Alexander Payne, Board Member Alexander Payne is an internationally respected film director, screenwriter and producer, known for his biting satire and sharply drawn characters. His films include Citizen Ruth (1996), Election (1999), About Schmidt (2002), Sideways (2004), The Descendants (2011), Nebraska (2013) and Downsizing (2017). Andrew Schwartz, Board Member Andrew Schwartz, who now practices law in Los Angeles, has been an Administrative Judge and a trial attorney for the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission. He has had many years of experience in the nonprofit sector. He is a board member and past president of Hollywood Heritage, and a board member of Cinecon. He is the president of Piano Spheres, which puts on piano concerts in Los Angeles, and president of the board at Beyond Baroque, the poetry center in Venice, California. He has had a lifelong passion for rare books as well as early cinema, and has been a prolific collector of early movie memorabilia for many years. Cliff Retallick, Board Member and Musical Director Resident accompanist for the UCLA Film and Television Archive, the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theatre, the Silent Movie Theatre and Retroformat, Cliff has an MFA from UNC School Of The Arts in film music composition, and composes for film, television and the web. His score for For The Love Of Their Brother, a 2016 documentary about events of 9/11 which premiered on National Public Television, won a silver Tele Award for original music. Cliff is the creator of a live music Cabaret experience for LA audiences called Babylon Cabaret, now in its 3rd year and enjoying a monthly residency at El CID nightclub. Cliff has had a long career in the music industry, arranging and playing on tracks for Alice Cooper, Haley Rhinehart, Cat Stevens), Smokey Robinson, Wanda Jackson, Billy Joel, Kiss, Sammy Hagar, Toots Hibbert, Sly and Robbie, Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart, Garth Brooks, Dion and many others. Iain Kennedy, Board Member Iain Kennedy is an Emmy-nominated producer, writer and editor, known for his work on diverse projects, including television’s Biography series and documentary films including Citizen Stan (2004) and Shout Gladi Gladi (2015). In 2010, he was the producer, writer and director of Palace of Silents, a definitive history of Hollywood’s fabled Silent Movie Theater. Steven K. Hill, Board Member Steven K. Hill is the Motion Picture Archivist at the UCLA Film & Television Archive, and co-founder of The Silent Treatment e-digest and screening series in Los Angeles, established to promote the pictorial grandeur and modern relevance of the silent moviegoing experience. He is also a co-founder of the internationally celebrated Silent Movie Day, dedicated to bringing awareness of silent cinema through worldwide virtual and theatrical screenings. He is a graduate of the UCLA Moving Image Archive Studies (MIAS) MA degree program, and has previously worked at Sony Pictures and Universal Television. Two of his great-uncles worked in silent Hollywood — one as cinematographer for screen cowboy star Tom Mix and Fox Film; the other for Keystone and Mack Sennett Comedies. |
Allison Anders, Board Member Allison Anders is a world renowned independent film director whose films include Gas Food Lodging (1992), Mi Vida Loca (1993), Grace of My Heart (1996) and Things Behind the Sun (2001). She has been awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant as well as a Peabody Award. In 2003, Anders became a Distinguished Professor at the University of California Santa Barbara, where she teaches in the Film And Media Studies Department one quarter each year. Barbara Zicka Smith, Board Member Barbara Zicka Smith co-founded the nonprofit American Cinematheque, a non-profit cultural institution dedicated to the exhibition of the moving image in all its forms and served as the organization’s Executive Director from 1992 to 2018. Under her leadership, the Cinematheque acquired two permanent, historic homes in Graumann’s Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, California and the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, California, and came to be regarded as one of the premiere organizations of its kind. David Slaughter, Board Member David Slaughter is a digital imaging specialist who is also a silent film collector and former manager of Los Angeles’ Silent Movie Theatre. He was a film line up editor on Technicolor’s recent restoration of Orson Welles’ final film, The Other Side of the Wind. Dino Everett, Board Member Dino Everett, an active advocate for the public exhibition of archived films, has published numerous articles on the history of the moving image. Formerly an acquisitions agent for the UCLA Film Archive, Dino is currently archivist of the Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive at the University of Southern California. Sean P. Malone, Board Secretary and Treasurer Sean P. Malone is both a director of photography and a film professor with a keen interest in cinema origins, currently teaching at Vanguard University. His work on international pop star Ivo Mozart’s video, Se Namorar, has been seen more than three million times on YouTube. His cinematography has won awards at film festivals from Los Angeles to Miami. He co-founded Waterfoot Films, an independent film company, and is directing the upcoming sports documentary, Wild About ‘88. Thomas Barnes, Founder & Board President Thomas Barnes began publicly presenting silent films under the series name "Retroformat" in 2009 for the Los Angeles nonprofit American Cinematheque in historic Grauman's Egyptian Theater of Hollywood. He incorporated Retroformat Silent Films in 2018 and secured nonprofit status for the organization in 2019. He spearheaded the achievement of its first major success, a high profile, sold out screening of the rarely seen 1925 version of Charlie Chaplin's masterpiece "The Gold Rush," in January 2020. When the Covid-19 pandemic forced the closure of public theaters, he innovated a highly successful biweekly series of silent film webcasts, coupled with interviews of important guests like internationally known film preservationist Serge Bromberg and noted character actor Paul Dooley, who spoke about his lifelong passion for the work of filmmaker Buster Keaton. |