Paul Burke
Director
Paul Burke (writer/director/producer) is a San Francisco-based filmmaker who began his career in film production. While working as a location scout on commercials and feature films, including Walter Salles' On the Road and Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master, he produced a short experimental film, Last Thoughts, that was widely acclaimed and earned a nomination for a Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco International and an audience award that secured the film a broadcast spot on WNET in New York.
After the 2010 Haitian earthquake, he volunteered his production talents to various grassroots Haitian organizations, including the Aristide Foundation for Democracy and the COCANO Coffee Cooperative. He produced and directed many short promotional videos to raise awareness and funds for the organizations. His time in Haiti piqued his interest in documentary filmmaking, and led him to complete an MFA in Film at California College of the Arts. He is currently developing an archival documentary set in 1960s Los Angeles about a priest and a nun who fall in love, break their vows, get married and become his parents.
Vivian Kleiman
Consulting producer
Vivian Kleiman is a veteran documentary filmmaker whose work is noted for its cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity. [JS1] Her professional awards include television’s top honor, The George Foster Peabody Award; the Organization of American Historians’ Eric Barnouw Award; International Documentary Association’s Outstanding Achievement Award; and National Emmy Award Nomination for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Research. A longtime collaborator with the landmark African-American gay filmmaker Marlon Riggs, Vivian’s credits include Tongues Untied and Color Adjustment. She also supervised the posthumous completion of his final work, Black Is...Black Ain’t. Vivian holds the distinctive record of eight co-productions with the National PBS funder of independent filmmakers, ITVS. Among them: Roam Sweet Home; First Person Plural; Maquilapolis; and STRONG! (a portrait of three-time US Olympic weightlifter Cheryl Haworth). Her work is noted for challenging subject matter and diverse filmic approach.