Crew

Dan Goldes – Producer/Director

Dan Goldes (left, above) is a graduate of the San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking and his first film, ub2, a short documentary about language relating to HIV, has screened at 40 U.S. and international film festivals. His 2015 short documentary, Equal Justice Under Law, premiered in San Francisco before playing at 20 other U.S. and international festivals. Arrested (Again) premiered at the San Francisco Green Film Festival in April 2017 and has played at 55 festivals around the world to date. His most recent short film, Keeper of the Creek, was released in 2018 and has played at festivals in Asia, Europe, and the U.S. Dan was assistant editor on Out on the Dance Floor, an Official Selection of Frameline32, the San Francisco International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, and he produced numerous corporate videos while at the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau. He has served on the screening committees for the San Francisco Green Film Festival and the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival. Dan and 5 Blocks are in the incubator residency program at the San Francisco Ninth Street Independent Film Center.

Robert Cortlandt – Producer/Director (1959 – 2016)

Robert Cortlandt was an award-winning photographer, filmmaker, and media artist whose work has been displayed in the U.S and internationally. He was the recipient of a Prentice and Paul Sack Award for Outstanding Photography and his work has been exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, SOMArts, San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, Still Lights Gallery, and 22 Gallery. His photographs are held in private collections in the United States, Guatemala, and Colombia. He applied his visual skills and knowledge to documentaries focused on education, social change, and marginalized communities. His work includes an assistant director role on the ITVS-funded documentary Follow My Lead, chronicling the same-sex partner dance community, and director and editor on films focused on teen suicide prevention at the It Gets Better Project. He was a former human resources executive with Apple and Gap Inc. and received his BFA in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute.

With a few exceptions, the photographs on this site are credited to Robert.

Erin Palmquist – Director of Photography

Erin Palmquist is a documentary filmmaker based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has worked for such companies as Lucasfilm, National Geographic Explorer, and PBS. She was the producer, editor, and director of photography for BDSM: It’s Not What You Think!, which premiered at the San Francisco International Frameline32 Film Festival in 2008 before traveling the world. She was the director of photography for Anthony Palombit’s film Out on the Dance Floor, also an official Frameline32 selection. Erin is the co-producer and director of photography for the documentary shorts series Oakland Originals and is currently screening her own feature-length documentary From Baghdad to the Bay, a courageous story about an audacious Iraqi refugee and former translator for the US military. Having been accused of being a double agent, tortured by the U.S. military, and ostracized from his family and country, Ghazwan Alsharif struggles to rebuild his life as an openly gay Arabic man in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Melinda Hess – Editor

Melinda Hess began her traditional filmmaking career at NYU Film School. Working in the video industry she focused on cinematography and editing stories. Melinda’s first documentary, based on diaries and journals of pioneer women, ignited a life long-span interest in archives and first person narratives. Beginning her career as a news cinematographer for an ABC television affiliate, she became a full time editor, winning several awards for short and long form documentaries for both independents and television networks. Melinda edited a series of PBS documentaries made in collaboration with major museums; these credits include In Our Own Time for Art of the Western World PBS series, Merchants and Masterpieces for Metropolitan Museum of Art /PBS, The Vever Affair for Smithsonian World/PBS, and Light of the Gods for National Gallery of Art/PBS. When Melinda found an old suitcase of letters while living in New Mexico, she embarked on her own documentary journey – Letter From Cloudcroft.

Diana Salier – Music

Diana Salier is a composer and musician living in Los Angeles, CA. With a background as a guitarist and songwriter for bands in Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco, she currently writes original music for film/TV, digital and branded content, and plays guitar with indie band The Black Heartthrobs. She composed the score for Seasons 1 and 2 of the series The F Word, nominated for Breakthrough Series – Short Form at the 2018 Gotham Awards. In 2016 she scored the feature-length documentary Visitor’s Day, which screened at AFI Docs and DOC NYC following its premiere at the Mill Valley Film Festival.

Alyssa Nevarez – Sound Designer

Alyssa Nevarez began her education in Post Production Sound at San Francisco State University. She now has almost a decade of experience between music production and mixing at Woman’s Audio Mission (active member since 2011), sound engineering at Disher Sound, and post-production sound editing and sound design with Richard Beggs at his San Francisco Film Centre studio. While working with Beggs, Nevarez helped re-master films for Francis Ford Coppola and edit Sofia Coppola’s feature The Beguiled. For the past several years she has been at Skywalker Sound working on a range of feature films and documentaries such as Avengers: Infinity War, Captain Marvel and The Game Changers.

Joanne Dorgan – Motion Graphics

Joanne Dorgan began her career as a video editor with several internships in the San Francisco Bay Area at independent film companies and Avid Technology. She then worked as an assistant editor on independent feature films, short documentaries, and commercials in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. An editor with more than 12 years experience, she has worked on a wide range of projects, including documentaries, commercials and corporate video. In 2000, Dorgan moved to Beijing, China, where she lived for five years and edited several films, including travel documentaries and a biography of environmentalist Jane Goodall for National Geographic. While living in Asia, she did a stint as a trainer in Mongolia for a pioneering United Nations’ program and in Beijing ran a non-profit theater showing Chinese films with English subtitles. Dorgan returned to the Bay Area in 2005 and continues to freelance at various post houses and in-house corporate facilities.

Peter Stein – Production Consultant

Peter L. Stein’s artistic career as a producer and presenter spans film, theater, television, museums, and online media. During 11 years at PBS station KQED, he wrote, directed and produced a wide range of documentaries and series for national public television, garnering such prestigious honors as the Peabody Award (for his feature-length documentary The Castro) and four Emmy awards for historical, cultural, culinary and environmental programs. From 2003-11 he was executive director of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, the oldest and largest of its kind anywhere. Combining his passion for media-based stories with community engagement, the festival under Peter’s innovative curatorial direction was named by IndieWire among the top 50 film festivals in the world. Peter also spent three years creating in-gallery exhibitions and their online extensions at the Jewish Museum San Francisco (later renamed Contemporary Jewish Museum). Peter maintains an active career as a public speaker, conducting on-stage interviews with such diverse talent as Kirk Douglas, Stephen Sondheim, Carlos Santana, Fran Lebowitz, Tony Kushner, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Miranda July. He has taught both popular and graduate-level courses in film, and has appeared on such programs as NPR’s “Fresh Air” and “Weekend Edition.” He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard University and a third-generation San Francisco native.

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