MATT WECHSLER

Director / Cinematographer

Matt Wechsler is an award winning documentarian, sustainable food activist and urban gardener from Evanston, Illinois. His passion for filmmaking started when he was ten years old and has blossomed from making short films to exposing social injustice around the country. His 2012 New York Emmy-nominated documentary, Different is the New Normal, aired nationally on PBS and was narrated by Michael J. Fox. His latest film, Sustainable, is now available on Netflix and received the 2016 Accolade Global Humanitarian Award for Outstanding Achievement.

ANNIE SPEICHER

Director / Producer

Annie is a creative storyteller, filmmaker and sustainable food advocate. She started her career in television, editing Rick Bayless’ Mexico: One Plate at a Time. When she began working with Matt at Hourglass Films, she found her true calling in documentary film. Recently, she produced her first feature-length documentary, Sustainable, which explores America’s food system and how we can protect it for future generations. An expert producer, director, sound recordist and Hoosier at heart, Annie brings a boundless love for humanity to every production.

MARK BITTMAN

Executive Producer

Mark Bittman is the author of 20 acclaimed books, including the How to Cook Everything series, the award-winning Food Matters, and The New York Times number-one bestseller, VB6: Eat Vegan Before 6:00. For more than two decades his popular and compelling stories appeared in the Times, where he was ultimately the lead food writer for the Sunday Magazine and became the country’s first food-focused Op-Ed columnist for a major news publication. Throughout his career Bittman has strived for the same goal: to make the food, in all its aspects, understandable.

KENDRA KIMBIRAUSKAS

Executive Producer

Kendra Kimbirauskas is an Oregon-based farmer who grew up on a Midwestern dairy farm. She has worked with the non-profit Socially Responsible Agricultural Project on its grassroots organizing and informational campaigns to hold factory farms accountable. Kendra has also collaborated with Sierra Club and the Oregon League of Conservative Voters, and co-founded the group Friends of Family Farmers. She and her husband currently farm 70 acres near Scio, Oregon, where they raise heritage breed animals.

REVEN FELLARS

Executive Producer

Reven Fellars brought Robert Leathers to Chicago some thirty years ago to help with the design of Oz Park’s community-built children’s playground. More recently she has been involved with Chicago’s school food program, Cooking Up Change, Healthy Schools Campaign and other innovative sustainable food operations. Reven was also an executive producer on the 2016 documentary Sustainable by Hourglass Films.

BESS CELIO

Executive Producer

Bess Celio was the founding Board Chair of the Healthy Schools Campaign, a Chicago-based organization dedicated to ensuring all students have access to healthy school environments where they can learn and thrive. For the past 20 years she has been involved with promoting local sustainable food projects and creating access to healthy food that is affordable and sustainably produced. Bess was also an executive producer on the 2016 documentary Sustainable by Hourglass Films.