Ian Harnarine – Writer/Director/Producer
Ian Harnarine was born in Toronto and studied physics at York University and the University of Illinois. He has an MFA from NYU’s Film School where he now teaches along with the Physics Department. His short film Doubles With Slight Pepper, won the Best Short Film Award at Toronto International Film Festival and the Canadian Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.

 

Ian is co-writing Time Traveler with Spike Lee, an adaptation of David Chariandy’s novel Soucouyant and a feature adaptation of Doubles With Slight Pepper. Recently, Ian was selected by Filmmaker Magazine as one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film and profiled in the New York Times.

 

 

Spike Lee – Executive Producer
A two-time Academy Award nominee, Spike Lee revolutionized American independent cinema in the 1980s when his debut film, She’s Gotta Have It, earned the Prix de Jeunesse Award at the Cannes Film Festival. His landmark film, Do the Right Thing, was both a critical and commercial success for which he received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. He received his second for his powerful documentary film Four Little Girls. Spike has continued to release a series of highly acclaimed films, including Mo’ Better Blues, Malcolm X, Clockers, He Got Game, Summer of Sam, Bamboozled, When the Levees Broke and the global box office smash, Inside Man, starring Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, and Jodie Foster.

 

 

Jason Harnarine – Producer
Jason Harnarine was born and raised in Central Trinidad. He studied Geography at The University of the West Indies, graduating in 2010. As part of his studies he visited remote parts of Trinidad, met with its Villagers and heard their stories. This experience had a profound effect on him. Doubles with Slight Pepper is his first film and brings an authentic perspective on contemporary Trinidad that is rarely seen in traditional media. Jason wants to bring these stories and others from his homeland to the world.

 

 

Ryan Silbert – Producer
Ryan Silbert  is an independent filmmaker and founding partner of New York-based Toy Closet Films.  His award-winning work has received an Oscar® and been recognized by Sundance, MoMa, Toronto, Telluride, Comic-Con, Tribeca Film Institute, HBO and the Berlinale.  Recent producing credits include God of Love which was awarded the Academy Award® for Live Action Short Film and co-producer on Holy Rollers (Official Selection Sundance Film Festival; Deuville Film Festival) directed by Gotham Awards Winner for “Breakthrough Director” Kevin Asch and starring Academy Award® nominee Jesse Eisenberg (First Independent Pictures).

 

Ryan is a Producer on the feature thriller The Girl is in Trouble Executive Produced by Spike Lee.  He is in post on the verité documentary Without Shepherds that demystifies life in Pakistan.  At Toy Closet he is in preproduction on an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon co-written by King and Romero. He is an MFA-candidate at New York University’s Graduate Film Program where he received a Craft Award for Excellence in Producing and received a BS from Cornell University where he currently serves on the Advisory Board.  (follow @ryansilbert)

 

 

Spencer Kiernan – Director of Photography
Spencer Kiernan is an award winning writer, director, producer and cinematographer who works across the globe – New York, Minneapolis, Austin, Beirut, Toronto, Australia and Vietnam – the filmmaking equivalent of a Swiss Army knife.  He has written & directed several short films, including The Cheetah, as well as photographed a dozen more, including the feature documentary Displaced (2010 Tribeca All-Access). He also produced the debut feature films Stuck Between Stations (2010 IFP Rough Cuts Lab) and Happy Life (Executive Producer: Abel Ferrara). He is currently completing his MFA thesis project at NYUʼs Graduate Film Production program.  Spencer lives in New York.

 

 

Brooke Swaney – Editor
Brooke Pepion Swaney is a Montana-bred filmmaker, with an international scope.  Her first short film, The Indigenoid, was nominated for Best Live Short at the 2005 American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco. The inspiration and research for that short developed out of her honors thesis while attending Stanford University.  She went on to obtain her MFA at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, where she has worked on films set in Spain, Cuba, and now Trinidad.

 

 

Paul Bercovitch – Sound Designer
Equally adept in sound editing, sound design, and mixing, Paul’s work has appeared on ESPN, HBO, PBS, and The Sundance Channel, and at such film festivals as Cannes, Sundance and NYFF.  Credits include Todd Solondz’s Life During Wartime, Benson Lee’s Planet B-Boy, and Jeff and Michael Zimbalist’s The Two Escobars.

 

 

Kenyatta Beasley – Composer
Composer and musician Kenyatta Beasley first picked up the trumpet under the tutelage of his father at the age of three. Born and raised in the birthplace of jazz, New Orleans, Louisiana, Kenyatta attended the prestigious New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (N.O.C.C.A) which includes notable alumni such as Harry Connick Jr., Wendell Pierce, Terence Blanchard and Wynton and Brandford Marsalis.  Upon graduation from N.O.C.C.A, Kenyatta moved to New York City to study at the Mannes School of Music where he earned his bachelor’s degree in Jazz Performance and Composition.

 

A finalist in the Thelonious Monk Jazz Trumpet Competition (1997), Kenyatta has performed, toured and recorded with a diverse group of artists ranging from Shakira, Mary J. Blige, Pink, Lauryn Hill to the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Roy Hargrove, The Saturday Night Live Band, Ben Harper and Jay-Z.  A graduate of New York University’s Composition for Film, Television and Multimedia program (2005), Kenyatta has won “Best Original Film Score” awards from NYU/New York Magazine First Run Film Festival (2006), Brooklyn Arts Council Film Festival (2007) as well as being a finalist for the Sundance Composers Lab.