Christopher (Toby) McLeod has been the Project Director of Earth Island Institute’s Sacred Land Film Project since 1984. He produced and directed In the Light of Reverence (2001) and has made three other award-winning, hour-long documentary films that were broadcast on national television: The Four Corners: A National Sacrifice Area? (1983), Downwind/Downstream (1988), and NOVA: Poison in the Rockies (1990). In 1990, he produced Voices of the Land as a 20-minute preview of a series on sacred places around the world, Standing on Sacred Ground, which is currently in production. In 1997, he completed A Thousand Years of Ceremony, a 40-minute profile of Winnemem Wintu healer Florence Jones and her efforts to protect Mt. Shasta as a sacred site for the Wintu — a film made specifically as an archival film for the use of the Wintu community. After ten years of work, he completed In the Light of Reverence, which was broadcast in August 2001 on the acclaimed PBS documentary series P.O.V. (Point of View) and won a number of awards, including the Council on Foundation’s prestigious Henry Hampton Award (2005). His first film was the 9-minute short, The Cracking of Glen Canyon Damn – with Edward Abbey and Earth First! McLeod has a master’s degree in journalism from U.C. Berkeley and a B.A. in American History from Yale. He is a journalist who works in film, video, print, and still photography. In 1985, McLeod received a Guggenheim Fellowship for filmmaking, and his U.C. Berkeley masters thesis film Four Corners won a Student Academy Award in 1983. Toby has been working with indigenous communities as a filmmaker, journalist and photographer for more than 30 years.

Managing Producer Jennifer Huang has been a documentary filmmaker in San Francisco for 10 years. At the documentary department at Lucasfilm, she wrote and produced Harlem’s Hellfighters: Black Soldiers of World War I, and contributed to nine other films, with topics ranging from Gertrude Bell to Dracula, from Tin Pan Alley to the Congo. She has worked as a writer, field producer and associate producer on productions for PBS, the Travel Channel, HGTV, TNT and AZN TV, and she co-founded Hyphen, an Asian American news and culture magazine. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a BA in Social Welfare and Ethnography through Cinema.

Writer Jessica Abbe co-produced Angle of Inspiration, a 2004 PBS documentary about the effect on the small town of Redding, California, of a startling new bridge by world-renowned architect Santiago Calatrava. She wrote Power Paths (2008), about the Native American movement toward renewable energy development. She wrote In the Light of Reverence, and has written and produced documentaries on AIDS and San Francisco history. She helped start Bay Area Backroads, the highest-rated local program during her tenure as producer, and worked for two years with director Francis Ford Coppola and author Diane Johnson on a screenplay about the search for a cure for AIDS. In 2004, she was elected to the board of the La Honda Pescadero Unified School District. Abbe holds a B.F.A. in dramatic arts from New York University, and a master’s degree in journalism from U.C. Berkeley.

Associate Producer – New Media, Marlo McKenzie is a writer and filmmaker originally from the Detroit area. She has studied language in France, worked in theater in Germany, helped to start a video production company that trains homeless youth, in Australia and now helps protect sacred lands at Sacred Land Film Project.  Marlo holds a M.F.A from the College of Fine Arts in Sydney, Australia where she produced a 30 minute documentary called “what brand are you – reconnoitering happiness” and has a B.A. in telecommunications and digital media arts from Michigan State University.

Development Director Rebecca Tobin is a non-profit development specialist with a life-long interest in indigenous culture and spiritual practices. Prior to joining Sacred Land Film Project, she spent seven years working for a variety of non-profits, raising and managing grant funds for local governments, a labor organization, and a community college. She also worked with the teachers at Easton Area School District in Pennsylvania to establish their own grant-making program to support local non-profits serving children and youth. She has a Bachelors degree in International Affairs from Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania.

Editor Quinn Costello is a freelance editor and post production supervisor from the Bay Area. He has worked on a wide variety of documentaries with an emphasis on environmentalism, social activism and issues pertaining to indigenous communities around the world. His work has been seen on PBS, The Sundance Channel and The Learning Channel. Post Production Supervisor credits include American Masters – Sam Cooke: Crossing Over. Editing credits include Mustang – Journey of Transformation, Global Focus: The New Environmentalists and the upcoming series Standing on Sacred Ground.

Senior Editor Marta Wohl is a freelance film/video editor with 20 years experience in editing and producing documentary, educational, corporate and broadcast film and video. Some of her most recent film credits include Irena Sendler: In the Name of Their Mothers (2011), Claiming the Title: Gay Olympics on Trial (2009), Don’t Know, We’ll See: The Life and Work of Karen Karnes (2008), Trading Bows and Arrows for Laptops (2008), and Without a Net (2008). She also spent four years as the offline editor in the documentary unit at JAK Films, the production arm of Lucasfilm, editing 25 of the 94 companion educational documentaries profiling historical figures, events and significant ideas of the early 20th century that surfaced in the 44 episodes of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones television series.

Originally from Miami, Assistant Editor Erin Lee has worked in post-production for several films on Caribbean culture, and as well as providing support on location for large-scale music festivals on the islands. She currently produces videos for the San Francisco School of Bartending, SF Mixology, and the Evolutionary Healing Institute in Miami, FL.

Managing Editor Amberly Polidor oversees our website content. Her 15 years of writing and editing experience includes content writing for nonprofit and consumer websites, business news and medical editing, radio news production and travel writing. She holds a B.S. in communications from the University of Tennessee and currently lives in Boston.

Bookkeeper Elena Gardella brings a wealth of financial experience as well as a great commitment to the arts. Besides her work at Sacred Land Film Project, she acts in Lucky Dog Theatre, an improvisation troupe in San Francisco, teaches creative movement to youth and writes screenplays with her partner at OBRA Productions. Elena received her B.A. in theatre from UC, San Diego.

Videographer Andrew Black’s work includes documentary and feature films that have been released theatrically and broadcast on PBS, BBC, The Learning Channel, Channel 4, Sundance Channel, Discovery Channel, IFC and others. He worked with Michael Moore on Fahrenheit 911 and Sicko.  He shot The Weather Underground by Sam Green, which was nominated for an Academy Award in the Documentary Feature category. He has worked with Christopher McLeod for 20 years and he annually shoots Global Focus, a PBS series that features environmentalists from around the world.

Videographer Will Parrinello shot and edited In the Light of Reverence. He was director of photography for the Academy Award-nominated Tell the Truth and Run: George Seldes and the American Press and produced Emile Norman: By His Own Design, Mustang — Journey of Transformation, Dreaming of Tibet, on Tibetan refugees, and Little Italy, on Italian-American culture. He produces segments for the Goldman Environmental Prize films.

Videographer Vicente Franco shot and co-directed Daughters of Danang, shot Thirst, The Judge and the General, Summer of Love, and many other documentary films.

Sound Recordist David Wendlinger has worked on a range of projects worldwide for clients like the BBC, Google, Discovery and National Geographic. For the last six  years he has worked on a series of short films about winners of the Goldman Prize, the environmental equivalent of the Nobel Peace prize.

Finding Sacred Ground Executive Producer Dorothy FireCloud is an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and has been Superintendent of Mato Tipila (Devils Tower National Monument) since 2006. She joined the federal government in 1992 as a Water Rights Specialist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. From 1996 to 1998, she worked for the Pueblo of Zuni through an IPA developing their water rights program. She worked for the US Forest Service in from 1998 to 2006 as the SW Regional Tribal Relations Program Manager. She also served as the Team Leader of the National Implementation Team on Tribal Relations, which wrote the Forest Service consultation policy on Tribal relations. She is currently a member of the Department of Interior, Government to Government Team, which is responsible for developing a national consultation policy on Tribal relations.

Finding Sacred Ground Associate Producer Caryn L. Hacker is an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe located in Rosebud, SD. Both of her parents are also enrolled members. In the Lakota culture and language she is known as Tasunka Waste Win, “Pretty Horse Woman”. In April 2011 she graduated from Fort Lewis College with Bachelor of Art in Anthropology, with a concentration in Linguistics and a minor in Art. For the past three summers she worked with the National Park Service as an Interpretive Park Ranger.

Assistant Editor Emmanuelle Antolin is an independent filmmaker, editor and writer in San Francisco, CA. Currently, she freelances as an editor/assistant editor and directs promotional videos.

Writer/researcher Amy Corbin splits her time between a variety of nonprofit projects and graduate study in film. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Film Studies program at the University of California, Berkeley, and an instructor at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Amy holds a B.A. in anthropology and literary & cultural studies from The College of William and Mary in Virginia.

Writer/Researcher Megan Stacy is a copyeditor and freelance writer based in Texas. She studied at the Salt Insitute for Documentary Studies in Maine and at Trinity University in San Antonio.

Production and administrative support intern Michael Preston is a member of the Winnemem Wintu tribe and a student at UC Berkeley majoring in Native American Studies. He has been working with the Sacred Land Film Project to help advance underrepresented indigenous communities, protect sacred sites and explore new possibilities in documentation of tribal knowledge.

Intern Noah Schlager (Summer 2011) was born in San Francisco and grew up in Marin County.  He has a passionate interest in ecology and environmental philosophy, particularly in the area of ethnobotany and ethnoecology. He also has a love of filmmaking and is currently working on a short documentary on sharks.

Social Media Outreach Intern (Summer 2010) Melody Yue Zhao is an undergraduate student from Hong Kong Baptist University, majoring in Communication/Cinema & Television. With her media experiences gained in school and many other activities, she is working with Sacred Land Film Project mainly in the field of social media communication. She would like to grow and make progress everyday together with Sacred Land Film Project.

Social Media Outreach Intern (Summer & Fall 2009) Anthony Myers writes and edits for local news media in San Francisco and attends San Francisco State University. He raised $50,000 for the Sierra Club’s fight to save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and lobbied heavily for passage of The California Solar Initiative.

Lead Web Developer Jared Goldsmith has been a tech consultant and developer since graduating with a bachelors in Computer Science from Colby College in 2005.  Jared has developed solutions for non-profits, school systems, local businesses as well as national corporations. He currently works out of San Diego, CA.

Web Designer Arno Ghelfi is a Swiss made, Swiss born, Swiss grown and Swiss educated art director and graphic designer. After relocating to San Francisco, Arno was the art director for major international business publications before launching his own design studio, l’atelier starno. He has also put his graphic design skills toward socially conscious projects published in AdBusters and has collaborated on various projects with local musician and activist Michael Franti from Spearhead.

Sacred Lands interactive map developer Michael Gaio is a social entrepreneur and interaction designer. He has produced over 100 projects primarily in support of ecological, sociological, and culturally creative organizations and initiatives, honing multiple talents in visual design, animation, interaction design, experience design, user interface design, information architecture, Flash design and ActionScript programming. He has a master’s degree in philosophy and religion with a concentration in philosophy, cosmology, and consciousness from the California Institute of Integral Studies.

In the Light of Reverence Narrator Peter Coyote is a well-known Bay Area actor who has narrated all of McLeod’s films, and starred in Erin Brockovich, The Basket, Patch Adams, Sphere, Jagged Edge, Outrageous Fortune, Bitter Moon, and E.T. He is the author of Sleeping Where I Fall, a memoir of life in the ’60s.

In the Light of Reverence Narrator Tantoo Cardinal (Métis), an actress who lives in Toronto, Canada, has appeared in numerous films, including Smoke Signals, Grand Avenue, The Education of Little Tree and Legends of the Fall.

Development Director Vicki Engel (2009-2010) began her career in feature film production in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She worked as Associate Producer of Visual Effects for feature films at Industrial Light and Magic, serving on the production staff there for 11 years. From 2003-2008 Vicki served as SLFP’s Film Distribution and Program Coordinator, overseeing project administration, fundraising and program outreach. Vicki holds a B.A. in French and psychology from the University of Michigan and teaches Iyengar yoga.

Standing on Sacred Ground Associate Producer Ashley Tindall (2006-2009) holds an M.A. in documentary film and video from Stanford and an M.A. in public policy (international development) from UCLA, where she completed a short video about a World Bank-funded project in Ecuador. Her short films include Feathers and Coins, about the impacts of a casino in New Mexico, Two at Bay, an exploration of the troubled lives of two former juvenile offenders in the Bay Area, Casting Hope which followed an Iraqi-American family during the 2005 Iraqi election, and Green Cross, a portrait of a car crash survivor and his medicinal marijuana dispensary. Ashley completed her BA at the University of Chicago.

In the Light of Reverence Cinematographer John Knoop has worked with McLeod for 17 years, and shot Poison in the Rockies and Downwind/Downstream. His many other credits include Truth Under Siege, My Home/My Prison, Cafe Nica, Thanh’s War, Where the Heart Roams, Louie Bluie, The Highly Exalted, and Maria’s Story. Most recently he shot two segments of In Search of Law and Order.

In the Light of Reverence Co-producer Malinda M. Maynor is a Lumbee Indian from North Carolina, and her two previous films, Real Indian and Sounds of Faith, both concern Lumbee identity and culture. They have been shown nationwide in classrooms, at conferences, and at film festivals including the 1997 and 1998 Sundance Film Festival. She is also the recipient of a 2001 Rockefeller Film and Video Fellowship. Maynor has completed a web site and CD-ROM on Lumbee religious history, and is Professor of Native American History at Harvard University. She is also coordinating the Lumbee River Fund, a project to preserve Lumbee history and culture. She has a Bachelor’s degree in History and Literature from Harvard University and a Master’s degree in documentary film from Stanford.

Project Advisors

Over the last 20 years, our Advisory Board has been an essential part of the development, editing and distribution of In the Light of Reverence and production of Standing on Sacred Ground. Our Board includes Winona LaDuke of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, Chris Peters of Seventh Generation Fund, Walter Echo-Hawk of Native American Rights Fund, Dorothy FireCloud (Rosebud Sioux), Superintendent of Mato Tipila (Devils Tower National Monument), Gerald Vizenor, professor of Native American Studies at U.C. Berkeley, José Lucero of Circle of the Four Directions, ethnobotanist Donna House, anthropologist Richard Clemmer of the University of Denver, anthropologist Peter Nabokov of U.C.L.A., journalist Ben Bagdikian, author Peter Matthiessen, anthropologist Joan Halifax, and author Barry Lopez. In our formative years we benefited greatly from guidance from the late environmental leader David Brower of Earth Island Institute, author and historian Ted Roszak, and the late Tewa anthropologist Alfonso Ortiz—all three of whom have passed on.