René Lego

Producer/Director

René Lego is an award-winning, Emmy-nominated producer, director and videographer. Since receiving her B.A. in Radio-Television-Film from Temple University in Philadelphia, René has produced, directed and shot a number of commercial, documentary and experimental works.

Her first film, The Philadelphia Textile Industry was featured at the 1996 International Textile Competition in Kyoto, Japan. René worked as a line producer and assistant camera on the Cardoso Flea Circus, a quirky experimental shown in art galleries and museums worldwide. In 1999, she produced and directed a historical documentary tracing the legacy of forgotten radio pioneer Atwater Kent.

From 1999 - 2001, René was the Senior Producer of Philly Live, a call-in talk show on WYBE Public Television in Philadelphia. Program themes nights included International, Gay & Lesbian, Latino, Asian, African American and Local. Philly Live received a 2001 Mid-Atlantic Emmy nomination for “Best Talk Series,” and was awarded a Telly, a Communicator Award and a Pennsylvania Broadcaster’s Association Award.

Her most recent documentary, Picture Me an Enemy, a moving portrait of two women from the former Yugoslavia premiered in Philadelphia in 2003 to a sold-out audience. The film was awarded “Best Documentary” at the 2003 Philadelphia Film Festival, garnered an Emmy nomination for “Outstanding Documentary Program” and was selected as a finalist for the International Public Television Conference (INPUT’03). In addition, it was featured in the Common Ground Film Festival and the Philadelphia Stories television series. The film is currently being distributed to colleges and universities throughout the U.S. by Women Make Movies.

Rene is currently developing some web documentaries and writing her first screenplay.

Michelle Pollino

Producer

Michelle Pollino is an award-winning producer, writer and director with nearly 15 years in the industry. After less than a decade in radio and television as a writer and reporter, Michelle’s natural storytelling abilities led her into television and film production. She started out at Philadelphia’s local PBS affiliate WHYY with a series of shorts and then went onto WYBE Public Television to produce the award-winning Philly Live. Michelle’s next couple of stops included producing reality television for networks TLC, Fox, A&E, Nat Geo, Logo and many more.

Michelle branched into film in the mid 2000’s as Assistant Production Coordinator for the feature film Out There, released by IFC pictures in 2005. After that, she worked on numerous feature films as an Assistant Director. Michelle produced her first feature film, 2 Minutes Later distributed by TLA Releasing in 2007. In 2009, she produced Mayor Cupcake with Lea Thompson and Judd Nelson (currently in post-production). Her directorial debut came in 2008, when she produced and directed the film, Looking For, slated for release in December 2010 on DVD, in association with Peccadillo Pictures, as part of the compilation series Here Come The Girls 3.

Peg Ellithorpe

Associate Producer

Peg is the Events and Programs Manager at the International Documentary Association. She has over 15 years of experience in the trenches of film, digital content and music festivals, most notably: South by Southwest Conferences and Festivals (SXSW), American Film Institute Los Angeles Film Festival (AFI FEST), and North by Northwest Music Festival (NXNW). She’s also worked on a host of other festivals like Austin City Limits Music Festival (ACLFest), Portland Waterfront Blues Festival, Austin Marley Festival, Filmapalooza, and many more. Additionally, Peg served as a local producer for Carole Dean’s ‘Funding Your Film’ seminar in Austin, Texas.

In addition to her festival and conference work, Peggy worked in 2005 at Austin Music Foundation (AMF) to administrate the submissions process of the Musician Incubator Program and was the main troubleshooter for AMF’s online processes, handled logistics for the final selection interviews and competition showcases in addition to overseeing their annual fundraising gala.

Peg served as a producer on the indie short documentary film Drive, a study into countercultural neo-tribalism. In addition, she served as mentor and consultant to filmmaker Werner Campbell, for the film Hell on Wheels, a Texas roller derby documentary.

Peg grew up in Colorado, but earned her B.A. in Organizational Communications at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. Peg is a regular at various Burning Man events in Arizona, Texas, California and Nevada.

Erik Mauck

Associate Producer

After graduating from Southern Illinois University in 2000 with a degree in Film and Photography, Erik worked as a camera operator and producer for the local PBS affiliate in Carbondale, Illinois. During that time, he was a co-editor for Our Road to Kosovo, a documentary following a group of college student filmmakers traveling to the embattled region to meet with an Albanian family displaced by ethnic cleansing. In 2003, he moved to Austin, Texas, and began working on his own independent projects. Erik has shot and edited several short films and recently completed his first documentary Zombie Girl: The Movie, about a 12-year-old girl’s efforts to produce, shoot and edit a feature-length zombie horror movie.

Erik’s narrative feature film, Straight to the Bone premiered at the 2009 Austin Film Festival. He is hard at work on his second feature-length documentary tentatively titled The Road to Livingston about a woman whose brother is on death row in Livingston,Texas. Erik received a post-production grant for this film from the Austin Film Society and hopes to have it completed by the end of summer 2010. To supplement his income, Erik has been a participant in medical research studies over the past few years.