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.

Michelle Pollino

Producer

Michelle Pollino is an Emmy-nominated producer, writer and director with nearly 15 years in the industry. After more 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 stop included producing reality television for the nationally acclaimed and award-winning Banyan Productions.

Michelle was the Assistant Production Coordinator for the feature film Champions, shown at the 2006 SXSW Film Festival and was the official selection and closing night film at the Newport International Film Festival 2006. Michelle produced the feature film Future Weather and was Co-producer/1st AD on the film, 2 Minutes Later.

In addition, Michelle is an acclaimed voice-over artist who can be heard narrating TLC’s new cable series Surviving Motherhood. This year, Michelle is writing her first feature film. Michelle lives in Mt. Airy, just outside Philadelphia, with her two Jack Russell’s Lucy and Ulysses.

Peg Ellithorpe

Associate Producer

Peg has spent the past 14 years in the trenches of film, digital content and music festivals, most recently as Executive Producer of Duke City Shootout Moviemaking Competition and Festival in Albuquerque New Mexico. She also did rather lengthy tours of duty at 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 and many more. She was the local producer of Carole Dean’s ‘Funding Your Film’ seminar in Texas.

In addition to her festival and conference work, Peg 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 an executive producer on the indie film Drive, a study into countercultural neo-tribalism. In addition, she serves as mentor and consultant to filmmaker Werner Campbell, now in the process of distributing Hell on Wheels, a Texas roller derby documentary four years in the making.

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 is currently shooting both a short and full-length documentary and is directing an improvised narrative feature film entitled Straight to the Bone. To supplement his income, Erik has been a participant in medical research studies over the past two years.