The Filmmakers behind Fambul Tok: A Documentary Film About the Power of Forgiveness
SARA TERRY
Producer and Director
Fambul Tok is Sara Terry’s first feature-length documentary. A former award-winning reporter for the Christian Science Monitor (and founding member of Monitor Radio, the Monitor’s public radio program), Sara Terry made a mid-career transition into photojournalism and documentary photography in the late 1990s. The focus of her work since then has been in post-conflict societies. Her long-term project about the aftermath of war in Bosnia—Aftermath: Bosnia’s Long Road to Peace—was published in September 2005 by Channel Photographics, and was chosen as one of the best books of the year by PDN (Photo District News). Her work has been widely published and exhibited at such venues as the United Nations, Moving Walls/Open Society, the Museum of Photography in Antwerp, and the Leica Gallery in Solms, Germany. She is the founder of The Aftermath Project, a non-profit grant program that helps photographers cover the aftermath of conflict, and builds educational outreach and partnerships around the understanding that “war is only half the story.” She is currently in production on her second documentary, FOLK, about three singer-songwriters trying to make it in the changing sub-culture of American folk music. She is also the frequent guest host of To the Point, and Left, Right and Center—public radio shows produced by KCRW, Santa Monica, and distributed to stations nationwide by Public Radio International.
RORY KENNEDY
Producer
Rory Kennedy is an Emmy Award winning and Academy Award nominated independent documentary filmmaker, as well as co-founder and president of Moxie Firecracker Films. Her films cover an array of issues ranging from poverty to politics to human rights. You may have seen her work on HBO, A&E, MTV, Lifetime and PBS. Kennedy has directed and produced feature documentaries including Ghosts of Abu Ghraib (Primetime Emmy Award winner for Best Non Fiction Film, 2007),Thank You, Mr. President: Helen Thomas at the White House, American Hollow, A Boy’s Life, and Pandemic: Facing AIDS.
LIBBY HOFFMAN
Producer and Executive Producer
Elisabeth (Libby) Hoffman has been active in peacebuilding for 25 years in a variety of capacities—professor, trainer, facilitator, program director, consultant, and funder. A former Political Science professor at Principia College, she left academia to focus on the practice of peacebuilding with an emphasis on making the link between individual and community transformation. She has developed and led conflict resolution training programs in corporate, congregational, educational and community settings. She founded Catalyst for Peace (a Portland, Maine based private foundation) in 2003, in order to mobilize and support locally rooted peacebuilding around the world, and to pioneer in communications to bring the stories of this work to the world. It was in her capacity as President of Catalyst for Peace that she first began working with Sara Terry to document stories of forgiveness and reconciliation in post-conflict Africa. In the course of this work, she met John Caulker and they began the partnership that led to the founding of Fambul Tok in Sierra Leone, alongside the commitment to document the process in film. With the growth and success of the Fambul Tok program, and an increasing demand to share the model in other parts of the world, Fambul Tok International incorporated as an international organization in 2009, with Hoffman serving as President. Hoffman holds a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and a BA in Political Science from Williams College. Fambul Tok is her first feature length film.
BRIAN SINGBIEL
Editor
Brian Singbiel focused his film education on editing at Chapman University, which earned him many honors including a student nomination at the 2003 A.C.E. Eddie Awards. He honed his craft by editing short films, spec commercials and music videos while working with established editors on feature documentaries such as Seamless and America the Beautiful. Singbiel’s first feature documentary as lead editor was the 2008 Sundance hit Bigger, Stronger, Faster. His other credits include the 2009 Sundance doc, Dirt! The Movie and Exporting Raymond.
HENRY JACOBSON
Director of Photography
Henry Jacobson began working in documentary film after graduating from Hampshire College with a project called Bilwas, a film about the lingering effects and public health disaster following twenty years of war in a small Miskito village in eastern Nicaragua. After moving to Los Angeles, he began working for Steven Bernstein, ASC, who became his mentor in cinematography. Henry soon started work on his own documentary feature “Jesus Goes to Hollywood,” and is currently the Director of Photography on two documentary features: Fambul Tok, and Truth in Translation, directed by Michael Lessac. Both films, in very different ways, focus on peace and justice from an African perspective. This work has taken him around the globe and inspired his latest photo project “Phoenix Flown,” which marries his work at home as a fashion photographer with his experience in international post-conflict peacebuilding—photographing the work of visionary young designers working in post conflict countries.
