canada and the Canadian cable industry
CTF: Licence Fee Program
Telefilm Canada: Equity Investment Program
QUÉBEC
Crédit d'impôt cinéma et télévision - Gestion SODEC
Rogers Documentary Fund
SODEC
Société de développement des entreprises culturelles - Québec
Soros Documentary Fund of the Open Society Institute
THE CANADIAN INDEPENDENT FILM & VIDEO FUND
Government of Canada
Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit program