POLA RAPAPORT
WRITER / DIRECTOR / CO-PRODUCER

Pola Rapaport is an independent filmmaker and editor living in New York. Her work includes Writer of O, a docudrama about the secretive author of the erotic novel Story of O (Grand Prix Urti/ 2005; distributed by Zeitgeist Films); Family Secret, the story of the discovery of her long-lost secret Romanian brother (Grand Prix SCAM, France/ 2000); Blind Light (poetic drama/documentary, 1998) and Broken Meat (1990), portrait of the mad poet Alan Granville. She has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a fellow of the NY Foundation for the Arts. Her films have been shown at festivals including Sundance, Edinburgh, Thessaloniki, Jerusalem, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Seattle, Warsaw, Gothenburg, and many others. They have been broadcasted widely around the world. She received a BFA degree from the Institute of Film and Television at New York University. Rapaport is a dual citizen of France and the US, and is married to cinematographer and frequent collaborator Wolfgang Held.

WOLFGANG HELD
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Wolfgang Held was born in Bonn, Germany. He is now an internationally respected Director of Photography and has shot many fiction and documentary films since 1990. He received an MFA from the Temple University Film School. At the age of nineteen he spent two years traveling around the world. He then studied American Literature at the Universities of Berlin and Hamburg before moving to the US in 1988. His documentary work includes the Oscar-nominated Children Underground, Metallica, American Teen, Carrier (PBS), Crazy Love, Mad Hot Ballroom and Wigstock: The Movie. Held’s fiction features include among others the films Teeth, Disappearances, Ripe, Maze, and The Tic Code. He is currently shooting a new feature film written by and starring Sascha Baron Cohen of Borat fame.

YEN LE VAN
EDITOR

Yen Le Van is a multiple award-winning editor based in Paris. She has extensive experience as an editor in documentary and fiction films. She has worked with international broadcasters and production companies including TF1, FR 2, FR3, Arte, Canal + and PBS. Le Van has edited films such as Des Manchots et des Hommes (Jules Verne Adventure Film Festival, 2005, Grand Prix, Prix du Public and Prix de la Jeunesse). Other films include Kogis, le message des derniers hommes, directed by Eric Julien (Festival Grandeur Nature in 2006, Jury Prize), Djihad, a narrative film by director Felix Olivier for Canal+, and other prize-winning films. Le Van is currently working on a feature documentary by Yann Arthus Bertrand who is renowned for his photographic views of the earth from the sky. The documentary is a survey of the state of the planet filmed in over sixty countries. It is produced by Elzevir Films with Luc Besson’s production house, Europacorp.

SYLVIE CAZIN
PRODUCER

Sylvie Cazin has worked as a producer at INA, the French national television archive and production company, since 1992. She has produced documentaries on social issues, on history and art, as well as a series of portraits of intellectuals for the national French broadcasters. Programmes such as Chagall, Writer of O, HAIR and more recently Wall to Wall, from Berlin to Ceuta have been awarded in many worldwide festivals. She is presently the French coordinator at Input (International Public Television Screening Conference).