MICHÈLE OHAYON, WGA (Director/Producer)

Michèle Ohayon is an award-winning director, writer and producer.  Her second feature-length documentary COLORS STRAIGHT UP received nominations for the 1997 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, the DGA’s Outstanding Directorial Achievement and the IFP Spirit Award. The documentary received the Golden Spire Award for the Arts at the San Francisco International Film Festival, as well as 13 national film awards. COLORS STRAIGHT UP is being broadcast nationally on PBS and all over the world.  In 1984, she received the Israeli Best Film Award for PRESSURE, one of her early dramatic films on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 1987, she moved to Los Angeles, where she directed a succession of critically acclaimed dramatic and documentary features.  The award-winning feature length documentary IT WAS A WONDERFUL LIFE explores the plight of upper middle-class women who live out of their cars and become the "hidden homeless". Narrated by Jodie Foster, the film aired nationally on PBS and OXYGEN.  IT WAS A WONDERFUL LIFE won the Gold Award at the Houston Film Festival and an IDA nomination.

For COWBOY DEL AMOR, Ohayon has received both the Audience and Grand Jury Awards for Documentary Feature at SXSW, Best Documentary at the 2005 Santa Fe Film Festival, and IDA and WGA nominations.

Michèle has also produced and directed commercials, episodic television and music videos. For her body of work, Michèle received the 1996 and the 1998 Artist’s Grant from the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department and was recognized for her fiction writing in the Chesterfield Writing Competition 2000.  Born in Casablanca and raised in Israel, Michèle graduated from Tel Aviv University (Film & Television).

Michèle is a founding board member of Cinewomen. Her goal as filmmaker is to tell good, truthful stories about real people and to make films that open hearts and minds.

IVAN THOMPSON (a.k.a. “Cowboy Cupid”)

Ivan was born in 1941 in the Sandhill County of New Mexico to a large, dirt-poor family.  His father died when he was 8, and his family’s move to Portalos, New Mexico took a toll on the younger children.  For three years, Ivan found himself hitchhiking between his older brothers and sisters, trying to find a place where he belonged.

Hitchhiking through Texas at 14, Ivan was picked up by a cowboy named J.V. Stump.  His dream of becoming a real cowboy was finally being realized, as he went to work on Stump’s farm with cattle and horses.  Ivan immediately participated in kids’ rodeos.  He apprenticed with Stump through high school, after which he moved to Arizona to work on a big cattle ranch.

In 1961, Ivan joined the U.S. Army, where he served for three years.  Thereafter, he traveled from farm to farm, gaining experience with working cow-dogs and cattle doctoring.  But Ivan always had the horse-race itch.  He started buying and selling trained horses, and moved to Oklahoma City to the heart of quarter horse country.  There, he put together a Black Gold Futurity race for quarter horses, and had the first million dollar added purse in history.

After piss’n all the Okies off, he moved to Arkansas (“Arkin-sauce”), where he stayed out of trouble for a whole five years and married Wife Number One.

He divorced in 1968, ending up in Anthony, N.M., where he ran a farm.  That’s when lightning struck: introduce American men to Mexican women as a cash ‘n’ carry business.  Ivan himself had been introduced to Chayo by his ranch hand Carlos.  He married the Mexican beauty, only to find out later that she had four kids from a previous marriage.  Ivan went from single to lonely to instant family.

Nine years of love and marriage later, Ivan and Chayo divorced.  With one kid in college and another in the navy, Ivan remains the proud father.  But the divorce left Ivan broke, and to make ends meet, he moved to Mexico in 2004, where everything is cheaper.  At 65, Ivan is still young and still looking for a new wife.  Not only his…but everybody’s.

THEO VAN de SANDE, ASC (Director of Photography/Co-Producer)

Theo has worked as a Director of Photography since 1972.  He has shot 50 feature films, 9 feature-length documen­taries and over 40 shorts, as well as documentaries, TV series, music shows and a considerable number of commercials.  In 1982 and 1987, he received the “Golden Calf" for Best Cinematography, the highest award bestowed upon a DP in The Netherlands.

Van de Sande’s work includes THE ASSAULT, which received the Academy Award (1987) and Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film; the feature-length documentary COLORS STRAIGHT UP, nominated in 1997 for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, DGA and a IFP Spirit Award; and THE POINTSMAN, which won the prize for “Best Cinematography” at the Madrid Film Festival.

Working in the USA since 1987, he has collaborated with the following directors: Robert Wise, Garry Marshall, Lasse Hallstrom, Mick Jackson, Carl Franklin and others.  His credits include CROSSING DELANCY, MIRACLE MILE, WAYNE’S WORLD, BLADE, HIGH CRIMES, OUT OF TIME, and many more.   He graduated from the Dutch Film Academy in 1970.

JIM ZIEGLER, DGA (Co-Producer/Production Sound) – Jim  Ziegler is an accomplished television producer with wide-ranging experience.  He is supervising producer on the ABC network reality series LIFE OF LUXURY starring George Hamilton.  The series debuted in September 2004. He also developed and produced the pilot for the successful NBC syndicated series STARTING OVER.  He developed and produced an on-air promo campaign for FOX movies channel, and an image campaign for The Help Group, a $50 million-a-year charity.

As co-founder of TUK Media, an independent production company, Ziegler co-created the hit Court TV series HOLLYWOOD AND CRIME.  He also helped design and launch ReporterTV.com, a daily streaming video news show which covers entertainment business news.  The company also produced a critically acclaimed series of commercials for the Job Corps.  Ziegler has produced specials, news magazines and documentaries for PAX-TV, SciFi Channel, Food Network, KingWorld Productions and Columbia TriStar.

Prior to starting TUK, Ziegler was immersed in the entertainment world for 14 years with ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT, where he received five national Emmy nominations as supervising producer. Ziegler was also co-executive producer on entertainment show pilot for the Tele-TV Interactive programming service.  Ziegler also worked on non-TV projects, including a stint as consulting editor for the Excite Internet search service.

KATE AMEND, A.C.E. (Editor/Associate Producer)

Kate Amend is the editor of the 2001 Academy Award-winning documentary feature, INTO THE ARMS OF STRANGERS: Stories of the Kindertransport and the 2001 Oscar-nominated documentary short ON TIPTOE: Gentle Steps to Freedom.  Amend also received the 2001 American Cinema Editors’ Eddie award for Into The Arms of Strangers and edited the 1998 Oscar Winner THE LONG WAY HOME.   Her latest film, BEAH: A BLACK WOMAN SPEAKS, about the late actress Beah Richards, directed by Lisa Gay Hamilton and produced by Jonathan Demme, received the Grand Jury award at the AFI Film Festival, 2003, and aired on HBO in February 2004.

Other credits include PEACE BY PEACE: WOMEN ON THE FRONTLINE (PBS,2004); PANDEMIC: FACING AIDS (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and HBO, 2003); BATAAN RESCUE (PBS’ American Experience, 2003);  THE GIRL NEXT DOOR (Slamdance ’99); FREE A MAN TO FIGHT (History Channel , March 1999); TOBACCO BLUES (P.O.V,1998); and SOME NUDITY REQUIRED (Sundance Film Festival 1998.)  Other credits include ASYLUM, SKINHEADS USA, and THE MAKING OF THE AGE OF INNOCENCE for HBO, and the feature documentaries LEGENDS about the longest running show in Vegas; METAMORPHOSIS: Man Into Woman, a Sundance award-winner; and SPREAD THE WORD, a film about the acappella group The Persuasions which premiered at the Smithsonian Institute and on PBS. 

Her work has appeared in film festivals throughout the world as well as on PBS, NBC, HBO, Lifetime, History, and the Sundance Channel.  In addition to her film work, Amend worked as an administrator and historian for Judy Chicago's monumental art exhibit THE DINNER PARTY.  She has produced several videos about Chicago’s art including FROM DARKNESS INTO LIGHT and ATMOSPHERES. Amend is on the faculty of the Cinema Department at the University of Southern California and holds degrees from the University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco State University.

JOSEPH JULIAN GONZALEZ (Composer)

Hailing from the rural town of Bakersfield in California’s San Joaquin Valley, Gonzalez studied classical guitar from Theodore Norman and composition for motion picture and television from famed film composer David Raksin (LAURA, FOREVER AMBER) at UCLA.  After touring with several groups including The New Christy Minstrels, Gonzalez became music director of Luis Valdez’s (La Bamba, Zoot Suit) much heralded theater company El Teatro Campesino.  There he composed the music score for LA PASTORELA, a PBS Great Performance Christmas special and worked with such artists as Linda Rondstadt, Freddy Fender and Los Lobos.

Since then he has composed a multitude of music scores for film, television shows and documentaries including the Academy Award-nominated feature documentary COLORS STRAIGHT UP, the New Line Cinema feature film PRICE OF GLORY, and Miramax’s CURDLED.  He even composed the underscore for Britney Spear’s music video “Oops, I Did It Again.”  Gonzalez most recently completed scoring three seasons of Showtime’s award winning RESURRECTION BLVD.

In 1995 Gonzalez embarked on a path that stretched the bounds of creativity in music and art.  The Grammy Award-winning group, Kronos Quartet, performed a composition by Gonzalez, titled “Tormenta Cantata,” for string quartet, soprano and amplified paint brush.  Collaborating with visual artist, Gronk, this multi-movement piece incorporated an onstage wall that had the artist “interpreting” brushstrokes written into the score.  At times the brush strokes acted as a conductor’s baton, other times Gronk painted in tempo to the music performed by Kronos and the soprano.

The success of this piece led to more collaborations with Kronos and in 1997, a composer in residency with Meet the Composer in the San Diego/Tijuana area.  During this residency Gonzalez composed, amongst others, “Misa Azteca” for orchestra, soloists and pre-Columbian percussion ensemble.  This piece has since been performed at Carnegie Hall in New York City in 2000, and most recently, the American Cathedral and Sorbonne University in Paris in May 2003.

Gonzalez is presently working with famed documentarian Hector Galan in a three-part miniseries for PBS, VISIONES, about Latino Art and Culture and reuniting with Michèle Ohayon on COWBOY del AMOR.