What was your path/journey after you graduated from Cornell?
Immediately following graduation, I spent a year as a social service fellow volunteering on a program in Israel called Project Otzma. We worked with community members on a variety of activities, including teaching and assisting youth at boarding schools and in underserved neighborhoods. It was there that I met my co-fellow and future wife, Aviva Schwartz, from Toronto.
The following year, we moved together to the Bay Area and I started an MA program in Documentary Film & Video Production at Stanford. During my second year, I served as TA and completed my thesis in the spring of 1999. Just a few weeks later, we married and moved to the NY area, where we lived in Hoboken until 2004.
I worked as a producer on a number of documentaries for MSNBC, Bravo, Court TV, CBS, and others. Following 9/11, I pivoted and pursued an MA at NYU in Social Studies Education. I was determined to use my History degree in the classroom and started teaching at Baruch College Campus High School. After a year of teaching in NY, we decided to start a family - near family - and moved back to Chicago.
Before the big move, I bought video gear and decided to direct and produce films independently as my professors had done. In 2004, we moved to the North Shore of Chicago and our son Jonah was born. I continued teaching and even started teaching film and TV production. In 2007, our daughter Maya was born. One year later, I started teaching at Deerfield High School in Deerfield,IL, where I am currently teaching.
In 2010, I released my television feature film Mashed Media, which is distributed by Film for the Humanities & Sciences. The film was broadcast by Chicago PBS that spring. In 2016, I released Insatiable: The Homaro Cantu Story, which premiered at SXSW and has streamed on Hulu, Prime, Apple TV, Tubi, and many others through a distribution deal with Virgil Films. In 2019, partnering with Sister Cities International, I co-directed Mas Que La Playa: Puerto Vallarta, which was nominated for a Regional Emmy by the Chicago/Midwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. In 2022, I released Raised Up West Side, which streams on Prime, Apple TV, Tubi, and many others. The film was awarded a Regional Emmy in 2023.
What was your favorite class or Cornell? In retrospect, what has proven to be your most useful class from Cornell?
My favorite memory from Cornell is the semester I spent with the AAP Cornell in Rome program. It was intense and exhilarating. I worked so hard and played so hard in the Eternal City and was rejuvenated for my remaining time on the Hill.
Which Cornell classmates do you keep in contact with?
My favorite class at Cornell is a tie: Professor Michael P. Steinberg’s “European History from 1789 - Present” and my undergraduate thesis art studio class with Professor Victor Kord. My most useful classes were my pre-thesis and thesis studio art classes, where I learned how to engineer and develop a dynamic project, craft the skills to execute, and showcase in a solo show in Olive Tjaden Hall.
I keep in close touch with two of my roommates from AAP, Nico Marcellino and Kenny Berger, as well as Liz (Gonzalez) Marcellino, Nico's wife. I am in email and social media contact with many others, and we make a point of getting together even though we are in different cities.