Statement of Significance
Project History
Audience and Dissemination Plan
Key Personnel

Qualifications of Key Personnel

Monica Haim, Writer, Director & Producer
Monica recently completed a master's degree in cultural journalism at the Gallatin School at NYU. She received a BFA in Acting from the Tisch School of Arts, also at NYU. The idea for Awake Zion was the result of many years of Hebrew school and a deep-seated relationship with music. Her recent studies in ethnomusicology, music criticism, arts and social worlds reporting provided a forum where she could explore the ideas for the project with perspective from various disciplines, creative and academic. Throughout the making of the film, Monica has immersed herself in the culture of the music, following Jewish and non-Jewish reggae musicians and enthusiasts from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to New York, New Jersey, Newton, Los Angeles, Israel and Jamaica, on a continued exploration of this unlikely cultural link.

In 2004 Monica founded Twin Goat Productions, a company specializing in slice-of-life documentary projects. Upcoming projects include Meeting Me, a documentary that will explore the meaning of family through the prism of adoption; and Yeah Yeah, another music-driven piece about the underground legacy of Afrobeat music. Two years ago Monica was published in an anthology, 9/11 8:48am: Documenting America's Worst Tragedy (Blue Ear Press, 2001), and her essay was adapted for the London theatrical premiere, Voices from September 11th, which ran at the Old Vic on September 11th 2002. Monica freelances as an associate producer for KPI TV, a documentary production company in New York. She has previously freelanced editorially for Time Out New York and Nylon, and worked as a public relations executive in Manhattan and San Francisco for three years. Awake Zion is Monica's directorial debut.

Keith Strand, Editor and Creative Collaborator
Keith Strand has been involved in digital media production since he received a master's degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU in 1999.

After serving as the lead singer for the German pop group, The P Whips, where he opened for the likes of Ice T, George Clinton, the Wailers, and H.R. of the Bad Brains, Keith Strand relocated from Dusseldorf, Germany to New York, applying his performance skills to the "Live P.A." format of electronic music. Keith has been orbiting the New York underground techno/electro scene for the past five years, influenced by the minimal techno of Germany and the musical diversity that surrounds him now in New York. Keith's solid music background and technical savvy dovetail perfectly into his digital video-editing career. Proficient in Final Cut Pro and Avid, he's worked on documentaries, video art pieces, music videos, and corporate videos. Keith freelances at a Williamsburg-based video art house, The Outpost, and his own current studio, Varifix, which offers surround sound mixing, 10bit uncompressed video and DVD production services. Keith is proficient in: DVD Studio Pro, Final Cut Pro, Sound Track, and Live Type, After Effects, Photoshop, Logic Audio Platinum 6, ADR, and Sound Design.

Murat Ozcan, Executive Producer
Murat Ozcan has served as Founder and Artistic Director of Murat Art Productions since 1997. He graduated with an MFA in Theatre from the University of Paris, where he lived for sixteen years, acting in theatrical productions in Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Switzerland. He began directing theater in 1990 and since then has produced and directed over 20 shows in Paris and New York. Murat's work is a synthesis of the Anatolian-European culture and tradition he has lived, observed, and studied. In 2001 he created and produced the French Short Film Festival, currently in its third year at the Two Boots Pioneer Theatre in the East Village. Murat continues to bring independent films to New York communities through a film series, French Cinema Classics, at Les Deux Gamins.

Kristen Lynch, Associate Producer
Kristen Lynch, a native of Brooklyn, has a background in theater and education. She graduated from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Acting, and has since performed in several theatrical productions in New York. She has also taught theater in public high schools and run various theater workshops for adolescents and adults in New York City and Paris. A founder of Murat Art Productions, Kristen has been the production manager of the French Short Film Festival since its beginning in 2001. She currently works closely with Read to Me in New York, a program that encourages teenaged mothers to read to their babies.

Stacey Samuel, Consulting Producer
Stacey is a freelance Associate Producer and Segment Producer, with production credits that include: CNN, Court TV, ABC 20/20, History Channel, A&E and Discovery Health. Several of her projects have been award winning, and most recently the A&E Biography was nominated for a 2003 NAACP Image Award for outstanding documentary. In her seven years in production, Stacey has worked in news production, documentary, live studio television and development. Working in the different mediums has afforded her a diversity of experience in the craft of story telling. Both in news and documentary, the backbone of her work has been in the quality of her research. Extensive interviewing experience and her ability to allow subjects to tell their stories both effectively and in a visually compelling manner, have garnered her accolades within the industry.

Brian Buckley, Production Assistant
Brian attended the International Center for Photography and Parsons School of Design, and received a BFA in Photography in 1996. He has been practicing photography ever since, shooting album covers for Rawkus Records, Real Cosmetics, Gods Love We Deliver and many other New York-based companies. Brian's photography has also been exhibited in and around New York City; four collections own his photographs. Brian has shot digital video for Murat Art Productions and William Parker's Music and the Shadow People.

Talya Pulver, Production Assistant
Talya is currently a senior at New York University double majoring in journalism and religious studies. She is also an independent filmmaker, proficient in digital cinematography and Final Cut Pro editing. She currently works as an instructor for new film students at DV Dojo in New York, and has worked as an instructor training BBC journalists in digital filmmaking in Bristol, England and Glasgow, Scotland. She has lived both in the United States and Israel and is fluent in both English and Hebrew.