About the Filmmakers
PHYLLIS LEE
Producer/ Director
Phyllis Lee is a member of the Second Generation with a life-long commitment to “tikkun olam”. She served for over three decades at the United Nations, an organization that helped her parents in the displaced persons camp. During her career, she raised both media coverage and millions of dollars of donor funding for the world’s most pressing humanitarian emergencies, and led teams to advance policy coherence on major global challenges, such as migration and climate change. Phyllis also taught graduate-level courses on international relations at Long Island University. She decided to embark on this documentary film as a love letter to her parents and other survivors.
Dr. DAVID MILCH
Executive Producer
Dr. David Milch is a graduate of Harvard medical school and an entrepreneur, focusing on technology and the life sciences. He also has a long history of supporting the arts. He has participated in producing live theatrical shows including Avenue Q, In the Heights, West Side Story and Finian’s Rainbow, for which he received a “Best Musical Revival” Tony Award nomination as producer. He has executive-produced a number of acclaimed feature and documentary films, and is President of MiLa Media, an independent media studio.
DOUGLAS O'CONNOR
Editor
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Douglas O’Connor has been working in documentary production
for nearly three decades. He has worked with most major networks, including CBS Reports, The Barbara Walters Special for ABC, Addiction, the Emmy winning documentary special for HBO, the award-winning IMAX film Jerusalem, and the Academy Award-nominated short Why Can't We Be a Family Again?, as well as projects for PBS, Discovery, VH1 and for independent release. Working as both an editor and post-production supervisor, Doug has extensive experience in both the art and craft of documentary filmmaking.
JOHN S.FRIEDMAN
Consulting Producer
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Consulting Producer John S. Friedman was the lead producer on Marcel Ophuls’s Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie, which received the Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary in 1989 and the 1988 International Critics Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Among other films, he co-directed and co-produced Stealing the Fire, which was selected by the International Documentary Association (IDA) as a finalist for the best documentary of 2002.
BARBARA CAROLE SICKMAN
Composer
Barbara Carole Sickman began her career as a recording artist
and performer, working with Jerry Vale, Eddie Fisher, Sergio Franchi, The Barry Sisters, Alan King, George Jessel and Jackie Mason. Barbara’s career evolved to children’s theater, where her musicals, Alice in Appleland and The Prince of Poland received rave reviews. Her musical comedy, Goodbye, Gloria Schwartz,
is a work in progress. Her recent concept musical, Ben, Virginia
and Me: The Liberace Musical, music and lyrics by Barbara and book by Roger O. Hirson (Pippin), had a successful Off-Broadway run in NYC. Barbara has also worked on musical theater projects with Marvin Hamlisch, Mike Stoller (Stoller and Lieber), Tovah Feldshuh and Roslyn Kind, and is currently scoring several film
and television projects.
GUSTAVO MARTINEZ SCHMIDT
Motion Graphics
Gustavo Martinez-Schmidt began his professional career with TVE (Spanish State TV), working on Metrópolis (TVE2) in the 80s-90s, and since then has always sought an innovative fusion of audiovisual narrative and aesthetics. Since then, he has done TV, advertising, fiction, music… but came to specialize in motion graphics, documentaries and corporate communication.