Eskil Hardt will speak after his film One Degree Matters, which has been dubbed "An Inconvenient Truth, Part 2" by New York Times. Eskil is a Danish producer & director who is especially inspired by working with stories that relate universally to the world around us, and which demonstrate the beauty, and at the same time, the complexity of the world in which we live. 17 years ago he established the Danish production company Ace & Ace with his brother. He has developed, produced and directed more than 100 creative documentaries, TV-series, Reality shows and corporate films. Ace & Ace has produced documentaries within subjects like environment, nature, wild life, travel, cooking, sports, action & adventure.

Hilary Hatfield will speak after her film A Journey Shared: The Art of Bart Walter. Hatfield received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Maryland Institute College of Art where she is currently adjunct faculty. Her work with the visual arts spans twenty five years, beginning as an exhibition designer for the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore, five years as Executive Director of a non-profit arts organization and continues today as an agent and business partner with sculptor Bart Walter. In 1993, Hatfield co-produced a documentary about the sculptor Alison Sarr for her project Catfish Dreamin and hosted the Maryland cable television program Art Talk. In 2000, she initiated the effort to have Bart Walter’s work and process documented with video and in 2002 commenced as Executive Producer on A Journey Shared: The Art of Bart Walter. She enjoys traveling to Italy to appreciate the work of Renaissance masters and resides in Pennsylvania with her husband Mark, an abstract painter, and their son Nathan.

Judith Helfand will speak after her film Cooked. Helfand is a filmmaker, activist and educator, best known for her ability to take the dark, cynical worlds of chemical exposure and heedless corporate behavior and make them personal, resonant, highly charged, and entertaining. Her films, The Uprising of ’34 (Co-directed with George Stoney), the Sundance-award-winning Blue Vinyl (co-directed with Daniel B. Gold and nominated for two Emmy’s), and its Peabody-award-winning prequel A Healthy Baby Girl (a five-year video-diary about her experience with DES related cancer), explore home, class, corporate accountability, intergenerational relationships and the ever shrinking border between what is personal and what is a critical part of the public record.

Christina Hemauer will speak after her film A Road Not Taken. She was born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1973 and recieved her Bachelor's and Master's degree from the Zurich University of Arts and did Advanced Studies at the Academy of Arts in Gent, Belgium. Her films include the 2006 At This Place, Postpetrolism was heralded on April 27, 2006 and the 2007 A Moral Equivalent of War, and 2008's L'Energia siamo noi.

Cathy Henkel, a producer, writer and director of documentaries, online and interactive content, will speak after her film The Burning Season. Her Brisbane-based company, Virgo Productions, produced the award-winning cinema version of The Burning Season (IF Award 2008; Audience Choice Award Brisbane International Film Festival 2008), which is currently screening in select cinemas around Australia. She is developing a multi-platform documentary on cinematographer Don McAlpine and a feature film. Her previous television credits include Heroes Of Our Time, Walking Through A Minefield, Losing Layla, The Man Who Stole My Mother's Face, (Best Feature Documentary, Tribeca Film Festival 2004; IF Award 2004) and I told you I was Ill: The Life and Legacy of Spike Milligan, which screened in seven countries to over 5 million people.

Martin von Hildebrand will speak after the film Light at the Edge of the World: Heart of the Amazon. He founded Fundación Gaia Amazonas in 1990 to encourage the Amazon's indigenous peoples to manage their territories sustainably and conserve the cultural and biological diversity of the northwest Amazon region. After living with indigenous communities in the 1970s, Martin worked within the Colombian government to guide an unprecedented move in 1987 of handing back 50 million acres of Amazon rainforest to indigenous inhabitants. In Colombia today, largely due to Martins vision and leadership, nearly 62 million acres of Amazon rainforest are in the hands of indigenous peoples, who hold the rights to their lands, manage their own education and health programs, and design and implement environmental management plans.

Daniel Hinerfeld is the co-director of Acid Test. He will speak after the screening on March 21.  Hinerfeld is Deputy Director of Communications at Natural Resources Defense Council. He came to NRDC from NPR, where he was a senior editor and producer. While at NPR, he helped launch both The Tavis Smiley Show and Day to Day. Prior to that, he was a reporter and producer for California NPR affiliates KCRW and KQED. Between public radio stints, he spent four years as a press and public safety deputy to a Los Angeles City Council member working on gun control, police corruption and creating a 311 city service phone system to take pressure off the 911 system.

Christine Hoch will speak after the film Full Signal, at the Edmund Burke School.  Hoch is the Founder and Executive Director of Moms for Safe Wireless, a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization located in Gainesville, VA and established in June 2009.  The organization raises awareness of the reported health effects from wireless products and focuses on children.

Sadie Rain Hope-Gund, one of the stars from What’s On Your Plate?, will be present for a discussion after the film. Hope-Gund loves to read, travel and eat ice cream. She is in the 7th grade at a New York City public school and lives in Soho with her three little brothers, Kofi, Rio and Tenzin. She is a vegetarian and has genetically-linked high cholesterol which she controls through diet. Her favorite sports are fencing and figure skating.

Talal Jabari will speak after his film Full Signal.  Jabari is a Palestinian-American who started his TV career in 2002 as an associate producer for CBS News, as well as a field producer for the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes. His next career jump was as line producer and production coordinator of a 5-documentary film series entitled The Shape of the Future, which has won several awards. He also produced 4 episodes and did a portion of the filming, for Al Jazeera Documentary Channel's flagship 8-part series: Israel from Within.  Since then, Jabari has continued to specialize in factual programming traveling to Lagos, Nigeria, Antigua, Guatemala and Belgrade, Serbia to work on various documentaries.

Ana Sofia Joanes will speak after her film Fresh. She was born in Portugal and grew up in Switzerland. Following a travel-abroad program exploring the impact of globalization on the environment and culture, Ana came to the U.S. to study. After a B.A. in political science from Barnard college, Ana graduated from Columbia Law School, where she was awarded as a Stone Scholar and Human Rights Fellow. Before dedicating herself to filmmaking, Ana founded Reel Youth, Inc., a video production program for youth coming out of detention, and other under-served youth. Her first documentary, Generation Meds, explored our fears and misgivings about mental illness and medication. Fresh, Ana’s second documentary, celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system.

Otavio Juliano is the director of The Music Tree, winner of the first annual Polly Krakora Award for artistry in film presented by the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital.  Juliano began his career acting in a variety of plays, ranging from classic to contemporary titles. After moving from Brazil to the US, he graduated from the UCLA's program of Film, TV and New Media. In 2001 Juliano co-founded InterFace Films along with producer Luciana Ferraz. Since then, he has directed the documentaries Drive & Roll about rock bands in Hollywood and Third World California about Latino labor exploitation in Southern California.  He is currently directing the documentary Diving for Life about the dangerous lives of free-diving lobster fishermen. Juliano is a proud member of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP) and the International Documentary Association (IDA). 

Roman Keller will speak after his film A Road Not Taken.  Keller was born in 1969 in Liestal, Switzerland and graduated as environmental scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. He then trained as a photographer in Zurich, New York and Karlsruhe. Since 2002 has been working in cooperation with Christina Hemauer. His artistic work surrounds energy issues in a variety of ways. In April 2006, Keller and Hemauer proclaimed a manifesto for an art after petroleum – the so-called post-petrolism. Roman Keller lives and works in Zurich.

James LaVeck is the producer of Peaceable Kingdom and will speak after the film.  During his 20's, James spent six months traveling across India, earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, counseled inmates in the county jail, tutored pregnant teens, and wrote a novel about the generational impact of family violence. While he didn't realize it at the time, he was getting the education he needed to produce documentary films on the subjects of conscience and compassion. In addition to his work as a producer, James lectures and publishes on the topics of critical thinking, advocacy and the essential role of grassroots activism and independent media in maintaining a healthy democracy.

Frederic Lilien will speak after his film The Legend of Pale Male.  At the age of 23, Lilien left his native Belgium for New York City. His first film, Pale Male garnered 15 international awards and has aired in more than 75 countries.  His work has been featured in documentaries for HBO, Canal Plus, Turner Broadcasting, and PBS.  The Legend of Pale Male is his first feature film and is the culmination of 16 years of following New York’s love affair with one remarkable redtail.

Dr. Karen Lips will speak after the film Frogs: Thin Green Line. Dr. Lips is an Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Maryland, and Director of the Program in Sustainable Development and Conservation Biology. Dr. Karen Lips received her B.S. from the University of South Florida in 1998.  She then received her PhD from the University of Miami in 2005.  Her research program is focused on studying disease ecology of tropical amphibians in upland areas of Panama.