FILMMAKERS

DIRECTOR/PRODUCER – OLIVIA KLAUS

Olivia Klaus is an award-winning documentary filmmaker who passionately believes in the power of visual stories to create positive social change. Her various roles in production have helped create projects that have dealt with such issues as human rights, incarceration, poverty, and domestic violence. Her work has been seen on various networks like CNN, HLN, Showtime, and The History Channel. She was recently listed by Pixel Project as one of the “Top 16 Influential Leaders” in the movement to end violence against women.

Olivia Klaus’ career began with extensive travel throughout Central and South America, gathering stock footage and interviews for various non-profit organizations that serve social justice issues in poverty-stricken areas of these regions.

Her work continued as she returned to the United States to participate in the establishment of the Plus 8 Digital location in New York City. While managing this office, she was part of the pioneering efforts in high-definition technology emerging in the late 1990s. Plus 8 Digital has most recently merged with Panavision, but still retains a sterling reputation as the pioneer in high-definition technology and resources for countless high definitions productions.

Olivia founded Quiet Little Place Productions, an independent production company devoted to producing innovative and socially relevant stories for the screen and the web. In 2009, Olivia directed and produced Sin by Silence as the company’s first documentary endeavor. The journey of creating the film started in 2001, when Olivia began attending Convicted Women Against Abuse (CWAA) meetings at the California Institution for Women and built close relationships to capture each of the stories of the women featured in the documentary.

The film has gone on to win numerous film festival and advocacy awards, as well as be featured in People Magazine and CNN. The Stop the Violence campaign, created to enhance the film’s movement and impact, was a catalyst that significantly furthered the fight against domestic violence through a national community tour and innovative online initiative. Sin by Silence is distributed by Women Make Movies and continues to be an essential educational resource on domestic violence that is utilized across the world in classrooms, training agencies and non-profits.

Olivia has also served as an Adjunct Professor in the Cinema and Digital Media department at Vanguard University of Southern California, her own alma mater, where she received numerous awards for her undergrad work. Her teaching specializations include high-definition and digital production. She was a resident at the Working Films and Fledgling Fund Grantee Residency and has been a guest speaker at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, USC, ASU, and various national conferences.

CO-PRODUCER/EDITOR – ANN-CARYN CLEVELAND

Ann-Caryn Cleveland is focused on creating documentary stories that educate and inspire action. She began in documentary film in the research rooms of directors Alex Gibney and Robert Kenner. She received her MFA from USC’s School of Cinema-Television in 2003 while working full-time for Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment. In addition to helping market blockbuster films at Sony, she helped design and build one of the first social networking sites that bridged the gap between consumers using their own media tools and infusing it with blockbuster film content.

Ms. Cleveland’s wide range of creative work has been distributed by HBO, MTV, PBS, Fine Living Channel, CBC, BBC, Sundance Channel, Sony Pictures, and Women Make Movies and awarded honors. From 2006 – 2009, Cleveland co-produced and edited “Sin By Silence.” In addition to the documentary film, Ms. Cleveland edited over 15 short films for educators, non-profit organizers and community leaders to use as an online learning initiative to stimulate dialogue and create action around the subject of domestic violence.

She served as Assistant Professor of Cinema/Digital Media at Vanguard University and is working on a new film initiative called “Where We Come From.” The initiative is an online collective of stories about family and race, including her own research about James Meredith, the first African-American to attend the University of Mississippi.