ABOUT THE FILM
Filmmakers

Jo?o Amorim is an Emmy nominated Brazilian Director focusing on?animation and documentaries, and more specifically the mix of both genres. Jo?o is one of the founding partners of Postmodern Times, a media company focused on social and environmental films. Jo?o has directed and produced the animated series ?Beyond 2012, Perspectives on the Next age?, on the evolution of consciousness and ecology. He has worked world wide as an industrial designer, animator, and animation supervisor for many years prior to directing.? He was the Head of Animation, on "Chicago 10", Brett Morgen's film that opened Sundance 2007, and for which Joao has been nominated for an Emmy in 2009.? He has also directed commercials for BMW, Panasonic, Oceana, among others.

?Jo?o directed many short films such as "Ferrets for Freedom" -a political short on Ferrets and Giuliani which became a YouTube hit.? He also directed the award winning "Don't get Charged up", on the recycling of batteries, among others.? He has worked as an animation director on:"Footsteps in Africa?, ?For the next 7 Generations? and the upcoming ?Ghetto Physics?.

He recently finished his first animated feature documentary: ?2012 Time for Change?, featuring among others David Lynch, Sting, Ellen Page, Gilberto Gil, and Paul Stamets. Furthermore Joao speaks 5 languages, meditates every day, paints, practices yoga and has a permaculture sustainability project in Brazil through the NGO ?Ciclo Sustainable?. In 2008 his project ?Sustainable unit? was a finalist at the Buckminster Fuller Challenge.

Daniel Pinchbeck is the author of the bestselling 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl (Tarcher/Penguin, 2006) and Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism (Broadway Books, 2002). He is co-founder of Evolver llc, which publishes Reality Sandwich (www.realitysandwich.com), the leading web magazine for transformative culture, and Evolver.net (www.evolver.net), the network that supports the Evolver Social Movement. His feature articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Wired, The Village Voice, ArtForum, Esquire, and many other publications. His column, ?Prophet Motive,? appears in Conscious Choice and Common Ground Magazine. He is also the co-producer, with Jo?o Amorim, of the animated videos series PostModern Times, now collected in ?Beyond 2012,? a new DVD published by UFO TV. His new book, Notes from the End Times, will be published next fall by Tarcher. Pinchbeck lives in New York City, where he is frequently sought out for interviews on psychedelics, prophecies, and other countercultural ideas.

Giancarlo Canavesio is the president and founder of Mangusta Risk, an independent firm based in Rome that specializes in financial risk measurement, analysis, and management. He lives in between London, New York and Rome and has a 7 year old son, Stefano. Giancarlo?s devotion and passion for independent film inspired him to establish Mangusta Productions, a company dedicated to increasing the production of superior quality independent films through partnerships with talented filmmakers around the world.

Sol Tryon produced his first feature film Bomb the System in 2002, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival 2003 and earned him a Spirit Award nomination for best first feature. In 2005, while working with renowned artist Shirin Neshat on her video art film, Zarin (Sundance Film Festival 2007), Sol executive produced the feature film Weapons, (Narrative Feature Competition, Sundance Film Festival 2007). The Living Wake, Sol?s directorial debut starring Mike O?Connell, Jesse Eisenberg and Jim Gaffigan, premiered at the CineVegas Film Festival in June 2007 where he garnered the Heineken Red Star Award for ?the most innovative and progressive filmmaker?. The film also won the Audience Award at the Woodstock Film Festival 2007, the Comedic Vision Award at the Austin Film Festival 2007 and Best Feature Film Award at The Big Apple Film Festival 2008. In the fall of 2007, Sol produced the narrative feature film Explicit Ills about young love, drug addition, poverty and activism in Philadelphia. The film, starring Paul Dano, Rosario Dawson, Lou Taylor Pucci and Naomie Harris, was executive produced by Jim Jarmusch, directed by Mark Webber and premiered at the 2008 South by Southwest Film Festival where it won the Narrative Feature Audience Award and the Special Jury Award for Outstanding Cinematography. Explicit Ills was released theatrically in the US in 2009. Currently, Sol is producing two feature length documentaries, 2012: Time for Change and Being in the World. He also has three narrative feature films that he is attached to direct in varying stages of development: Kick the Can, a coming of age comedy adapted from the novel written by newsman Jim Lehrer; Wedding the Winterbottoms, a Meet the Parents meets Peter Pan in the world of The Royal Tenenbaums comedy about an eccentric family dealing with real life relationship issues; and Eggy, a multistoryline coming of age comedy about life in a Catholic school in New Jersey.

Blake Ashman-Kipervaser is an independent film producer based in New York City. His credits include the award-winning feature film Prince of Broadway (associate producer) directed by Sean Baker (Nominated John Cassavetes Award Independent Spirit Awards, Winner Best Narrative Feature Los Angeles Film Festival) and the feature documentary The Lottery directed by Madeleine Sackler (Tribeca Film Festival 2010). He recently co-produced Mister Green directed by Greg Pak (SXSW 2010, Winner Best Short Film Sci-Fi London 2010) for the ITVS series Futurestates (www.futurestates.tv), and 2012: Time For Change directed by Jo?o Amorim (featuring Sting, David Lynch, Ellen Page). Additonally, Ashman-Kipervaser co-produced two seasons of Greg the Bunny film parodies for the Independent Film Channel (IFC). He is currently working with Mangusta Productions to release a slate of films including Being In The World directed by Tao Ruspoli, 2012: Time For Change and The Living Wake directed by Sol Tryon (Winner Red Star Award CineVegas, AFI Festival) starring Mike O?Connell and Jesse Eisenberg.

April Merl has been working in independent film for the last 13 years. Her credits have been seen on HBO, PBS, ABC and in theaters around the world. Her editing credits include feature documentaries Trumbo, and Angelina Jolie's directorial debut "A Place in Time".

Her most recent project, The Yes Men Fix the World, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won the Panorama Audience award at the Berlin Film Festival in 2009.

Dustin Lindblad enjoys working as an art director, graphic designer and illustrator. ? Integrating a diverse background of traditional visual arts, architectural design and computer graphics, her passion is bringing ideas to life through striking visual representations.

Influenced by a fascination with dance choreography and theatrical performance, Dustin's work explores themes of fantasy,? life-cycles, and organic imagery characterized by a vivid sense of color and intricate attention for detail.? Her award-winning film Tao, created for Vancouver dance choreographer Wen Wei Wang, has been screened internationally at numerous festivals, and C?l?sais, her animated short, was accepted with Honorable Mention to Siggraph Space.

Dustin is involved in various creative activities encompassing graphics for film and television, projects for ad agencies, concept art, multi-media performance pieces, textile illustrations and greeting cards.??? Inspired by the evolution of the creative process, she has taught several design and architectural theory courses.? Before a Wacom pen became her main tool, she used a parallel straightedge to construct blueprints working as both an architect and exhibit designer.? Dustin is currently creating two children's books and is constantly on the lookout for magic in her everyday life.?

Lewis Kofsky is partner and producer at Curious Pictures. He guides all digital production at Curious, including film, studio services, and gaming. His team produces the mocap and keyframe motion for the hit franchise Rockband. Other game clients include Rockstar Games, THQ, and Ubisoft. He is currently overseeing an animation and VFX package for Focus Features and a supervising producer on the hit Nickleodeon series Umizoomi.

Lewis has a long history of marrying technology and artistry to create innovative new looks. He was producer of all the animation segments in the documentary film, "Chicago 10," which opened the Sundance Film Festival in January 2007 and showcases a proprietary animation look he was a principal in devising. In 2008 Lewis produced eight minutes of mixed-media animation for the Morgan Spurlock?s "Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden." Another standout style is the rotomation technique that he developed on the award-winning "Avenue Amy "- five years before the ubiquitous ipod dancers. Lewis went on sabbatical from Curious to work at PDI/Dreamworks on the animated feature films "Shrek2" and "Madagascar" as a visual FX animator specializing in water and fluid effects.

He's been with us since 1998, starting out as a CG Artist and VFX supervisor fluent in a variety of media. He has worked on film, commercials, TV series and pilots, music videos, and short-form content for a long client list. Lewis started his career in New York at R\GA and has experience at a range of large and boutique studios. Lewis is self-taught in the field of computer graphics and holds a BS in design from Stanford University.

Outside the studio Lewis created a popular class at the NYU film school in title design and digital FX. He is a certified permaculture designer and spends time farming or generally working to make his community sustainable. He can be spotted in his natural habitats tapping his Blackberry in natural settings, planting trees in the forests of South America, or behind the wheel of his mutant vehicle at the Burningman Festival.

Pedro Tarrag? is a freelance online/offline digital film and video editor.

His most recent work was a feature length documentary "2012 - Time For Change" about sustainability and personal transformation.

His range of work includes a variety of formats from commercials and music videos to short series documentaries where he specialized in integrating various types of media (live action, 2d/3d animation, still images, motion graphs) with coherent and dynamic cuts.

Pedro's ability to speak both English and Portuguese fluently has been a valuable asset, forming a diverse client base.

He also graduated from Alchemea College of Audio Engineering in London, where he recorded many bands and also studied sound editing and sound mixing. This along with his musical background (an occasional drummer) has help distinguish him in his editing career.

Tao Ruspoli (born 7 November 1975) is an Italian-American filmmaker, photographer, and musician.

BACKGROUND
He is the second son of occasional actor and aristocrat Prince Alessandro Ruspoli, 9th Prince of Cerveteri by Austrian-American actress Debra Berger.

Tao was born in Bangkok, Thailand and raised in Rome and Los Angeles. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy.

CAREER
Moviemaker magazine singled out Ruspoli as one of the 10 Young Filmmakers To Watch in its spring 2008 issue. His feature narrative debut, Fix, was one of 10 feature films to screen in competition at the 2008 Slamdance Film Festival and soon afterward at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival where Ruspoli was awarded the Heineken Red Star Award for "most innovative and progressive filmmaker." Fix also won the Festival Award for Best Film at the 2008 Brooklyn Film Festival, Vail Film Festival and the 2008 Twin Rivers Media Festival, as well as other prizes at several international festivals.

His most well-known documentary is Just Say Know, a personal discussion of his family's drug addiction. His other films include Flamenco: A Personal Journey, a feature length documentary about the flamenco way of life as it is lived by Gypsies in the south of Spain. He has directed a number of other short documentaries, including El Cable (also about Flamenco), and This Film Needs No Title: A Portrait of Raymond Smullyan (a portrait of the renowned logician, mathematician and concert pianist Raymond Smullyan).

Tao founded LAFCO in 2000. The Los Angeles Filmmakers Cooperative, is a bohemian collective of filmmakers and musicians who work out of a converted school bus. Through LAFCO, Tao has produced several films and helped dozens of filmmakers to make their first films and discover the wonders of digital media.

His producing credits include the feature film Camjackers, which he also acted in and co-edited. Camjackers won the best editing award at the 44th Ann Arbor Film Festival.

Tao is an accomplished flamenco guitar player, and his first CD, FLAMENCO, was released on Mapleshade Records in 2005.

He married actress Olivia Wilde in 2003. He currently lives and works in Venice, California.

Nikos Katsaounis is an Emmy award winning documentary filmmaker, producer, and video artist who works and lives in New York City.

As a co-founder of Postmodern Times, he has produced and directed numerous short docs, viral videos, and animations that have won a variety of distinctions and awards. He recently finished several short web pieces on prostitution, HIV, and truckers in India, and is currently developing several new films and an internet media venture.

Mangusta Productions is a New York based production company specializing in independent film financing, production and distribution. The goal is to provide a sustainable environment for independent filmmakers to complete their work and show it to the world, while retaining creative and financial control. Explicit Ills, a Mangusta produced film, was released theatrically and on DVD nationwide in 2009. The company currently has three films in different phases of self-distribution (Fix, The Living Wake, and 2012: Time for Change) and one documentary in production (Being in the World). Believing in the creative process while understanding the challenging state of the independent film industry, Mangusta Productions is committed to bringing important work to audiences worldwide.

Curious Pictures was formed in 1993 when four colleagues established a small entertainment company that would provide a home base for talented creators from all over the world. Specializing in animation, design, and graphics, the company opened with a philosophy based on a tripod: ?great work - make money - have fun?.

Having worked together for several years, the team of four partners - Susan Holden, Steve Oakes, David Starr, and Richard Winkler - started out producing TV commercials, with the intention of expanding to television programming, toy production, and other ventures. Expand they did: in 1994, the Curious team set up shot in their current studio on Lafayette Street in lower Manhattan?s NoHo district. Gradually, five directors became a dozen and by 1995, Curious was producing upwards of 100 commercial projects annually. The production of Mo Willem?s ?The Offbeats? in 1995 for Nickelodeon marked Curious? expansion into the TV show business and in 1998 ?A Little Curious? for HBO became the company?s first half-hour series, followed soon after by the next Mo Willems creation, ?Sheep in the Big City? for Cartoon Network.

From 1995-1999, an office was maintained in San Francisco to support the company?s diversification into cel animation, In 1997, Curious established its toy company, Curious Toys, with Bonz as its first line. Curious toys began to expand with several additions to the Bonz line in 1998, all of which have earned awards of recognition within the toy industry. In 2000, Curious launched DCODE, a small hybrid production company/creative services company.

Curious has come a long way from its first spot for Midas Muffler in 1993; today with hundreds of brand-name clients, almost 1000 commercials, and an extensive record of relationships with leading advertising agencies and broadcasters worldwide, this growing entertainment company is proof that a little curiosity goes a long way. UFO-TV.

A collaboration between Nikos Katsounis, Jo?o Amorim, and Daniel Pinchbeck, Postmodern Times LLC develops, produces, and distributes conscious creative media.

Using techniques of documentary, interview, and animation, PostModern Times videos make complex and abstract ideas accessible and fun to watch. Please check out www.postmoderntimes.com or our first DVD, Beyond 2012, produced in conjunction with UFO-TV.