The Desert of Forbidden Art

Amanda Pope's directing, producing, writing, and editing credits over her more than 20-year career include award-winning documentary, dramatic, and social advocacy programs. Her work has focused on the dynamics of creativity in fine art, public art happenings, urban design, theatre, and dance. Her award-winning public television documentaries: Jackson Pollock Portrait; Stages: Houseman Directs Lear; and Cities for People have all been broadcast nationally on PBS. Most recently she directed The Legend of Pancho Barnes and the Happy Bopttom Riding Club about a pioneer woman aviator. Her program series, Faces of Change, documented grassroots reformers and emerging leaders in the former USSR. She has served on the Board of New York Women in Film, the Women in Film Foundation in Los Angeles, and has been a jury member for the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences student films, and the International Documentary Association's feature documentaries. Amanda is an associate professor in production at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts.

Tchavdar Georgiev has produced, associate produced, or edited award-winning fiction and non-fiction films as well as TV programming for ABC, PBS, History Channel, National Geographic, Oprah's OWN Network, Channel 1 Russia, and MTV Russia. He was one of the editors on the documentary We Live in Public (Grand Jury Prize at Sundance). He edited Alien Earths for National Geographic (nominated for an Emmy), the narrative feature Bastards (MTV Russia award for best film), and the documentary One Lucky Elephant (best documentary editing award at Woodstock Film Festival.) Tchavdar's editing credits also include: Divining the Human: The Cathedral Tapestries of John Nava, narrated by Edward James Olmos; Marion's Triumph, narrated by Debra Messing; Maybe Baby; View from a Grain of Sand, and Refusenik.