Production Team
Production Team
Roberta Grossman – Director, Producer
Sophie Sartain – Writer, Producer
Marta Kauffman – Producer
Lisa Thomas – Executive Producer
Chris Callister – Editor
Josh Kun – Consulting Scholar
Roberta Grossman
An award-winning filmmaker with a passion for history and social justice, Roberta Grossman has written and produced more than forty hours of documentary film and television. Grossman's most recent film, Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh, was shortlisted for an Academy Award, won the audience award at 13 film festivals, was broadcast on PBS/Independent Lens and nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. Grossman was the series producer and co-writer of 500 Nations, the eight-hour CBS mini-series on Native Americans hosted by Kevin Costner. Her feature documentary, Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action, premiered in 2005, screened and won awards at more than 40 festivals worldwide and aired on public television stations. Grossman’s other writing and directing credits include In the Footsteps of Jesus, a four-hour special for the History Channel; Hollywood & Power: Women on Top, a special for AMC; The Rich in America: 150 Years of Town and Country Magazine for A&E; The History of Christianity: the First Thousand Years, a four-hour special on A&E; and Heroines of the Hebrew Bible and Judas for the A&E series Mysteries of the Bible.
Sophie Sartain
An award-winning writer for print, film, television and digital media, Sophie Sartain’s experience includes stints as Executive Director of Editorial Services for MGM Home Entertainment, Managing Editor of Sony Online Entertainment and Director of Development for Katahdin Productions, where she also served as writer and co-producer of Blessed Is the Match: The Life of Hannah Senesh (PBS, 2010). Sartain created and co-executive-produced the VH1 special, Fortune Files, and contributed as a writer on In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee (PBS) and The Rich in America (A&E). As a grant writer, Sartain has raised more than $1 million for documentary projects. As a freelance writer, her clients have included 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Universal Studios, New Line Home Entertainment and ABC Radio Networks.
Marta Kauffman
Marta Kauffman co-created and executive produced the Emmy Award-winning series Friends. Previously, Kauffman co-created and served as co-executive producer on the critically acclaimed comedy series Dream On. While on Dream On, she received an Emmy Award nomination and a CableAce Award. Kauffman also co-created the comedy series The Powers That Be for Norman Lear. She served as executive producer on the one-hour drama Related on the WB. She also co-created and served as executive producer on the comedy series Family Album and Veronica's Closet, starring Kirstie Alley. In addition, she served as an executive producer on the series Jesse, starring Christina Applegate, and was executive producer of the documentary Blessed Is the Match. In 2011, she created and executive produced the Lifetime Original Movie Five..
Lisa Thomas
An innovative entrepreneur, philanthropist, film producer and Grammy Award-winning music producer, Lisa Thomas is best known as the cofounder and former CEO of Clif Bar, Inc. From the moment it was introduced to the marketplace in 1992, Clif Bar—an all-natural energy bar—was a success. Over the next several years, Clif Bar, Inc., appeared frequently on the annual Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing privately held companies, and in Working Woman Magazine's 500 fastest growing companies owned by women. Thomas produced Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh and executive produced the feature documentary Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action (2005). She also produced Sacred Ground, a companion album to Homeland that won the Grammy Award for Best Native American Album.
Chris Callister
Chris Callister has directed and edited documentaries, short films, and music videos, and his work has been seen around the world by over a million people. He has edited for The History Channel, Universal Sports Network and the Sundance Institute. His credits include the feature documentary Blessed Is the Match (assistant editor and post-production supervisor); music and concert videos for The Killers (writer, director and editor); the feature film Cyrus (apprentice editor); and the short film The Liar (writer, director and editor), which screened at numerous festivals including the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Callister received his master's degree in film production from USC.
Josh Kun
Josh Kun is an associate professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and director of the Popular Music Project at the Norman Lear Center. He holds a Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley. Kun's research focuses on the arts and politics of cultural connection, with an emphasis on popular music, the cultures of globalization, the US-Mexico border, and Jewish-American musical history. Kun is co-founder of the Idelsohn Society for Musical Preservation. As a critic and journalist, he is a contributor to The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Magazine. His writing has also appeared in Tu Ciudad Los Angeles, Cabinet, LA Weekly, Village Voice, SPIN, Mother Jones and Rolling Stone. He is the author of Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America (UC Berkeley, 2005) and co-author of And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl: The Jewish Past as Told by the Records We've Loved and Lost (Crown, 2008).