About Us

NFF_Page_Header_About_NEWDavid LeBrun

David Lebrun

DAVID LEBRUN has served as director, writer, producer, cinematographer, animator and editor on more than 100 films including films on the Mazatec people of Oaxaca, a 1960s traveling commune, and Tibetan mythology. He served as editor on the Academy-award winning documentary Broken Rainbow, about the Hopi and Navajo of the American Southwest.

Lebrun attended Reed College and UCLA Film School. He comes from a background in anthropology and philosophy, and many of his films are attempts to get inside the ways of seeing and thinking of specific cultures, combining techniques of documentary, experimental and animated genres to create a style appropriate to the culture and era of each film. Several of Lebrun’s films are explored in detail on this web site, including Proteus, Breaking the Maya Code and Out of the Maya Tombs. He is currently working on Transfigurations, an immersive exhibition project of animation installations based on over 30,000 photographs of ancient objects.

Rosey_title

Producer ROSEY GUTHRIE has a diverse background in media production, distribution and outreach. As Vice President of First Light Video Publishing from 1988 to 1996, she created distribution plans for over two hundred educational films, serving as Associate Producer on over fifteen of the productions. From 1996 – 2003 she was Vice President of Panavision Remote Systems, the leader in camera crane equipment. In 2003 she returned to filmmaking and has served as Producer for Night Fire Films on Breaking the Maya Code, Out of the Maya Tombs, and Transfigurations as well as for the PBS series Craft in America

Amy Halpern

amyAMY HALPERN (1953 – 2022) served as Cinematographer, Lighting Designer and Contributing Producer on Breaking the Maya Code and Out of the Maya Tombs. She has done cinematography or lighting on numerous dramatic and documentary feature films, including Charles Burnett’s My Brother’s Wedding, Ramon Menendez’ Stand and Deliver, and Pat O’Neill’s Decay of Fiction.  As an independent filmmaker she has created more than 15 richly poetic short films, including Injury on a Theme which premiered at the 2013 Experimental Film Festival Portland, and the feature length Falling Lessons (1992) called by critic Kevin Thomas “a stunningly sensual, life-affirming experience from a major experimental film artist.”