doc arts board

Dan Berman, Chair

Daniel Berman is the former president and founder of The MainQuad Group, an assembly of businesses that was engaged in the acquisition and operation of radio stations throughout North Carolina and Virginia. Dan led a successful sale of the stations to two private equity groups in 2004 and 2006.  Before becoming a broadcaster, Mr. Berman graduated from Duke Law School and served as a law clerk to The Honorable Leonard I. Garth, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.  Dan received an MFA from the University of Southern California School of Cinema and Television and completed his undergraduate studies at Duke University.  He has served on the Board of Directors of the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters, the Alumni Board of Duke Law School and is currently Chairman of the Board of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.

Nancy Buirski

Nancy Buirski founded the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, formerly DoubleTake Film Festival, in 1998 and served as the festival’s CEO and Artistic Director until December 2007.  She currently serves as an advisor to the festival and will curate a special sidebar in 2008.

Buirski speaks frequently on documentary film, appearing on television and radio, at industry functions and moderating panels at such events as the Tribeca Film Festival, the IFP, Sundance and Full Frame. She has written on documentary film for the Independent Magazine and has been quoted in numerous newspapers and magazines and serves on many film juries, including the Independent Spirit Awards. She consults frequently on the production of documentary and feature films and co-produced an anthology film by Turkish and American documentary filmmakers entitled Time Piece.

Prior to founding Full Frame, Buirski was the Foreign Picture Editor at The New York Times, where she published the 1993 Pulitzer Prize feature photo. She was the Keynote Speaker at the United Nations Environmental Program's "Focus on Earth" event in 1994. Buirski was awarded a DeWitt Wallace Fellowship in Media and Journalism at Duke University in 1996. She recently served on North Carolina’s Governor James B. Hunt Jr.'s task force on film production, and is currently a member of the North Carolina Film Council serving under Governor Michael Easley.

Leon Capetanos

Leon Capetanos is a screenwriter and filmmaker. He received his undergraduate degree from UNC CH and a Master of Arts in Communication degree from UNC CH, as well, where he was a MCA Graduate Fellow.  He lives in Cary, NC.  Screenwriting credits include CREAM and SUMMER RUN which he also directed. Other credits include GUMBALL RALLY, TEMPEST, MOSCOW ON THE HUDSON, DOWN AND OUT IN BEVERLY HILLS, FLETCH LIVES and MY PALIKARI for the American Playhouse on PBS.  He currently directs CAPETANOS HOLDINGS, a personal real estate company in Raleigh while remaining an active screen writer.

Kathi Eason

Kathi Eason, a native of Texas, relocated from Dallas to Durham in 2000 with her husband, Steve, and two daughters, Emma and Elizabeth.  She comes to Full Frame with significant philanthropic experience and a love of documentary film.

Kathi began her involvement with The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in 2002.  She joined other members of the community interested in developing local interest and building financial support for Full Frame.  Kathi helped form a steering committee to provide direction for cultivation events.  Over the past three years, individual contributions to Full Frame have increased by more than 50%.

Kathi is an active supporter of the Carolina Ballet and Nasher Museum of Art, and also serves as a teacher of faith formation at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. When not keeping busy with her active family, she finds time to travel, play tennis, enjoy classical music, and view documentary films.

Joseph Jordan

Joseph Jordan is Director of the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Associate Professor in the Department of African/Afro-American Studies. He was the founding chair of African/African-American Studies at Antioch College and has also taught at Howard and Xavier Universities. From 1998-2001 he was director of the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African-American Culture and History. Besides his academic work he has also spent over 30 years in arts and cultural programming.

He currently serves on the NC Humanities Council and has also worked on projects with the D.C. Humanities Council and Georgia Humanities Council, Atlanta’s Bureau of Cultural Affairs, and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. From 1997-98 he served on the Advisory Board of the New Orleans Film and Video Society. He was part of the Cultural Transition Team for former DC Mayor Sharon Pratt Dixon, and worked with Tony Gittens, then of the Black Film Institute, to bring documentary and independent film to DC communities. He was project director for the NEH Exemplary project Urban Odyssey: Many Voices on a Common Ground and served as Executive Producer for the accompanying seven-part documentary series on the immigrant experience in the city, that was directed by documentary filmmaker Michelle Parkerson.

He has also served as curator for exhibits focusing on questions of place, identity, and loss. In 2002 he curated the exhibit Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America that took place in Atlanta at the M.L.King, Jr. Historic site and served as executive producer for the companion video directed by videographer Matt Dibble. He has recently been working on identity and politics in Afro-Latin communities, and on the international engagements of Black radical movements. He is a board member for the Contemporary Art Centre in Kingston, Jamaica, the Grassroots Leadership Institute, with Our Children’s Place (a pre-release residential housing project that will reunite women inmates with their infants and children), and works with the UNESCO Slave Routes Project.

Before coming to UNC at Chapel Hill in 2001 he was the recipient of the Governor’s Art Award (on behalf of Auburn Avenue Research Library) from Georgia Governor Roy Barnes. Jordan is a native of Queens (East Elmhurst) NY, and attended schools there and in Virginia. He is a graduate of Norfolk State, Ohio State, and Howard Universities.

Nancy Kalow

Bio to be added soon.

Russ Lange, Secretary/Treasurer

Russ is a Founding Partner of CMG Partners LLC, a Durham, North Carolina based strategic marketing consultancy.  In his role of Partner, Russ works with clients to meld market needs with client strategies in the areas of marketing, product development, organizational structure and corporate leadership. With over two decades of experience spanning both engineering and marketing, he typically concentrates on helping define strategies that achieve the client’s goals and then translating those strategies into reality through product and business development initiatives. Russ has also served in a variety of interim management roles for several clients, most recently as General Manager for a fast-growing consumer products company with operations in China and the United States.

Prior to co-founding CMG Partners, Russ spent three years with Carter Marketing Group, specializing in assisting telecommunications and Internet companies in bringing new products and services to market. During these years he concentrated on the development and analysis of market behavior models as well as a variety of customer retention and winback programs.

In addition to his marketing skills, Russ brings clients his quantitative analysis honed through a previous 10- year career as an engineer, developing high-speed computer vision systems, including DNA scanners.  He holds two patents in the field of vision and control systems and his degrees include a BSEE and an MSEE from Drexel University, and an MBA from the Kenan-Flagler Business School (UNC-Chapel Hill).

Barry Poss, Vice-Chair

Barry Poss is former President and Chairman of Sugar Hill Records, a company he founded in 1978. Specializing in contemporary music rooted in tradition, Sugar Hill has won twelve Grammy awards with an artist roster including Doc Watson, Dolly Parton, Nickel Creek, Ricky Skaggs and dozens more in a catalog of over three hundred titles. Widely acclaimed for developing a company with a strong label identity, Emmylou Harris regards Sugar Hill as “one of the few seminal independent record labels in America” while  Lyle Lovett describes Sugar Hill as a label with an “artist’s vision.” Twenty years after its founding, Mr. Poss sold the company to the Welk Music Group.

Mr. Poss is the 2006 recipient of the Americana Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his accomplishments in music as a record executive.  He has served on a variety of Boards including the Association for Independent Music, North Carolina Folklife Institute, Blue Ridge Institute, Foxfire Fund, International Bluegrass Music Association and others.

Mr. Poss has an Honors BA from York University, Toronto, Canada, receiving the Masters Award for Academic Achievement, and an MA from Duke University, Durham, NC, where he was a James B. Duke Fellow in the graduate school.

Susie Powell

Susie Powell is a North Carolina native. She is an attorney, author, and philanthropist living in Durham. A former law professor at North Carolina Central School of Law, she was the corporate council for Custom Molders Inc. until 1991. A tireless supporter of the arts, Ms. Powell is currently working on a novel of historical fiction.

Tom Rankin

Tom Rankin is the Director of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University where he teaches courses in documentary studies and photography. A photographer, filmmaker, and folklorist, Rankin has been documenting and interpreting American culture for nearly twenty years.

Formerly Associate Professor of Art and Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi and Chair of the Art Department at Delta State University, he was educated at Tufts University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Georgia State University.

A native of Kentucky, he has published numerous articles and reviews on photography and southern culture. He is the co-director and co-producer of the documentary film, Powerhouse for God. He has curated a number of exhibitions, among them Maggie Lee Sayre: A Pictorial Narrative of a River Life and Revealing Visions: African-American Mississippi Artists. His photographs have been published widely in numerous magazines, journals and books, and he has exhibited throughout the country. In 1991 he was awarded the Susan B. Herron fellowship in the visual arts from the Mississippi Arts Commission. His books include Sacred Space: Photographs from the Mississippi Delta (1993), which received the Mississippi Institute of the Arts and Letters Award for Photography, Deaf Maggie Lee Sayre: Photographs of a River Life (1995), and Faulkner's World: The Photographs of Martin J. Dain (1997).

Jim S. Roberts

Bio to be added soon.

Andrew Rothschild

Dr. Andrew Rothschild had been involved in a number of historic re-development projects in New York and was a practicing physician and an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at the State University of New York until moving to the Triangle and turning to real estate development and construction full-time. He received his B.A. from Columbia University, his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, completed his residency in Internal Medicine at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City and is currently an M.B.A. candidate in the Executive M.B.A. Program at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Andrew founded Scientific Properties to develop and build life sciences facilities and is currently planning future projects in this area. Also active in scientific and entrepreneurial education and community development, Andrew leads Laboratories for Learning, a not-for-profit organization devoted to creating public educational opportunities in biotechnology, particularly for socio-economically disadvantaged youth.

David Sontag

David Sontag, the Wesley Wallace Professor of Communication Studies is the director of the Writing for the Screen and Stage Program in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is an award-winning writer and producer and has written for Columbia Pictures, MGM, and Hollywood Pictures among others.

Mr. Sontag has held important creative and executive positions at NBC, CBS Films and ABC. At ABC, he was Executive Producer of the Network and in charge of all Specials. Among the many shows, he was responsible for while there were Truman Capote’s “A CHRISTMAS MEMORY” and “SHINDIG” which he created and developed. In addition to his numerous television and film credits, Mr. Sontag was Senior Vice-President and creative head of 20th Century Fox Television. During his stay at Fox, he was responsible for some of our most outstanding television such as MASH and Maya Angelou’s SISTER – SISTER as well as creating and developing the critically acclaimed television series JAMES AT FIFTEEN and THE PAPER CHASE.

Mr. Sontag has been a consultant to the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of California, Riverside, where he helped develop a film, theater, and media BFA program for the University. In addition he was a member of the Faculty at the American Film Institute and has lectured and been a Resource scholar at such institutions as the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Study, The University of Southern California, The University of Colorado, The University of New Mexico, The College of Santa Fe, The Institute for American Indian Art. Mr. Sontag is a member of the Board of Directors of EarthEcho International, a non- profit environmental foundation, and North Carolina Hillel. He is the Founder of the Native Americas International Film Exposition and has been on the Advisory Board for the College of Santa Fe's Greer Garson Studios as well as a past Trustee and member of the Executive Committee of the Aspen Music Festival. Mr. Sontag, a nominee for both the Writers' Guild and Humanitas awards, is listed in Who's Who in Entertainment, Who's Who in America, and Who's Who in the World.

Peter Wears

Peter B. Wears of Durham, North Carolina, is First Vice President and Senior Portfolio Manager for Smith Barney, the investment management and equity research unit of Citigroup Inc. He joined the Durham office in 1987 after a seven-year stint as a financial consultant at Wheat First Securities. Wears earned his MBA degree in 1979 from Duke University, where he also completed his undergraduate studies. He serves on the Finance Committee of Durham Academy.