Elisa Levine
Director / Producer
Elisa Levine is a Seattle-based filmmaker with a passion for exploring subcultures hidden in plain sight using verité storytelling. Sweetheart Deal, her directing debut, was hailed by RogerEbert.com as, “one of the most astonishing studies of a real-life predator ever committed to film”, and lauded as, “an astounding feat of documentary filmmaking” by Film Threat. Notably, Elisa served as lead researcher on Robinson Devor’s haunting documentary Zoo, featured at Sundance and Cannes. Elisa’s work has screened at numerous festivals, including Seattle International Film Festival, Slamdance, and BendFilm, garnering multiple jury and audience awards. She is a fellow of Film Independent, Points North Institute, Sundance Documentary Film Program, and Sundance Edit & Story Lab. Elisa has served on the BendFilm and Big Sky Documentary Film Festival programming teams, and recently served on BendFilm’s 2023 Documentary Shorts Jury.
Gabriel Miller
Director / Cinematographer
Gabriel Miller (1972 - 2019) was an award-winning cinematographer and director. Miller worked with a number of Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated filmmakers, including Cynthia Wade, Sari Gilman, and Liz Garbus. Productions he worked on have been broadcast on HBO, the BBC, the Sundance Channel, PBS, MTV, Discovery, A&E, and ARTE. Miller was a Points North, Garrett Scott, and Sundance Institute fellow. Miller’s cinematography credits include the 2019 Peabody award-winning HBO documentary A Dangerous Son; the Oscar-nominated King’s Point; and Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines, which aired on PBS.
Peggy Case
Producer
Peggy Case is an award-winning producer and director of dramas and documentaries. Her producing credits include Lynn Shelton’s feature debut We Go Way Back, David Russo’s dark, stylish comedy The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle and Robinson Devor’s provocative documentary, Zoo, which was an official selection for the Sundance Documentary Competition and Cannes Directors Fortnight. Her directorial credits include a number of PBS productions—the feature documentary Perfect Illusions, the series Inside the Box, and six short documentaries awarded the Silver Promax and Cine Golden Eagle. Peggy is a Film Independent Fellow. She recently produced segments for MRB Productions’ Hero Dog Awards (broadcast on A&E Networks) and is serving as executive producer on Baby Doe, an upcoming feature documentary directed by Jessica Earnshaw. Her production company, Mad as Birds LLC, is based in Seattle.
Tracy Rector
Co-Producer
Tracy Rector is a mixed heritage filmmaker with a passion for amplifying and uplifting Indigenous, BIPOC and underrepresented voices. She holds three decades of experience as a community organizer, educator, filmmaker, film programmer, and arts curator, all infused with her deep roots in plant medicine. For the last 25 years she has directed and produced over 400 films including shorts, features, music videos, and virtual reality projects. Her work has been featured on Independent Lens, ImagineNative, PBS, and National Geographic, as well as at international film festivals including Sundance, Cannes and Toronto. Tracy served as a Seattle Arts Commissioner for 8 years, sits on the boards Working Films, the Flaherty Seminar, and is on the Advisory Council for the Harvard Kennedy School. She enjoys travel, design, collective social justice campaigns, and learning about new cultural arts movements.
KAREN KH SIM
Supervising Editor / Writer
Karen KH Sim began her documentary filmmaking career as editor on Maro Chermayeff’s Juilliard. She then further honed her skills in storytelling by working with Frontline producer/director Ofra Bikel, editing a number of her films, including the Emmy Award winning An Ordinary Crime. Since then, she has contributed to many documentary projects as producer, writer and/or editor, among them Back on Board: Greg Louganis; Nothing Left Unsaid: Gloria Vanderbilt and Anderson Cooper; and Who Killed Garrett Phillips. In 2014, Sim won the Sundance Film Festival Documentary Editing Award for Watchers of the Sky. Most recently, she edited Convergence: Courage in a Crisis which premiered on Netflix in 2021. Sim is faculty at SVA’s MFA Social Documentary Film program.
BRITTANY KAPLAN
Editor
Brittany Kaplan is a Brooklyn-based documentary editor. She started her documentary career as a PA on Oscar-winning Inside Job. She then was an associate and additional editor on Ken Burns’ Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies, which was nominated for a primetime Emmy, and Henry Louis Gates’ The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, which won a Peabody and a News & Documentary Emmy. In 2016, Brittany was a Karen Schmeer Editing Fellowship finalist with the feature documentary, Beyond Borders: Undocumented Mexican Americans, which aired on PBS. In 2022, Brittany edited the finale of Jennifer Tiexiera’s documentary series Unveiled: Surviving La Luz del Mundo (HBO), which was Emmy-nominated for Outstanding Crime & Justice Documentary, as well as a Columbia Dupont award finalist. Recent television editing credits include: The Vow Part Two (HBO), Harry & Meghan (Netflix), and Unknown, The Lost Pyramid (Netflix). Her work on Sweetheart Deal earned her the Best Editing award at the 2023 Brooklyn Film Festival.
Peggy Rajski
Executive Producer
Peggy Rajski is an Academy-Award winning filmmaker, educator, and founder of The Trevor Project. Rajski’s many feature film producing credits include writer/director John Sayles’ The Brother From Another Planet, Matewan and Eight Men Out; Stephen Frears' neo-noir classic The Grifters; Jodie Foster's directorial debut Little Man Tate and her Thanksgiving classic Home for the Holidays. Rajski earned an Oscar for her own short film TREVOR, a poignant comedy she directed about a 13-year old boy whose world is turned upside down when word spreads he’s gay. The film led her to create the country’s first 24/7 suicide crisis intervention and prevention program for LGBTQ+ youth, The Trevor Project. Rajski also taught at NYU's Graduate Film Program, was appointed its Head of Studies for Producing, then served as Dean of the School of Film and Television at LMU. Rajski currently serves as Interim CEO of The Trevor Project, and is a longstanding member of the DGA, Film Independent, and AMPAS.
Brent Stiefel
Executive Producer
Brent Stiefel is the founder and CEO of VOTIV, a film, music and entertainment firm that specializes in independent, boundary pushing arts and ventures. In addition to his extensive work in music, Brent has helped produce a number of high profile independent feature films that have garnered the attention of film festivals and awards ceremonies alike. Brent is best known for his work on Obvious Child, As You Are, Free in Deed, The Giant Mechanical Man and Circle. He most recently produced the feature film Cold Copy (starring Bel Powley, Tracee Ellis Ross and Jacob Tremblay) which premiered at Tribeca in 2023 and played in select theaters in early 2024. Brent is currently producing the feature Tow (starring Rose Byrne, Octavia Spencer, Ariana DeBose, Dominic Sessa, Demi Lovato and Simon Rex), the documentary The Diamond King and will be producing the feature Wicker (starring Olivia Coleman and Dev Patel) later this year. Brent and Votiv have approximately 25 additional features in development along with several TV concepts.
ALAN PRUZAN
PRODUCER
Alan Pruzan has been creating entertainment since the 1980s, as an artist, activist, and media arts enabler. He has served as a consultant, investor, and executive producer on many feature films, including Thin Skin, The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle, Frank vs. God, and Potato Dreams of America. He was a founder and principal of Forrest Pruzan Creative (aka Prospero Hall), a prolific board game invention and design studio in Seattle. He retired from the toy industry in 2019. He has served on the board of Northwest Film Forum since 2000.
Elizabeth Rudolf
Executive Producer
Elizabeth’s initial involvement in the arts was in the professional theatre in New York and on tour. Later she served as the Executive Director of the Off Broadway Theater company Theatre of The Open Eye until 1979. In Seattle she became active in numerous civic and cultural organizations including Seattle Art Museum Supporters SAMS, Hugo House Board, Hedgebrook Board, ARCS Board, and nine years as trustee on the Board of Seattle Rep. She currently serves on the SRT Foundation Board and the Board of Visitors at Columbia University. Her film credits include Sweet Crude, All I Want is Christmas, and Sold.
MELISSE BARRETT
Executive Producer
A lover of independent film and documentaries throughout her lifetime, Sweetheart Deal is Melisse’s first venture into producing. A native Seattleite, she is well acquainted with Aurora Avenue’s struggles, and was drawn to Sweetheart Deal from its early days. She was so compelled by the women’s plight and the unflinching intimacy the filmmakers were able to capture that she wanted to become part of the project. An avid reader, traveler, and occasional artist, Melisse has long been a supporter of the arts. Since retiring from a career in commercial real estate, she has supported philanthropic organizations primarily in the arts and education.
JOE SHAPIRO
Co-Producer
Joe Shapiro is a filmmaker who believes in spreading stories that illuminate the better angels of our nature. He is certain that collaboration is humanity’s superpower, even if society seems to have forgotten this. He is actively working on creating films that entertain while trying to regrow social connection and trust. Joe has edited six feature films, including Robinson Devor’s Police Beat, a Sundance Dramatic Competition official selection, and Zoo, an official selection for both the Sundance Documentary Competition and Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.