Susan Stern
Director, Producer, Writer, Narrator

Susan Stern has been a journalist—specializing in investigative reporting—for more than 20 years. Her articles have been published in the Boston Globe, Sacramento Bee, San Francisco Examiner and Oakland Tribune. The Wall Street Journal credited Stern’s exposé of Navy base closures with “saving thousands of local jobs." Stern has also written and produced news for KPIX TV, San Francisco’s CBS affiliate. She is married to Spain, the cartoonist and artist. Their daughter, Nora, inspired the film Barbie Nation. Stern's last film, The Self-Made Man, was nominated for two national Emmy awards.

Cinematography

Charlie Gruet (San Luis Obispo) is a feature film cinematographer known for his experimental visuals in shorts and commercials. Recently, Charlie was DP for Porchlight Entertainment's "Inhabited", with Malcolm MacDowell, and has done commercials for Levis, Toyota and Novell Software. His experimental work has appeared in shorts such as "Special K", by Mark Meyers.

Andrew Black (San Luis Obispo) shot The Weather Underground, which debuted at Sundance in 2003. He was co-cinematographer on Scout's Honor (POV, 2001; Sundance Audience Award), In The Light of Reverence (POV, 2001), and cinematographer on Drylongso: Pica's Story (Sundance Channel; Independent Spirit Award, 1998).

Ines Sommer (Chicago) contributed cinematography to Refrigerator Mothers (POV, 2002) and Halsted Street, USA, 1998. She is currently co-shooting Anya: In and Out of Focus, a personal documentary by Emmy award-winning documentary director Marian Marzynski. Ines teaches film at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Sarah Levy (Los Angeles) shot Tak for Alt: Survival of the Human Spirit (PBS, 2000), Milk and Honey (Showtime, 2001) and Book of Kings (Merchant Ivory Foundation, 2001) Her short film “hITCH” was listed in Film Comment's “Best of ‘99.” She received the Thomas B. Bush Memorial Scholarship for Excellence in Cinematography at USC film school, and won the Arthur Miller Student Heritage Award from the American Society of Cinematographers.

Andy Abrahams Wilson (San Francisco) is a freelance cinematographer and an Emmy Award-nominated producer/director of non-fiction films. Past productions include the HBO special "Bubbeh Lee & Me," and the PBS & Sundance Channel broadcast "Hope is the Thing with Feathers." Wilson also served as Co-Producer and Director of Photography for the award-winning documentary "Touched," and was cinematographer for the Sundance hit "Daddy and Papa."

Editing

Jennifer Chinlund has edited many PBS productions in her 20-year career. Some of her recent credits include: Discovering Dominga (POV 2003); Secrets of Silicon Valley (Independent Lens 2002); Coming to Light: Edward Curtis and the North American Indian (ITVS and American Masters); Baby It's You (POV 1998) and the Emmy Award-winning, Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter (POV 1995).

Additional Editor/Music Supervisor Elizabeth Finlayson edited the Emmy award-winning Blink (POV, 1999) and edited and did music supervision for Barbie Nation: An Unauthorized Tour (POV, 1998) Elizabeth provided additional editing for Sacrifice (Sundance Film Festival, 1997) and Means of Grace (ITVS/PBS, 1997) and was coeditor of Satya: A Prayer for the Enemy ( POV, 1993) She directed and edited In and Out of Time ( Student Academy Award, 1991).

Advisory Board

Margaret Pabst Battin, Ph.D. is distinguished professor of philosophy and adjunct professor of internal medicine, division of medical ethics, at the University of Utah. She has authored, edited or co-edited 12 books, among them a study of philosophical issues in suicide; a scholarly edition of John Donne's Biathanatos; and a study of ethical issues in organized religion. A collection of her essays on end-of-life issues written over the last fifteen years is entitled The Least Worst Death. She has also been engaged in research on active euthanasia and assisted suicide in the Netherlands. She has recently published Ethical Issues in Suicide, trade-titled The Death Debate, as well as several co-edited collections, including Drug Use in Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide and Physician-Assisted Suicide: Expanding the Debate. She has just published Praying for a Cure, a jointly authored volume on the ethics of religious refusal of medical treatment.

Patrick Arbore, Ph.D. is director of the Center for Elderly Suicide Prevention & Grief Related Services (CESP), a program of San Francisco's Institute on Aging, which is affiliated with the the Center on Aging at the University of California at San Francisco Medical Center. CESP is a 16-year-old nonprofit organization which provides a 24-hour telephone line and home visits for troubled seniors. CESP also offers group and individual suicide prevention and grief counseling and suicide intervention workshops.

Paul A. Spiers, Ph.D. is a leader in Compassion & Choices, the largest U.S. organization which supports legalization of assisted suicide. He is a clinical and forensic neuro-psychologist who is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine and is affiliated with the Clinical Research Center of MIT. After being paralyzed in a riding accident in 1994, Paul has become a spokesman for choice in dying in the disabled community.