Michael DiGregorio

With a Ph.D. in urban planning (UCLA), for the past decade he has been involved in filmmaking in Vietnam, first as the Program Officer overseeing Education Media, Arts and Culture who worked to revitalize filmmaking by new and veteran Vietnamese filmmakers, and more recently as a consultant with a non-government organization, LacViet Center for Community Support and Development, in Hanoi for films with Discovery Channel and other international filmmaking organizations.  Dr. DiGregorio has also been an advisor to the Hawaii International Film Festival.  His interests and expertise in documentary filmmaking spans that Asia-Pacific region.

S. Leo Chiang – Producer/Director

Born and raised in Taiwan, Leo immigrated to the US as a teenager and received a MFA in film production from University of Southern California before beginning his filmmaking career. In 1998, the Directors Guild of America commissioned Leo, then a film student, to direct and edit Directing: How to Get There, for which he documented early careers of several well-known directors including Robert Wise, Norman Jewison, and Steven Spielberg. His other films include To You Sweetheart, Aloha, about the 94-year-old ‘ukulele master Bill Tapia (PBS broadcast ’06, Audience Award at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival ‘05), One + One, a documentary about mixed HIV-status couples (CINE Golden Eagle Award ’02, Cable Positive Award ‘01), and Safe Journey, a short fiction film. He recently completed A Village Called Versailles, a documentary about the rebuilding and transformation of the Vietnamese American community in post-Katrina New Orleans. A Village Called Versailles will have its national PBS broadcast on the Independent Lens series in May of 2010. Leo also collaborates with other documentarians as an editor (True-Hearted Vixen, POV ’01; Recalling Orange County, PBS/VOCES ‘06) and as a cameraman (It’s STILL Elementary, ’09; Ask Not, Independent Lens ’09). Leo is an active member of New Day Films, the social-issue documentary distribution co-operative.