Vanessa Hope | DIRECTOR, PRODUCER
Vanessa Hope is an award-winning producer and director who has produced multiple acclaimed films in China including Berlin International Film Festival selection, Wang Quanan's The Story Of Ermei and Cannes Film Festival selection, Chantal Akerman's Tombee De Nuit Sur Shanghai, part of an omnibus of films, The State Of The World. She has also directed and produced several doc shorts, including China In Three Words, an official selection at DOC NYC. Hope made her directorial feature debut with the documentary All Eyes and Ears, an exploration of the complex links between the U.S. and China featuring former President Obama’s US Ambassador to China and premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Hope’s additional producing credits include Sundance Film Festival selections, Zeina Durra’s The Imperialists Are Still Alive! and Sarah and Emily Kunstler's Academy award shortlisted feature documentary, William Kunstler: Disturbing The Universe and their award-winning SXSW film, Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America. She served as Executive Producer of Paula James-Martinez’s Born Free.
Vanessa and her husband, Ted Hope, share a company, Double Hope Films. Prior to her film career, Vanessa worked on foreign policy issues at the Council on Foreign Relations with Senior Fellow and Director of Asia Studies Elizabeth Economy. She received her B.A. from the University of Chicago in Anthropology and East Asian Studies and completed the coursework for a PhD at Columbia University before going into film.
TED HOPE | PRODUCER
Ted Hope has been a producer on over 70 films, studio executive on over 60, CEO of a start-up streamer, co-head of 3 production companies, executive director of a film society & festival, a Professor Of Practice at two universities, and founder of a post-production facility, two websites, two think tanks, & an app. Ted launched Amazon’s foray into feature film production, leading them to 19 Oscar nominations and 5 wins.
As a producer, Ted’s films have received 25 Oscar nominations, with 6 wins. Ted’s memoir and newsletter Hope For Film, are both must reads. Ted helped launch the feature film careers of Ang Lee, Nicole Holofcener, Hal Hartley, Michel Gondry and many others.
His most recent films include the first narrative from Oscar-winning documentary director, Roger Ross Williams, Cassandro, as well as the documentary Invisible Nation, directed and produced by Vanessa Hope.
Cassandra Jabola | PRODUCER
Cassandra Jabola, a graduate of New York University with a background in cinema and broadcast journalism, is a Filipina-American documentary film, television and video producer based in San Francisco. In various producing roles on broadcast documentary series, she has collaborated with HBO, PBS, National Geographic, NBC, The Weather Channel, TLC, The Science Channel, The Travel Channel, A&E and Investigation Discovery. Her recently completed feature length documentary films include Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly, which screened at DOC NYC; Happening: A Clean Energy Revolution which aired on HBO; CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap and All Eyes and Ears, which both premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Her work spans across science and technology, politics and history, art and music. She believes that audiovisual storytelling is a powerful tool for igniting change as it amplifies the voices of those who would otherwise not be heard. She strives to tell cause-based, social justice stories — particularly those covering issues facing women and people of color.
Cassandra has also produced award-winning branded content for corporations, agencies and nonprofits. Clients include GitHub (Microsoft), LVMH (Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton), Restoration Hardware, Capital One, eBay, Sony Playstation, Boys & Girls Clubs, Blue Shield of California, Whole Foods, Advancing Justice — Asian Law Caucus, Huawei Technologies, Logitech, and Polycom. She is experienced in taking feature documentary films, doc reality series and short-form videos from research and development through production and post — on set, in the field and in the edit room; locally and internationally; on land, in the air and underwater!
Geralyn Dreyfous | Executive producer
Geralyn Dreyfous has a wide, distinguished background in the arts and participates on numerous boards and initiatives. She is the founder of the Utah Film Center and co-founder of Impact Partners Film Fund with Dan Cogan. In 2013, Geralyn co-founded Gamechanger Films, a film fund dedicated to women directors. Her independent producing credits include the Academy Award-winning Born Into Brothels; Emmy-nominated The Day My God Died; Academy Award-nominated The Square; Academy Award-nominated The Invisible War and multiple film festival winners. Geralyn was honored with the IDA’s 2013 Amicus Award for her significant contribution to documentary filmmaking. Variety recognized Geralyn in their 2014 Women’s Impact Report, highlighting her work in the entertainment industry.
Sylvia Feng | producer
Sylvia Feng is a senior journalist and award-winning documentary producer. She was a leading figure in the efforts to launch Public Television and The Indigenous People’s Channel. She founded the only documentary TV program in Taiwan and contributed to the booming of documentary filmmaking in Taiwan. As the president of Taiwan’s Public Television, she fought against the government’s intervention and achieved unprecedented content innovation despite budget difficulties. As an independent producer, her short film on a death penalty case helped the rescue efforts that resulted in the final not guilty verdict of an innocent man. She initiated On Happiness Road, the feature length animated film depicting a working-class young woman’s awakening during Taiwan’s transition from Martial Law to democracy, which won the grand prize at Tokyo International Animation Film Festival in 2018.
Mike Veldstra | EXECUTIVE Producer
Mike Veldstra is a multilingual producer and director, and winner of the Cineformosa Jury Award for Short Film. Mike also worked with international clients like Tokyo Sekei, MTV Holland, Christian Audigier, Perrier Jouet, REMF, Brothers baseball team, WBC Premier 12 and corporate sports marketing company PCG Bros and Pao Chen Group. In 2018 he shot his first feature length movie Eternal Flower for PTS Taiwan. He is currently working on his second feature film. Besides his feature film projects, he also works on documentaries, which include the Yani Tseng documentary in co-production with Discovery Network and Invisible Nation with Double Hope Films.
Laura Hudock | DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Laura Hudock, the director of photography of Invisible Nation, brings an impressive background in both documentary and fictional storytelling to the project. She is currently about to shoot her third season of The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth for Showtime. The first season of the documentary series pulled back the curtain on the 2016 U.S. presidential race, revealing the intense, inspiring and infuriating stories behind the headlines. Trumped: Inside The Greatest Political Upset of All Time, a feature documentary which also came from this footage, premiered at Sundance.