About the Filmmakers

SHOLA LYNCH: Director & Producer

CHISHOLM ’72 – Unbought & Unbossed is Shola Lynch’s directorial debut.  She has learned the craft of documentary making on the job. Lynch worked with Ken Burns and Florentine Films on the Peabody Award-winning Frank Lloyd Wright and the ten-part JAZZ series. She has also worked on the Emmy Award winning Do You Believe in Miracles? The Story of the 1980 US Olympic Hockey Team, an HBO Sports documentary that is part of the Sports in the Twentieth Century series. At Orlando Bagwell’s ROJA Productions, she co-produced a documentary short about the 2000 Census and racial identity that was included in the last hour of the four-part series on race in America, Matters of Race, which aired on PBS in 2003.

Lynch grew up in New York City, where she currently lives.  She became part of the PBS family as a regular on Sesame Street from age 2-6.  As a nationally ranked track athlete in the 800m and 1500m, she pursued her Olympic aspirations with the Lady Long Horns at the University of Texas while completing a Liberal Art Honors BA. Her most important life lesson derives from an athletic career that spanned 15 years of national and international competition. “The lesson is not one of being a champion but the payoff of perseverance in the pursuit of a goal,” she says.

PHIL BERTELSEN: Producer
An award-winning filmmaker, Phil Bertelsen works in both fiction and non-fiction. Most recently he produced and directed, “EveryOther” a social satire about racial identity that was featured in the PBS series Matters of Race. His last film The Sunshine won numerous awards and is included as part of the Full Frame Documentary Best Of Collection. Bertelsen also wrote and directed Outside Looking In, examining transracial adoption in America and airing on public television. Additionally, he was a Writer/Director fellow at the Sundance Filmmakers Lab and has an M.F.A. from New York University where he won a Student Academy Award for his dramatic short Around the Time.

RAMON HERVEY: Executive Producer
Over the past two decades Ramon Hervey II has been a resilient entrepreneur in the entertainment business, building several different entertainment entities including launching Hervey & Company, a personal management firm; a public relations company and a music production/performance entity, R & B LIVE. He has managed rock n' roll Hall of Famer Little Richard, 9-time Grammy Award winning gospel artist/producer/ songwriter Andrae Crouch, Motown recording stars Zhane, jazz keyboardist Phillip Saisse, multi-faceted entertainer Vanessa Williams and Grammy Award-winning songwriter/producer/recording artist Babyface, to name just a few.

Hervey is currently developing several film and television projects as a producer and CHISHOLM ’72 — Unbought & Unbossed is his debut as an Executive Producer in the documentary field.

SANDI SISSEL: Director of Photography
Sandi Sissel began her career as a cinematographer at NBC news where she won two Emmy’s for her work on Her Majesty’s Britannia and coverage of the war in Vietnam. Among her numerous Oscar and Emmy winning documentaries are: Seeing Red, The Wobblies, Americas In Transition, El Salvador: Another Vietnam, Mother Teresa, Jane Goodall, Chicken Ranch, Broken Treaty At Battle Mountain, and The Endurance. Sandi’s feature career includes the award winning Salaam Bombay, Yellow Card and Soul Of The Game. In addition she has shot the action unit on major films like Daredevil, Bowfinger, The Rose And The Snake, Blow and Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World.

Currently Sandi serves as the Chair of Cinematography for New York University’s Graduate Film Program.

SAM POLLARD: Editor
Sam Pollard has over 20 years experience as an editor of film and television. He was editor for the Academy Award nominated documentary Four Little Girls, as well as Spike Lee’s most recent non-fiction effort- Jim Brown All American. Among his other cutting credits are Half Past Autumn: The Life and Works of Gordon Parks (2000) for HBO; and the feature film projects- Bamboozled (2000); Clockers (1995) and Mo' Better Blues (1990).

Additionally, Pollard counts producing among his repertoire, contributing to such notable public television series Eyes on the Prize II; The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow as well as I’ll Make Me a World.

BARRY EASTMOND: Composer
Notching up cumulative sales of over 50 million copies- Barry’s creative music has been responsible for hit records by: Anita Baker, Brandy, Britney Spears, Aretha Franklin, Tamia, Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight, Vanessa Williams, Jonathan Butler, Regina Belle, Barry White, and George Benson, to name just a few. He recently composed and produced the title song for Whitney Houston’s new Christmas album “One Wish”.

Barry has not limited his composing to the record industry. He has written numerous songs for films and TV and currently has three television themes airing- The Maury Povich Show, The Montel Williams Show and Judge Hatchett.

BECCA BENDER: Associate Producer
After putting in 2 years on set in Hollywood for films like America’s Sweethearts and Tortilla Soup, Becca Bender returned to the East coast to pursue a career in documentary. She learned non-fiction filmmaking first at Vassar College and then entered the field professionally on a Frontline episode Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero. Following that, she worked on Hot-Spots a television pilot about international conflict, Bender was then very happy to find herself working on the non-violent and uplifting Chisholm ’72.

SIKAY TANG: Editor
Sikay Tang has been working in non-linear editing of films and videos for more than 10 years. In 1995, she edited Arthur’s Jafa’s short film entitled “Slowly This” which was broadcast by Alive TV, PBS. In 1998, she edited “Innocent Until Proven,” a documentary on the Juvenile Justice System, produced by Big Mouth Productions in NY, directed by Kirsten Johnson. In 1999, she work in the field of video productions in Hong Kong and produced programs for a TV station and a music website.