Kirk Davis Director / Screenwriter

Kirk Davis was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He studied filmmaking at Columbia University, receiving an MFA. He was a founding writer/performer of the groundbreaking comedy group Tunnelvision, which performed at Stand Up NY, Gotham, and Caroline's Comedy Club. He wrote and directed several short films and the feature film Screen Door Jesus , which won numerous festival awards including Best Film, Best Cinematography, and Best Score at the 2003 Hamptons International Film Festival. It was released theatrically in 15 markets and reviewed favorably in Variety, LA Times, Austin Chronicle, Rotten Tomatoes, and many others. It is now available on DVD from Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com, Netflix, and other outlets. Welcome to Academia is his second feature film.

Elzbieta Szoka Executive Producer / Screenwriter

Elzbieta Szoka was born and raised in Lodz, Poland. She received her M.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of Warsaw in Poland, and a Ph.D. in Brazilian Literature and Culture from the University of Texas in Austin. After a 20-year stint in academia a literary and theater scholar, she became involved in film-making as executive producer and script advisor on the movie Screen Door Jesus . She co-wrote the screenplay for the film Welcome to Academia with Kirk Davis a few years later and is currently developing new projects with Sam Adelman for Paradox Smoke Productions. She is also a translator and editor for Host Publications, an international literary press which she co-founded with her husband, Joe W. Bratcher III, in 1988. Elzbieta lives in NYC with her husband and their two sons, Adam and Ian.

Sam Adelman Producer

For over twenty years, Sam has worked as a filmmaker in the editing rooms of over 50 feature films with such luminary directors as Sidney Lumet, Andrew Bergman, Ulu Grosbard, Robert Redford, Frank Gilroy, and Nora Ephron. He is the founder of ST, a script development workshop that ran for 5 years in various New York locations, hosting over 100 readings with moderated critiques afterward. Since 2002, he has been a Producer of two feature films, Screen Door Jesus and Welcome to Academia , as well as the Academy Award-nominated short documentary film Salim Baba . Sam is a graduate of the SUNY Purchase Film and Theater Arts program. He currently works and lives in NYC with his wife, Jessica, and their daughter, Charlotte.

Laura Cartwright Producer

Laura brings over 22 years of production experience to producing. Each career challenge for Laura has been met with passion beginning with her first film, Raising Arizona , during which she took over the accounting department. Finding a talent for financial endeavors, Laura continued heading up accounting departments for film and television projects in the US, Canada, Eastern Europe and beyond, where she gained expertise with foreign currencies, currency trading, varied labor unions and tax credits. Laura also had the honor of being part of the "Best of the West" consulting team assembled from US and British talent to turn Poland's first independently owned television station into a production oriented, profit making company. Laura's work includes Disney's series As The Bell Rings , The Lance Armstrong Foundation Manifesto Video, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Posse, Tombstone, Tank Girl, Waiting to Exhale, A&E's Rollergirls, Screen Door Jesus, as well as numerous major network movies, indie features, television pilots, and commercials. Laura lives with her family in Austin, TX.

David Dunlap Director of Photography

Prior to his work on Welcome To Academia , David was the Director of Photography on the hit film Shaun of the Dead, as well as Griffin & Phoenix, and, most recently, the NBC television series Lipstick Jungle. He had long been considered one of the finest camera operators on the East Coast, having worked on films such as Goodfellas,  A Beautiful Mind, Forrest Gump, Ransom,  Shaft,  Air Force One, and Changing Lanes . He recently completed Nora Ephron’s latest, Julie and Julia .

David Ray Editor

David has been editing feature films in New York City for over 25 years, bringing his experience to classics such as Scarface with Al Pacino, and The Bonfire of the Vanities, both directed by Brian De Palma, and The Bronx Tale directed by Robert DeNiro. Originally working on an upright moviola before converting to an Avid during the digital revolution, his other editing credits include All that Jazz, Simon, One Trick Pony, Billy Bathgate, The Handmaid's Tale, The Glass Menagerie, Hamlet, and the Volker Schlondorff directed version of Death of A Salesman with Dustin Hoffman as Willy Loman. His prolific work as a sound editor can be heard on Warren Beatty’s Reds, as well as on the original version of The Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three, now being re-made with John Travolta. David lives with his family on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Gayle Keller Casting Director

Gayle Keller began her career as a casting associate working on films such as Cop Land, The Devil's Advocate, Bringing Out The Dead, Ghost Dog, and Tumbleweeds. After the feature ILLUMINATA, Gayle then moved into the world of television, where she would cast the series Deadline, Law & Order Criminal Intent, and Conviction for producer Dick Wolf. Most recently she cast the new ABC series, The Unusuals.  2006 saw Gayle’s return to film completing The Untitled Todd Solondz Project, Welcome To Academia, and Watching T.V. With the Red Chinese .

Chris Hajian Composer

Born and raised in Queens, New York, Chris Hajian began his musical education at the age of five, studying trumpet under his father, Edward, a professional musician in New York City. Chris’ formal training started at New York’s “Famed” High School of the Performing Arts, and continued at the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied classical composition.

Chris’s film composition roots began in the indie film movement of the 90’s. Most notably, he composed the score to Ten Benny, starring Adrian Brody, that was selected for the 1996 Sundance Film Festival. He then began his creative relationship with Bob Celestino when he composed the provocative score for Mr. Vincent that premiered at Sundance the following year. Chris’s career started to blossom as he worked steadily composing for film, television, and documentaries. More recently, he composed music for HBO’s Naked States and it's sequel Naked World, about the work of photographer Spencer Tunick. Chris’ television credits include an entire season of The Knights of Prosperity (ABC).

In film, Chris recently composed scores for the gritty cinema-verity drama The Take (theatrical release April 2008) starring John Leguizamo and Rosie Perez, directed by Brad Furman (2007 Toronto Film Festival). Yonkers Joe marks another great collaboration between Chris and his longtime friend Bob Celestino. The movie stars Chazz Palmenteri and Christine Lahti. Next up was Welcome to Academia, then, Nursery University, a documentary feature which chronicles the stories of various New York City parents on their quests to get their children into nursery school, which will see a television debut on the Showtime network this coming spring. At the end of ‘08 Chris finished scoring a new dark comedy feature, Ex-Terminators.