As head of documentaries for The Kennedy/Marshall Company, Ryan Suffern has an active role on a full slate of films.  His past projects delve into a variety of diverse issues such as climate change, the LGBT community and child refugees. He and Frank Marshall have collaborated on three commissioned documentaries for ESPN Films. Prior to his start at Kennedy/Marshall, Suffern documented the behind-the-scenes of four Steven Spielberg films.  Under his own banner, Suckatash Productions, Suffern has directed and produced a host of music videos, documentaries and web series for the likes of Paramount Pictures, Universal Music and Beggars Banquet. As an English major from the University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign and member of the Writer’s Guild of America, he has written a feature screenplay on assignment for DreamWorks Studios. Prior to catching the filmmaking bug, Suffern considered a career in photojournalism and has had his pictures published by The New York Times, Rolling Stone and the Associated Press. Suffern currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Kim, and their two daughters, Pearl & Iris.

With more than seventy films to his credit, Frank Marshall is a visionary producer who has helped shape American cinema. Marshall’s credits as a producer include some of the most successful and enduring films of all time. His movies have been nominated for a multitude of Academy Awards, including Best Picture nominations for such films as Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Color Purple, Seabiscuit and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Marshall has garnered wide acclaim as a film director, having brought to the screen such memorable movies as Arachnophobia, Alive and Eight Below. Recent projects include Jurassic World, Steven Spielberg’s The BFG, Jason Bourne and Clint Eastwood’s Sully. In the documentary space, Marshall has produced such projects as Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz, Alex Gibney’s critically acclaimed The Armstrong Lie and the Frank Sinatra documentary miniseries for HBO.

One of the industry’s most successful and influential filmmakers, Steven Spielberg has directed, produced, or executive produced some of the top-grossing films of all time, including Jurassic Park and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. He is a three-time Academy Award winner, earning Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture for Schindler’s List, and an Oscar for Best Director for Saving Private Ryan.

Spielberg is a three-time DGA Award winner for his work on The Color Purple, Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan. He has also been honored with Academy Award nominations for Best Director for E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Munich and Lincoln. He is a recipient of the DGA’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the prestigious Irving G. Thalberg Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Kennedy Center Honor and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Michael Parry is a cinematographer based in Los Angeles. Raised in San Diego, Parry studied philosophy, film theory and literature at UC Berkeley before earning an MFA in Cinematography from the American Film Institute. As a member of the International Cinematographers Guild, Parry has lensed projects all over the world and moves between documentary, commercial and narrative work. He has worked on documentary projects in the Gaza strip, the Amazon jungle and traveled the U.S. with director Werner Herzog on his recent film Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World. Parry also has a body of narrative and commercial work with directors such as James Franco and Kevin Smith. With each project, Parry’s passion is to deliver a director’s vision while creating images drawn from the heart of the story. Parry’s work has shown at the Sundance Film Festival, The Los Angeles Film Festival, The Telluride Mountain Film Festival, Hot Docs Toronto, The Whitney Museum of American Art, and The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.

Martin Singer is an award-winning film and television editor. He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and started working in the film industry there when he was 16 years old. In 1994, after finishing school and having worked on feature films and more than 60 commercials, Singer left the country at 21 years old and headed to the United States to pursue a career in film. In 1995, he was given a chance to learn how to edit on an Avid Media Composer system.

Today, he is a well established editor in Los Angeles, doing freelance work in both film and television. He has worked on some of the most recognized reality television shows like FOX’s Kitchen Nightmares and NBC’s American Ninja Warrior, as well as award-winning documentary series like Beyond the Glory, American Gangster and Unsung. But his principal interest remains in feature films. Singer has worked on films like Bhopal Express and 7-Teen Sips, with producers Deepak Nayar and Tabrez Noorani.

His latest work has been in the documentary genre. He edited the Emmy-nominated film Ronda Rousey Breaking Ground for UFC, and the Sundance Award-winning film Who is Dayani Cristal?, with actor Gael Garcia Bernal, for Pulse Films. Singer is currently editing Love Sonia, a film about a young girl’s journey through the world of international sex trafficking, produced by Life of Pi’s David Womark and directed by Tabrez Noorani.

Martin lives in Los Angeles with his wife and son. He is always searching for the right projects that will challenge him creatively, but that will also allow him to tell a great story.

Mark Monroe is an award-winning documentary writer and filmmaker.  A journalism graduate from the University of Oklahoma, Mark began his career in television as a newswriter for CNN. 

His theatrical credits include: “Under the Gun” (Sundance 2016); “Hooligan Sparrow” (Sundance 2016); “Racing Extinction” (Sundance 2015); “Fed Up” (Sundance 2014); “Sonic Highways” (HBO 2014); “Drunk, Stoned, Brilliant, Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon” (Sundance 2014); “Mission Blue” (Berlin 2014); “The Summit”, (Winner, Best Editing Sundance 2013); “Who is Dayani Cristal?”, (Winner, Best Cinematography, Sundance 2013); “Sound City” (Sundance 2013); “The Cove” (Winner, Best Documentary 2010 Academy Awards & Best Documentary Script, W.G.A. 2010); “The Tillman Story”; “Chasing Ice” (Winner, Best Cinematography Sundance 2012); “Stolen Seas”; “Last Play at Shea”; “Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos”, (W.G.A. nomination “Best Documentary Script”, 2007); “Amazing Journey:  The Story of The Who”, and writer/director, “Morning Light”, Disney Pictures.
 
Currently, Mark is working on “The Beatles: Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years” directed by Ron Howard and produced by Brian Grazer and Nigel Sinclair, as well as a feature documentary on the current Russian doping scandal.

Executive Director of USC Shoah Foundation Dr. Stephen D. Smith joined the Institute in 2009 and was named the inaugural UNESCO Chair on Genocide Education in 2013. He was installed as the first Andrew J. and Erna Finci Viterbi USC Shoah Foundation Executive Director Chair at the Institute in 2014. In the United Kingdom, Smith founded the National Holocaust Centre and co-founded the Aegis Trust. He was also inaugural Chairman of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. Smith is the founder of the Kigali Genocide Memorial, Executive Producer of Kwibuka, the anniversary commemoration of the genocide in Rwanda and a trustee of the South Africa Holocaust and Genocide Foundation. 

A lauded international speaker and author, Smith has numerous publications and awards to his name.

Scott Greathead is a partner in the New York City office of Wiggin and Dana LLP, where he practices commercial litigation.  He is a member of the Board of Directors of Human Rights First (formerly the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights), which he co-founded in 1978.  He has visited more than a dozen countries on human rights fact-finding missions for Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch and other organizations.

Since 1982, he has represented the families of four American churchwomen who were murdered in El Salvador in December, 1980.  He also represented U.S. Jesuit organizations in connection with the November, 1989 murders of six Jesuits and two members of their household staff by elements of the Salvadoran army. Greathead’s writing on international human rights has appeared in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Nation and other publications.  He has appeared on the ABC news program Nightline, and served as a consultant to 60 Minutes in its report on the Jesuit murders in El Salvador, which was first broadcast in April, 1990.  His work on the churchwomen’s case was featured in the 2002 PBS documentary Justice and The Generals. From 1984 to 1990, Greathead served as the First Assistant Attorney General of New York State.  He is a graduate of Princeton University and University of Virginia School of Law.

John Stirratt is a bassist, multi-instrumentalist and producer best known for his work in the acclaimed rock band Wilco, which he co-founded with Jeff Tweedy in 1994.  Stirratt is also one half of the duo The Autumn Defense, which he formed with frequent collaborator and Wilco bandmate Patrick Sansone. He lives in Maine with his wife Crissy and daughter Tallulah.

Paul Pilot is an Irish born composer, now based in Berlin.  He is known for his work both as a record producer and film composer. Having produced gold records for Irish songwriter Duke Special, his first feature score was for the award-winning documentary Bidder 70 detailing the story of environmental protestor Tim DeChristopher. Combining organic sounds with an often non-traditional approach to composition and musical sound design he, along with co-composer John Stirratt, brings a textural and sometimes visceral twist to the score of Finding Oscar.

Nick Loud has produced and edited two short documentaries for ESPN films, including one that recently premiered on ESPN’s ‘30 for 30’ digital platform about the obscure sport of Jai Alai, also directed by Ryan Suffern and produced by Frank Marshall. He helped produce and edit two feature documentaries including Out & Around, a travelogue documenting a lesbian couple’s journey to find the leaders of the global LGBT movement which premiered at Outfest last year. Loud is a graduate of Kenyon College, where he majored in Psychology in Film.