About the Crew
Katy Chevigny, Director
Katy Chevigny, the director of Election Day, is an award-winning filmmaker who runs the non-profit Arts Engine, a leading independent media organization, and its production arm, Big Mouth Films. In 2004 she co-directed the documentary Deadline with Kirsten Johnson. The film is an investigation into Illinois governor George Ryan's commuting of death sentences. After premiering at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, Deadline was broadcast on NBC to an audience of over 6 million, was nominated for an Emmy, and won the Thurgood Marshall Journalism Award. Chevigny also directed Journey to the West: Chinese Medicine today, a feature-length documentary about traditional Chinese medicine and its influence in the West. She has produced five award-winning documentaries: Arctic Son, Innocent Until Proven Guilty, Nuyorican Dream, Brother Born Again and Outside Looking In: Transracial Adoption in America. These films have screened at festivals around the world, including Berlin and Full Frame, and have been broadcast on public television and HBO/Cinemax, among other outlets. Election Day premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival in 2007 and will be broadcast on PBS in 2008. Chevigny is currently in post-production on The Dishes, the story of a punk rock band that juggles family and careers in Chicago. Through her work at Arts Engine, Chevigny also oversees MediaRights.org and the Media That Matters Film Festival.
Maggie Bowman, Producer
Maggie Bowman produced Election Day. The film premiered at South by Southwest Film Festival in March 2007 and will be broadcast on the PBS series "POV" in 2008. Previously she associate-produced Two Tone Productions' Unfinished Country, a film about Haiti's 2006 presidential elections for the PBS foreign affairs series Wide Angle. At Big Mouth she has directed an advocacy video for the New York Hotel Trades Council and served in multiple production capacities on Arctic Son (POV 2007 season) and Deadline (Sundance 2004, NBC). Bowman has produced for the Brian Lehrer Show, a public affairs talk show on New York Public Radio; line-produced the documentary short Dimmer, about a group of blind teenagers in Buffalo, New York (Sundance 2005); and does freelance production work in film and television. Prior to her work in film, Bowman was a union organizer and consultant for five years, working on campaigns with taxi drivers in the Bronx, nurses in Iowa, and home health aides in Brooklyn, among others.
Dallas Brennan Rexer, Producer
Dallas Brennan Rexer began producing documentaries in 1998. With Katy Chevigny, she produced the Emmy-nominated documentary Deadline, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and broadcast on NBC in 2004. Arctic Son, which she produced with Elizabeth Mandel, premiered at Full Frame Film Festival in 2006 and will broadcast on POV (PBS) in fall 2007. She is a producer on the forthcoming public television documentary Election Day (2007 South by Southwest Film Festival premiere) and the Line Producer for Sony Music's Bruce Springsteen -- The Seeger Sessions documentary. Previously, at Big Mouth Films she co-produced Outside Looking In: Transracial Adoption in America (ITVS) and Journey to the West: Chinese Medicine Today (Wellspring Media). She also worked in multiple capacities on the public television documentaries Our House: A Very Real Documentary about the Kids of Gay and Lesbian Parents (directed by Meema Spadola). She serves as a researcher, advisor, judge, and consultant with numerous institutions, directors, film festivals, competitions, and production companies and is currently working on several book projects as well. Dallas is a 1997/98 Fulbright Scholar who conducted research on television programming in Trinidad, West Indies. Her reviews have appeared in American Anthropologist and the International Institute for the Visual Arts Web site. She is a graduate of Swarthmore College's Philosophy Department and lives in Manhattan with her husband and two sons.
Penelope Falk, Editor
After receiving an MFA in film production from the University of Texas at Austin, Penelope Falk moved to New York City to pursue a career in film. She has spent the last 13 years working primarily as a documentary editor. She started her career on Jennifer Fox's groundbreaking series, An American Love Story. Since then, her editing credits include A Letter Without Words (premiered at Sundance Film Festival), Bombay Eunuch (winner of the New York Gay and Lesbian Film Festival), Stagedoor (debuted at the New York Film Forum), and Toots Shore: Bigger Than Life (premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival). She has also done numerous films for television. These credits include Afghan Stories (the Sundance Channel), Uncle Sam Wants You (A&E), Escuela (PBS) and Unfinished Country (PBS).
John Kimbrough, Composer
After five critically-acclaimed records and extensive touring as the frontman and creative force behind the band Walt Mink, John Kimbrough decided to branch out, and in recent years has devoted much of his time to scoring for film, T.V. and radio. In 2000 he won an Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Music and Lyrics for his song "Up to You" from the show "Nickellennium" for Nickelodeon, and in 2001 he was nominated for a British Independent Film Award for best original score for the film Jump Tomorrow. His songs have been featured in both movies and T.V. commercials, and his compositions can frequently be heard on the nationally syndicated NPR program, "This American Life." In 2005 his new band, Valley Lodge, released their first record, songs from which were used in the FOX T.V. pilot "Pool Guys." The record has also seen airplay on nationally syndicated radio, including Adam Curry's top-rated weekly podcast. His latest film, Election Day will be released in spring, 2007.