Phillip Gentile

Long Beach, MS

Phillip Gentile is an independent filmmaker who teaches film studies in the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern Mississippi. His areas of teaching expertise include film history and theory, film production and animation. His areas of scholarly interest include documentary film, postwar American avant-garde film and cinematic representation of masculinity.

He is presently revising his doctoral dissertation,"Pugilistic Occasions: Cultural Constructions of Boxing." His recent film Cursive was awarded Best Experimental Film at the 6th Annual Crossroads Film Festival. His most recent work, Words and Pictures From the Book of Wonders premiered at the Mississippi Film & Video Alliance Emerging Filmmakers Showcase in 2007.

J. Dennis Bounds, PhD

Virginia Beach, VA

J. Dennis Bounds earned his BA in Communications at Baylor University, his MA in Screenwriting and PhD in Critical-Cultural Studies of Cinema-TV at the University of Texas at Austin. Bounds worked as a videographer, cinematographer, reporter, producer and director at two television stations in Texas. At Regent University, Bounds helped create and for a number of years chaired the Master of Fine Arts in Screenwriting, Producing and Directing. Bounds has published Perry Mason: The Authorship and Reproduction of a Popular Hero, a key text on the character “Perry Mason” in literature, broadcasting and film. Bounds currently is Professional in Residence at Regent University, teaching in the areas of cinema and TV writing, history, theory and criticism.

Michael Jackson Chaney

Savannah, GA

Michael Jackson Chaney’s film and time based media work has been exhibited internationally. His short films have been included in numerous national and international film festivals including the Black Maria Film Festival, The International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Edinburgh International Film Festival, The Savannah Film Festival, The Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films, The Virginia Film Festival, and The Cannes Short Film Corner.

Born and raised in Mississippi, Michael Jackson Chaney holds a B.F.A. from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California and an M.F.A. from Tufts University/The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He has completed post-graduate studies in theology at the University of the South, Sewanee, TN. He is a professor of Film and Television and Sound Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia, USA.

Prior to teaching he worked as a television producer in New York City for clients such as Hearst Publications, the Seagram Company, and the New York Times. He has been a consultant and special events programmers for the Savannah Film Festival since it’s inception in 1998.

Frank Vitolo

Huntsville, AL

Frank Vitolo is a New Yorker with a film and theatre career that spans forty-five years. He was on the Broadway stages at the early age of five and began as an actor with fellow New York actors Robert Deniro, Peter Gallagher and SAG President Alan Rosenberg starting out in well known films such as Wanderers, Fame, Godfather III, and Working Girl. His acting career continued with TV role series Law and Order, John Laroquette Show, Mad About You and L.A. Law.

As Frank progressed in his career he became involved in the production end. He has produced nine films in the past three years in which two of his films were “The Box,” with Gabrielle Union and the “The Music Within” with Ron Livingston and Michael Sheen which gained awards at several festivals and was purchased by MGM. Frank’s latest film “Hunger” was filmed in Huntsville, Alabama. In addition, he has multi-picture and distribution for three more films. Frank is an advisor to Phillip Seymour Hoffman and The LaByrinth Theater Company in New York City. He is known as a major “connector” in the movie and theater world of New York and Los Angeles.

Frank lives in northern Alabama, where his wife’s family is from. When in town he teaches acting in Huntsville, AL which he feels is the purest of all his work. He mentors many of his students to careers in Los Angeles and New York City.

Harris Salomon

New York, NY

Harris Salomon is the President of Atlantic Overseas Pictures in New York. The company is producing its first feature film this year, “The Flower of the Fence” staring Richard Dreyfuss, Maria Morgenstern and Thomas Sangster. This 12 million dollar independent film is the first Holocaust love story ever to be filmed. Principal photography is in Budapest. Mr. Salomon is co-producer and co-writer of the film. Oprah Winfry in 2007 called the story one of the greatest love stories of modern times. “The Flower and the Fence” is being distributed by Arclight Films.

Harris Salomon also has a long and illustrious career in television. He has produced for ABC, CBS, ITN, Lifetime Television, Comedy Central and The Travel Channel. His credits include The CBS Morning Show, The Joan Lunden Show, The Dr. Ruth Show, The Denis Leary Show, Real Stories of the Highway Patrol, The Melina Show, Famous Footsteps, ABC News, and CBS News. He is also presently Executive USA Producer for Office Kei Japanese Television in New York - one of the largest producers of programming for Japan in America.

Adrian Belic

Born in America of Czechoslovakian and Yugoslavian parents, Adrian Belic grew up in Chicago, Illinois but spent many summers behind the “Iron Curtain” in Eastern Europe speaking the languages and living with family and friends. This unique cross-cultural upbringing sparked his curiosity about the way people view each other and the world around. At a very young age he was drawn into the art of storytelling.

Belic graduated from the University of Southern California in 1993 with a B.S. in Political Science and a minor in International Relations.

He has worked with various producers, co-producing, shooting video and film, recording sound and developing stories. He served as the director of an environmental information center in Los Angeles for a year before a childhood fascination with a little-known country in Southern Siberia called Tuva resurrected itself.

Belic and his brother, Roko, formed Wadi Rum Productions in 1995 and embarked on their first production Genghis Blues, winner of 1999 Sundance Audience Award, as well as many domestic and international film festival awards, and a 2000 Academy Award Nomination for Best Feature Documentary.

His latest project, Beyond the Call, is a feature documentary filmed in Afghanistan and Asia. It is about three Americans, a cross between Mother Teresa and Indiana Jones, who travel to the world’s war zones delivering lifesaving humanitarian aid.

Belic is a member of the Film Arts Foundation and the International Documentary Association and teaches and serves on film festival juries. He continues to travel the world as he works on his films and speaks and writes about filmmaking and following one’s passion.

Elvin Whitesides

Elvin Whitesides is an actor/director/writer/producer who has worked with such film icons as James Coburn, Barbara Bain, Robert Duvall and M.C. Gainey. His roles on Fraiser, Glengarry Glen Ross and Ghost World have garnered praise in the Hollywood Reporter, the L.A. Weekly and other press.

Currently, he is in production on Phantom Sightings, an art documentary spotlighting Cheech Marin. Elvin has previously won numerous awards for documentary filmmaking, three of them now in national distribution - Color and Fire and Galanos on Galanos represented by Films for the Humanities, and Jacob Lawrence represented by Homevision.

In addition to his art documentaries, Elvin made a documentary short with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans focusing on their work with needy children. In The Making of “The Player,” Elvin documented Robert Altman behind the scenes while directing his renowned feature. Elvin’s first film, made in 1975 on 16mm, Thinking of You Always, has been featured on German Expressionist websites in Berlin.

Dr. Jim Laws

Dr. Jim Laws, on right.

Visit the www.beyondthecallthemovie.com web site for more information!

Mimi Freedman

Mimi Freedman is an Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker based in Los Angeles. She began writing, producing and directing for nonfiction television after receiving her masters degree in Film History, Theory and Criticism from UCLA. Since then she has created more than fifty films, television specials and series episodes for Turner Classic Movies, A&E, American Movie Classics and Lifetime.

In 2007, Mimi’s film Brando, a 2-part documentary produced for Turner Classic Movies, received an Emmy nomination for Oustanding Nonfiction Special. Brando has screened at Cannes, Tribeca, San Sebastian and dozens of other film festivals around the world. Other projects include the critically acclaimed Steve McQueen: The Essence of Cool, the Jewish Image Award-winning Backstory: Gentleman's Agreement and the A&E Biography Charlie Sheen: Born To Be Wild, which received a Prism Award for its accurate portrayal of drug and alcohol addiction.

Mimi recently had the good fortune of coming to Tupelo and getting to know some of its residents when she worked on Michael Rose’s Elvis: The Early Years, which will premiere at this year’s Tupelo Film Festival.

Mimi started her career in the opera business, working as a director and stage manager before making the transition to film and television. She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Michigan.