Freedom Girl Productions

Portfolio - Bread & Circuses – A Film about Os Mutantes

Producer
In 2002, after many years as an executive in the music business working with such artists as REM, Madonna, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Prince, Nancy Montuori Stein decided to quit her long and comfortable career to pursue her dream of making movies. Always passionate about social issues, Nancy immediately began producing and directing the award-winning short narrative film "Stealing Innocence" - a story about a special friendship in the Middle East between two young girls. "Stealing Innocence" has been screened in over 100 film festivals and has won 20 awards, and was recently profiled in the Los Angeles Times. In 2004 Stein finished shooting a documentary short "Joey" on children growing up amidst gangs and violence in South Los Angeles. "Joey" is currently being screened in film festivals all over the world and recently won an award from The Chicago International Film Festival. Combining her love of music and movies, Nancy is currently set to direct her first feature "All Ages Night" produced by Zachary Feuer & Gabrielle Kelly (All The Kings Men).
For more information: www.freedomgirlproductions.com

Director
Born in Chicago, Jeff McCarty has been a passionate disciple of cinema since the age of four, graduating form the USC School of Cinema-Televison before writing, producing, and directing Sex Sux, a comedy short which played in a number of film festivals across the U.S. The success of “Sex Sux” led to his next project as a writer/producer/director, The Ballad of PonyBoy, a feature film which McCarty based on his own experiences as a traveling door-to-door salesman in East L.A. The film has played to extraordinary success at many national film festivals, including Dances With Films, the Silverlake Film Festival, and the Boulder International Film Festival. The film has also received exceptional praise from many respected filmmakers and journalists including Angela Shelton (Searching for Angela Shelton). McCarty is currently developing a music documentary series as well as his next feature-length narrative entitled Chemical Youth.

Editor
An innovative director as well as editor, Blake West has contributed to over 20 hours of widely released entertainment. Working the entire spectrum of film and visual media, his editing experience includes documentaries, trailers, music videos, television shows, short films, and feature films. His latest editing project, "Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action" recently took home two awards at the 2005 Santa Barbara International Film Festival; The audience award for documentary and the Fund for Santa Barbara Social Justice Award. He has worked with networks such as HBO, SHOWTIME, CINEMAX, VH1, MTV, AMC, IFC, BRAVO, SCI-FI, CHANNEL 5 (UK), and CHANNEL 4 (UK). Blake West has directed and produced several music videos and short films. Recently he completed directing the short, "Death," and a music video for the artist "AM." Blake is currently developing several feature projects. For more information, to view his work or find out about current projects, please visit www.ivisualeyes.com.

Animator/Special Effects
Philip Martin was born in Long Beach California in 1974 but spent most of his life in the city of Lake Forest (California). Fascinated by animation at an early age, Philip spent much of his childhood drawing pictures and creating flip books to get them to move. As he got into his early teens, however, he discovered the art of orchestral composition and spent the next 10 years studying piano and majoring in music at the local community college. It was only when he was 25 that he rediscovered his love for illustrating and animating. He got accepted into Cal State Fullerton as an entertainment arts/animation major where he excelled in the craft. Now Phil works as media coordinator at a large marketing company in Lake Forest California where he creates digital effects and animation for TV commercials daily. Phil has been refining his style in both 2 dimensional as well as 3 dimensional animation. He hopes to officially start up an animation and special effects studio that would produce footage for the motion picure industry.

Portuguese Interpreter/Researcher/associate
Fluent in Portuguese, Spanish, and English, Raul Aguinaga grew up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Previously, he has researched the musical history of the Lapa neighborhood in Rio for the documentary, “Salada Sonora” (Sound Salad), the life of samba composer Gabriel Machado for the documentary, “Nossa Estação” (Our Station), and the life of Brazilian rock and roll pioneer, Raul Seixas, for the biographical film, “O Baú Do Raul” (Raul’s Trunk). He has also shot and edited numerous short films in Brazil for both Visual Productions and Brancaleone Filmes.

Brazilian Research Assistant
Sonia Maia has a successful professional history in journalism and Public Relations, working for major publishing and Brazilian companies such as Abril Group, Kaiser Brewery, Hotel Intercontinental, F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi among others. She wrote acclaimed articles and was responsible for main tasks and management of Press Office and Public Relations plans.

During her career as an active journalist, Sonia was one of the most important journalists on the Brazilian pop-rock boom coverage in the 1980’s. Her main interest was discovering new bands, which lead her on a 5 years tour around clubs and alternative venues in the largest Brazilian cities.

After that, Sonia dedicated to personal projects and worked as a free lance journalist for major Brazilian newspapers and magazines. Among her various pieces published so far she would like to highlight her three months on assignment in 1990/1991 with Brazilian photographer Nair Benedicto on the streets of São Paulo city, profiling the daily struggle of abandoned children. The report was published in Marie Claire (Brasil) issue of August 1991 and a year later, acknowledged for being the best story published in the magazine. In 2003 she was invited to write the text for the launching of Arnaldo Baptista’s (Os Mutantes) album Let it Bed, the most acclaimed record in 2004/05 in Brazil.
She is also working on the biography of João Gordo, a punk hardcore who became an icon in Brazil with his talk show aired by Brazilian MTV.

In 1995, Sonia timidly launched a very personal poetry collective "A Arma D"Alm" and continues to write for the Brazilian press as a free lance writer. She currently works as PA., Team PA and Document Control Manager in the UK and Brazil.