Helene Kvale | Director / Producer

Helene is a director, writer, actor and educator. Her acting career in London spanned two decades in award-winning television, film and theatre, including at the National Theatre and West End. Helene was professor at UCONN’s Department of Dramatic Arts for over 16 years, directing for Connecticut Repertory Theatre. She will be joining Princeton University as Lecturer, teaching documentary film in the Department of Anthropology and performance at Lewis Center for the Arts. Helene founded Bated Breath Theatre Company as artistic director and is an alumna of The Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab. The Loom marks her debut as documentary director.

Adam Briscoe | Director / Producer

Adam studied international relations at Georgetown University. While still a student, he took advisory roles on congressional and gubernatorial campaigns in his home state of Texas, and spent a year producing documentaries for a human rights watchdog in Beijing. He founded a media consulting company before moving to France in 2013 to pursue film full-time. Briscoe has worked as a writer and producer on films ranging from soccer to civil war. His first documentary release as a writer was Maria by Callas, distributed by Sony Pictures Classics. In the summer of 2020, Adam made his debut as a co-director for Talking Like Her, first broadcast by SVT.

Cynthia Kane | Producer

Cynthia co-created Sundance Channel’s DOCday and brought Jean-Xavier de Lestrade and Denis Poncet’s documentary series, The Staircase to U.S. television. At ITVS, she shepherded 150+ international and U.S. co-productions for public media. At Al Jazeera America, she commissioned documentaries and series, including Albert Maysles’ In Transit and duPont Award-winning series Hard Earned. Recent work includes Call Me Dancer, The Ants and the Grasshopper, The River Between Us, Life & Life, The Dilemma of Desire, Us Kids, and The Letter.

Nick Stuart | Producer

Nick has been a documentary film production and impact campaign producer for over 20 years. He has delivered programming for Netflix, HBO, PBS, Starz, Discovery, BBC and ITV. Nick and his team have won over 40 national and international awards including a Peabody and the Human Rights Award at the Venice International Film Festival. Features include Serving Life, Newtown, The Rape of Recy Taylor. Shorts include Return to the Promised Land: The Legacy of Black Wall Street, Run For His Life and Notes from Dunblane. In production: Unconquered:Gorazde, City of Heroes. Nick is a member of BAFTA and PGA.

James Ivory  | Executive Producer

James is a multi-award winning documentary and narrative director, producer and screenwriter who has made 35 films, many in collaboration with partner, Ismail Merchant. He won an Academy Award for Call Me By Your Name, and was nominated for The Remains of the Day, Howards End and A Room with A View. He has also won three BAFTA awards, a Directors Guild of America Lifetime Achievement Award and a Writers Guild of America Award, among many other honors.

Anne Fabini | Editor / Co-Writer

Anne is editor of many notable feature films and documentaries. Writing With Fire (2022) and Of Fathers and Sons (2019) won Academy Award nominations for Best Documentary. No Other Land won the audience and jury awards for Best Documentary at the 2024 Berlinale. Seven of her edited features and documentaries have premiered at Sundance, with Return to Homs winning the World Documentary Grand Jury Prize 2014. The Tale premiered in the U.S. Dramatic Competition in 2019, garnered Emmy and Golden Globe nominations and a nomination for Best Editing at the Independent Spirit Awards. Anne has received the German Film Critics Award and the German Film Award for Best Editing. She is a member of the European, German and American Film Academies.

Jana Lämmerer | Director of Photography

Jana is based in Berlin, Germany. She graduated from Munich Film school and her work can be seen in award winning feature films and commercials worldwide. Her debut feature, Isy Way Out, premiered at the Munich Film Festival and was nominated for the Grimme Prize. In 2019, Jana became the first female DP of a German Netflix original with Freaks. Other work includes: Feelings, Die Jägerin, Sam – A Saxon, Dr. Ballouz, Ostfriesengrab.

Karin Betzler | Art Director / Production Designer

Karin Betzler is a production designer and art director with expertise in stage, scenic and costume design. International films include Amelie Poulain, Goodbye Lenin, Inglourious Basterds, Voices, The Reader, Eldorado and Anselm. Experimental art projects include collaborating with artists Yael Bartana and John Bock. Her interest in engaging on projects with a strong aesthetic concept that explore social issues has led her to documentary and theater installations, as well as many other projects all over the world.

Simon Kilmurry | Executive Producer

Simon is a documentary producer, executive producer, and consultant. He has received a Primetime Emmy Award, 17 News & Documentary Emmys, and six Peabody Awards. Simon was the executive director of the International Documentary Association from 2015 to 2021. Prior to IDA, he was the executive producer of POV at PBS, where he co-founded the documentary series America ReFramed. Simon is currently on the Board of Governors for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and is a member of the Producers Guild of America, the Television Academy, and has served on the board of jurors of the Peabody Awards since 2016.

Hugo Perez | Consulting Producer

Hugo directed the documentary feature, Omara, about Afro-Cuban music icon Omara Portuondo. He also co-directed and produced the feature doc, Once Upon a Time in Uganda. Hugo is currently serving as writer on the PBS series, American Historia. He was editor and co-writer for There’s Something in the Water. He was co-producer and co-writer on the feature doc Island of Baseball and producer and director for the PBS doc, Summer Sun Winter Moon.

Richard Hollant | Co-Producer / Designer of Interactive Website

Richard is the founder, lead strategist and design director at Hartford’s CO:LAB and an international award-winning designer. Rich teaches in the MFA program at Hartford Art School and sits on the National Board of AIGA, where he co-chairs Design for Democracy. He is a 2023 inductee in the Design Hall of Fame, and chairs Hartford’s Commission on Cultural Affairs. He is the founder and Executive Director of Free Center, a national organization that provides access to space and resources to promote community engagement through arts and culture.

Katharina Esch | Co-Producer / Researcher

Katharina was born and raised in Demmin, East Germany. She received a BA First Class with Distinction from Reading University, UK. After decades of working in the corporate world, she joined The Loom team as producer and researcher, combining her interest in genealogy, modern German history and gender issues. Her experience of living in the German Democratic Republic and through reunification brings valuable insight to the project. She now lives in Balestrand, Norway. The Loom marks her first credit as co-producer in documentary film.

Dr. Benno Grzimek | Co-Producer / Researcher

Benno received his PhD in Social Anthropology at the London School of Economics after carrying out fieldwork in Eastern Indonesian. He has contributed to and translated texts by Maria Montessori on the history of the peace movement in the German post-war states as well as ethnographic studies in India. He currently works as a freelance researcher in Berlin, undertaking genealogical studies, researching the history of individuals and families.

Martin Farkas | Unit Cinematography

Martin is a Berlin based cinematographer and director, known for Deutsche Seelen – Leben Nach der Colonia Dignidad, A Woman and a Half: Hildegard Knef and Living in Demmin, a documentary investigating the impact of the mass suicide of women and children in 1945 Demmin on the city today.

Matt Porwoll | Unit Cinematography

Matt is an Emmy and Sundance award-winning cinematographer known for Tigerland, directed by Academy Award-winner Ross Kauffman, which premiered in competition at Sundance in 2019. His feature documentary Cartel Land, won Best Cinematography Awards at the Sundance Film Festival and Primetime Emmys, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Other films include HBO’s Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1, which won the 2015 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Adrian Wood | Archival Producer

Adrian has spent his career specializing in archive research from WWII. He received a BAFTA Special Craft Award for his contribution to British television, a George Foster Peabody Award & a Grierson Documentary Award. He was nominated for the Focal Jane Mercer Footage Researcher of the Year Award.

Janne Gärtner | Archival Producer

Janne Gärtner is an archival researcher and producer on historical documentaries such as The Final Account, The Berlin Wall, Give Peace a Chance and Soundtrack Deutschland. She was archival producer on the Netflix series Rohwedder and was awarded the FOCAL award for Gladbeck. International doc films include Merkel, My Daughter’s Killer, The Austrian Case, Love to Love you, Donna Summer and German Wings. She is a founding member of the German Researchers’ and Archive Producers’ Association.

In Association With

Ma.Ja.De. Filmproduktion (Germany)

Participants

• Lie Allwelt
• Elke Miyahara Allwelt
• Ingrid Allwelt
• Edith Kvale
• Maryna Semenkova
• Helene Kvale

Advisory Board & Experts

• Professor Richard A. Wilson
• Professor Dr. Juliane Prade-Weiss
• Professor Dr. Andrea Peto
• Dr. Alex Kay
• Assistant Professor A.K.M. Skarpelis
• Professor Atina Grossmann
• Florian Huber
• Dr. Jörg Morré
• Dr. Fabian Lentzen

Partners

• Museum Berlin Karlshorst
• Nazi Forced Labor Documentation Center, Berlin
• Judson Studios, Los Angeles

Additional Credits

• Camera: Alexander Drecun
• Camera: Tanya Bindra
• Camera: Christian Carroll
• Camera: Chir Yan Lim
• Composer: Lillie McDonaugh
• Sound LA: Jameo Duncan
• Sound Berlin: Adel Gamehdar
• Sound Berlin: Cesar Fernández Borrá
• Researchers: Johanna Leutnant, Henrik Bassett
• Website: co:lab
• Stills Photographer: Christoph Köstlin

Outreach:

• Silvia Schroeder, Inner Weaving
• Kerry Kincy, Free Center

The Loom is supported by:

• The Merchant and Ivory Foundation
• Robert McNeal and James Kinsella Family Fund
• Kathleen Keen & Robert Earl Keen
• The Garrett Family Foundation
• The Lawrence and Carol Saper Foundation
• Rev. Dagfinn & Edith Kvale
• OVP for Research, UCONN: SCHARP
• John Briscoe
• Tanya Fleming
• Katherine & James Hogarth
• Ken LaGrande
• Sherri Brown
• Caitlin & Peter Goldschmidt
• and many more

Special thanks to:

• Topography of Terror Museum, Berlin
• Berlinische Galerie
• Kathryn Libal, Human Rights Institute, UCONN
• Dr. Paul Betts
• Dr. Nicholas Stargardt
• Linus Roache
• June Frances Coleman Consulting