Film Credits
DIRECTOR / PRODUCER / CINEMATOGRAPHER
In 2004, Thomas started shooting his first documentary feature, One Big Home. Over the next twelve years, Thomas worked with other community members to finish this labor of love. It premiered in 2016 and has since screened in more than 100 venues in the U.S. and abroad, including the National Gallery of Art and the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. Citizens in Honolulu, Vancouver, Truro, Long Island, and Provincetown have used the film to galvanize support for their own town/city bylaws limiting house size. Before he began working on One Big Home, Thomas worked as a carpenter on Martha’s Vineyard. And in 2001, he founded the Martha's Vineyard Film Festival. In 2021, Thomas left the MVFF to create Stillpoint, a year-round educational organization based in West Tisbury.
PRODUCER / EDITOR
James Holland is a producer and editor for documentary films, and founder of motion graphics studio The Media Darlings. His recent projects include Bedlam (additional editing, additional motion graphics, post-production supervisor); One Big Home (producer, editor); Unlocking the Cage (motion graphics); In My Father’s House (motion graphics); and 3 Days 2 Nights (motion graphics). In addition to his documentary work, James has also directed short films and music videos for musicians including Regina Spektor, Only Son, and Amanda Palmer, and is currently developing a feature narrative film which he will write and direct. He studied art and filmmaking at Rhode Island School of Design.
EDITOR / CINEMATOGRAPHER
Cofounder of Film Truth Productions, Liz Witham directed, shot, and edited Keepers of the Light, a documentary now broadcast on PBS stations nationwide. She is currently in post-production on Follow the Journey, a documentary about North Atlantic right whales that is slated for broadcast on PBS in 2021. Her work has appeared on numerous outlets including CBS, Apple.com, The Nature Conservancy, RolllingStone.com, and Richard Branson’s blog, and has screened at festivals worldwide. Liz produced, directed, shot, and edited A Certain Kind of Beauty, which premiered at Silverdocs as one of two U.S. selections on global health. Liz also co-produced Legacy of the Harp, a documentary which received a People’s Voice Award from the U.S. federal government's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. She received her master of arts degree from Stanford University, in documentary film and video. Her film Precipice, about the ethics of body modification, was nominated for a Student Academy Award, and her film Blues Variations, a profile of three blues artists, was broadcast on KQED, San Francisco’s PBS station.
EDITOR
Jim Cricchi is a New York-based documentary editor and filmmaker. He most recently directed, filmed, and edited Can You Hear Us Now?, a feature documentary that unravels the ways one-party control reshaped democracy in the state of Wisconsin. His previous film, Los Lecheros (2017), which looked at the dairy industry's reliance on undocumented workers, won a regional Edward R. Murrow award and was shortlisted for an IDA award. Jim’s editing credits include Bedlam (Sundance 2019), One Big Home, I Do and I Don't, the Emmy-winning series Vice (on HBO), and short films for the Criterion Collection and the New York Times.
CINEMATOGRAPHER
Jeremy Mayhew is an independent filmmaker, designer, animator, and freelance motion graphics artist based on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. He has developed and worked on projects for Redken, PBS, HGTV, the History Channel, the Electric Company, Galen Films, The Big Picture, Silver Screen Society, the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival, the Woods Hole Film Festival, and the Martha’s Vineyard Film Society. His films have screened and won awards at film festivals around the world.
COMPOSER
Paul Brill received three Emmy Award nominations for his scores for the films Full Battle Rattle (National Geographic), The Devil Came on Horseback (Break Thru Films), and The Trials of Darryl Hunt (HBO), and won the Best Music Award from the International Documentary Association for his score for the film Better this World. He collaborated with U2 on the HBO film Burma Soldier, composing a new string arrangement for an acoustic version of their classic song “Walk On.” He scored the hit documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (IFC), the Emmy Award-winning Page One: Inside the New York Times (Magnolia), as well as Christy Turlington Burns’s directorial debut, No Woman, No Cry (OWN), on which he collaborated with songwriter Martha Wainwright. He also composed the music for the landmark, six-hour PBS documentary The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, which won both Emmy and Peabody Awards in 2014.
STORY ADVISOR
Mollie Doyle is a writer, editor, and yoga teacher who lives with her family on Martha’s Vineyard. She is also a co-founder of The Field Fund.
CONSULTING PHILOSOPHER
Jake H. Davis, Ph.D., is a Senior Advisor at the Faith & Politics Institute. Previously he has held teaching and research positions at New York University, Brown University, and the City College of New York. His research at the intersection of Buddhist philosophy, moral philosophy, and cognitive science draws on textual, meditative, and monastic training in the Theravāda Buddhist tradition of Burma (Myanmar).
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Steve Bernier first met Thomas Bena many years ago, when Thomas was raising funds for the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival (MVFF). A few years later he was voted president of the MVFF’s board of directors. Although he had never produced a film before, One Big Home triggered his interest, so he wholeheartedly signed on and became one of the film’s major funders. He is a lover of good food, good people, and good community, and an avid champion for the planet and all things good and right in the world. Steve enjoys working hard and supporting those that do too. A family man, grocer, and wannabe forest ranger, Steve believes in the mission of the MVFF and is a major fan of God.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Arleen McGlade is an award-winning and award-nominated film producer. Her diverse credits include the Netflix documentary series Happy Jail; the documentary Matt Shepard Is a Friend of Mine, for which she won a Daytime Emmy Award; and the documentaries One Big Home, Dear Walmart, Death by Design, and Motherload. Her feature credits include Damien Chazelle’s critically acclaimed musical Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench and Maria My Love. McGlade serves on the advisory board of the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival. A proud New Jersey native, she is a Rutgers alumna.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte is an Academy and Emmy Award-nominated, Golden Globe-winning producer working under the banner of Antidote Films, the company he founded in 2000. He most recently produced Fading Gigolo, written and directed by John Turturro and starring Woody Allen, Sofia Vergara, Sharon Stone, and Liev Schreiber. His other producing credits include The Kids Are All Right; The Dungeon Masters; Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired; Bomb It; The Last Winter; The Hawk Is Dying; Mysterious Skin; Chain; Thirteen; Laurel Canyon; Wendigo; American Saint; and Limon. He has also directed and produced two documentaries, Charlotte and Soul Power. Jeffrey is Board Chair for the IFP (Independent Filmmaker Project) in New York.