Page 10 - 2025 WHFF Program

The 34th Woods Hole Film Festival

2025 Special Guests

Amy Brenneman Brad Silberling

Amy Brenneman dedicates her time equally to acting, producing, and activism. She Brad Silberling is an
graduated from Harvard with a degree in Comparative Religion, specializing in Indo- American film and
Tibetan traditions and studying sacred dance in Kathmandu. As a founding member television director and
of Cornerstone Theater Company, she helped create community-driven, site-specific producer, known for
productions focused on social justice. Amy co-created and starred in “Mouth Wide directing feature films
Open” and “Overcome,” and was the driving force behind “Judging Amy,” inspired by such as “Casper”, “City
her mother, Judge Frederica Brenneman. Her extensive television career includes roles of Angels”, “Moonlight
in “NYPD Blue,” “Frasier,” “Private Practice,” “The Leftovers,” “Tell Me Your Secrets,” and Mile”, and “Lemony
“The Old Man.” In film, she has collaborated with Rodrigo Garcia and appeared in “Heat,” Snicket’s A Series of
“Casper,” “Fear,” “The Jane Austen Book Club,” and “Words and Pictures.” She directed Unfortunate Events”. He
the documentary “The Way the World Should Be,” highlighting inclusive education, and also directed “Land of
hosts the podcast “The Challengers.” A dedicated educator, she has taught drama at Harvard and UCLA and the Lost” and has worked
directed theater at Sierra Canyon School and CHIME Charter School. She lives between Los Angeles and West extensively in television, directing episodes of
Tisbury, MA, with her husband, writer/director Brad Silberling, and their two children. series like “NYPD Blue” and “Dynasty.”

Ty Burr Elijah Wald

A film critic and pop culture columnist for The Boston Globe for Elijah Wald is a musician, writer,
two decades, from 2002 to 2021, Ty currently reviews movies for The and historian. He has toured as a
Washington Post and writes “Ty Burr’s Watch List” (tyburrswatchlist.com). performer and served as student
He also writes feature commentary and reviews for The New York and accompanist to the found-
Times, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. He is the author of the ing folk-blues revivalists Dave Van
critically acclaimed books “Gods Like Us: On Movie Stardom and Ronk and Eric Von Schmidt, the
Modern Fame” (2013), “The Best Old Movies for Families” (2007), and legendary Congolese guitarist
the e-book “The 50 Movie Starter Kit: What to Know if You Want to Jean-Bosco Mwenda, and toured
Know What You’re Talking About” (2013). A member of the National for five years with the African-
American string-band master Howard Armstrong. He was the
Society of Film Critics and the Boston Society of Film Critics, Ty has taught courses in film Boston Globe’s world and roots music correspondent for twenty
and criticism at Boston University, Tufts University, and Emerson College. Burr studied film at years, has written for numerous other newspapers and magazines,
Dartmouth and New York University. He lives in Newton, MA. In 2017, he was a finalist for the and his dozen books include Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson
Pulitzer Prize in Criticism. and the Invention of the Blues; Narcocorrido, about the Mexican
ballads of drug smuggling and social struggle; Global Minstrels:
Voices of World Music; Dave Van Ronk’s memoir, The Mayor of
Jim Sullivan MacDougal Street, which inspired the Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn
Davis; How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ’n’ Roll: An Alternative
History of American Popular Music; The Dozens: A History of Rap’s
Jim Sullivan is a veteran Boston-based writer who covered music Mama; and Dylan Goes Electric!, which inspired the hit movie, A
and pop culture for the Boston Globe, roaming that turf for 26 years. Complete Unknown.
He currently freelances for WBUR,the Forward, Rock and Roll Globe, Wald’s film credits include working as music consultant for the
AARP online, among other outlets. Last year, Trouser Press Books documentary Al Otro Lado/To the Other Side, by the Mexican-
published two volumes of Backstage and Beyond: 45 Years of Rock American director Natalia Almada, and he has appeared in numer-
Chatsand Rantsbooks. Individual chapters focusing on specific ous documentaries about US and Mexican music. His books have
artists or bands, stories culled from past encounters, remade and served as the basis for two major films: the Coen Brothers’ Inside
remodeled. They’re divvied up roughly into “classic” – artists who started from the 50s to Llewyn Davis, which was inspired and took several key scenes from
mid-70s – and then “modern,” mid-70s on, meaning sorta pre-punk/new wave and punk/ The Mayor of MacDougal Street, shaped from the recollections of
post-punk/new wave. his friend and mentor Dave Van Ronk; and James Mangold’s A
Complete Unknown, which was based on his books about Bob
Dylan’s relationship to Pete Seeger and journey towards rock ‘n’ roll,
Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night that
Split the Sixties.For further information: https://www.elijahwald.com

Dan Mirvish

Award-winning filmmaker/author Dan
Mirvish directed and produced such
features as 18½, Bernard and Huey,
Between Us, Open House and Omaha
Jonathan Finegold Chris Perez (the movie). Dan’s films screened in over
100 festivals on 7 continents, sold to 150
countries, all had theatrical releases and
Jonathan Finegold is a GMS award- Chris Perezis a partner at Donaldson played on everything from Netflix and
winning music supervisor with more Callif Perez, where is an expert in enter- Showtime to Virgin Atlantic and JetBlue.
than 25 years industry experience. He is tainment law and rights clearance. He is He co-wrote the critically-acclaimed novel
the founder of Fine Gold Music (40,000+ a Board member of the International I Am Martin Eisenstadt (Farrar, Straus, Giroux) and wrote two editions
sync titles), a Professor at Marymount Documentary Association and the co- of The Cheerful Subversive’s Guide to Independent Filmmaking
Manhattan College and an international author, “Clearance & Copyright” (Focal Press/Routledge). Dan’s lectured in over 70 film schools
masterclass instructor. (5th Edition). around the world and he cofounded the Slamdance Film Festival.

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