Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

– Casablanca, Michael Curitz

Mission

A community-based 501(c)3 non-profit organization, Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center is dedicated to presenting the past, present and future of the movies and to preserving and educating about films, filmmaking, and the film-going experience in its three state-of-the-art theaters and in the surrounding community. The Cinema engages its audiences and the community year-round through dialogue, discovery, and appreciation of the moving image – from blockbusters to student shorts and everything in between. Revitalized and reimagined through unprecedented community efforts to rebuild the iconic Main Street structure after a fire nearly destroyed it in 2016, SHC continues a tradition of entertainment, education, and enrichment in the heart of Sag Harbor Village.

A Brief History of the Cinema

For over a century, a theater in Sag Harbor has been a landmark in the lively and culturally diverse Main Street district of Sag Harbor, New York, long a haven for writers, artists, and independent thinkers.

Designed by renowned architect John Eberson—one of the great designers of atmospheric theaters—and beckoning moviegoers since the 1930s with its classic art deco neon sign, the original Sag Harbor Cinema stands as a symbol of the progression of 20th-century culture. It began as a vaudeville and burlesque theater in the 1890s, then became a silent movie house that evolved to show talkies, and after its purchase in 1978 became one of the few single-screen arthouse cinemas left in the country, thanks to the stewardship of Gerald Mallow, its owner and programmer for 38 years.

In July 2016, the Sag Harbor Partnership had begun negotiating with Mr. Mallow to purchase the theater and preserve it as a non-profit “art-house” Cinema. But on December 16, 2016, the cinema was partially destroyed by a massive fire that ripped through Sag Harbor’s Main Street, damaging several adjacent buildings. Firefighters from 19 companies courageously stopped the blaze, icicles hanging from their helmets, after hours in extreme conditions.

The theater’s façade and lobby had to be demolished, but its auditorium remained standing and its iconic sign was salvaged from the rubble and repaired, gratis, by community volunteers Chris Denon of North Fork Moving and Storage and sculptor and ironworker John Battle. The fire in December altered negotiations, and the purchase of the Cinema was not finalized until April 2017.

After extensive consultation with successful art-house Cinemas like the Jacob Burns Film Center, the stewards of this volunteer effort by the Sag Harbor Partnership settled on a multiple screen cinema, reconstructed with the help of NK Architects and ConRac Construction Co. with three separate theaters, each with its own character, and with salvaged and replicated historic details to acknowledge its storied history. The original two-story building was also built up to three stories to maximize its potential and help ensure its sustainability.

Because of the Covid pandemic and a nearly six month construction delay, what was projected as the theater’s reopening in April 2020 had to be postponed. The Cinema finally received its Certificate of Occupancy in fall 2020, and had its official opening in June of 2021. 

Who We Are

Staff

Genevieve Villaflor, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

 

Throughout her career, Genevieve Villaflor has been involved with film festivals, non-profit organizations, and specialty publicity firms, working in programming, PR, fundraising, special events, and artist support.  After college at the University of Virginia, she worked on early editions of the Virginia Film Festival before moving to New York City to start a 15-year tenure at Film at Lincoln Center (then The Film Society of Lincoln Center) during the opening of the Walter Reade Theater. While there, she held positions in PR, programming, and development, starting programs like Independents Night, the Grand Marnier Film Fellowships, and selecting shorts for the New York Film Festival.

Over the years, she served on juries, lectured on film festivals, and attended Rotterdam, Cannes, Toronto, San Francisco, and Sundance – where she was on the Advisory Committee for Features and Documentaries from 1995 -1998. In addition to working at The Hamptons International Film Festival, Film Movement, and Sundance Channel, Genevieve most recently worked at The Gotham where she managed the IFP/HBO New True Stories Funding Initiative, supporting non-fiction projects in the early development stage.

Giulia D'Agnolo Vallan, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

 

Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan has served as U.S. Programmer and Selection Committee member of the Venice Film Festival since 2008. Her retrospectives have been featured at renowned institutions worldwide, including Film Forum, The Metrograph and the Museum of Moving Image in New York, the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles, La Cinémathèque Française in Paris, and the Brisbane and Melbourne Film Festivals.

Among her books are monographs devoted to Clint Eastwood, John Carpenter, George Romero, Walter Hill, John Milius, Robert Aldrich, William Friedkin and John Landis. Her last volume, Altman, was published by Abrams Books in 2014. D’Agnolo Vallan covers the most prestigious film festivals and serves on international film juries.

Her involvement in the Sag Harbor Cinema started in 2009. She was responsible, together with producer Andrew Fierberg, for the original proposal that has served as the blue print for the new cinema

Julie O'Neill-Bliss, DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT

 

Julie comes to the Cinema with a love of the East End and its Arts Community. She is an accomplished business professional with a proven track record in development, business management and marketing.

Julie spent her early career in NYC where she developed and quickly tripled revenue for an international fashion retail and wholesale business. Her love for fundraising and charity work developed from her work as Director of Sponsorship and Marketing for the Shelter Island 10k Run, then serving as a committee member and board member for various local non-profits. In addition to her work with the 10k and 5k runs, her East End experience includes owning and running a successful and much loved restaurant for 11 years and leading the growth of many local businesses with her marketing and development acumen.

She moved to Shelter Island over 20 years ago to escape the city grind and has never looked back. She met and married her husband Sebastian in Shelter Island where they are raising their two children.

Ana Dezso, CFO

Delighted to have been asked to join the Sag Harbor Cinema organization and give back to a community I and my family have been so fortunate to know personally and professionally for many years.  I am particularly pleased to offer my services as a professional accountant, providing guidance from a technical field to the arts in a way that will be both accessible and informative.

 

It is important, I have always believed, that the economic factors that underpin artistic endeavors be understood by those at the helm and by generous supporters of community aesthetic endeavors. It is especially so with the Sag Harbor Cinema, a new, innovative, creative enterprise that has the potential to transform the arts and our town.

 

It is my hope that I bring my over fifteen years of experience in public accounting at major local banks, including Bridgehampton National Bank, Suffolk County National Bank and Empire National Bank, analyzing, reviewing and evaluating most efficient processes, and as a comptroller and financial reporting analyst at other institutions, to serve this exciting venture in a way that will resonate to the great benefit of our community. A graduate of both CUNY and SUNY, I feel an attachment to our state, but as a resident of Sag Harbor, a special call to advance the Sag Harbor Cinema at this moment of existential challenge and cultural need.

Thierry Balihuta, OPERATIONS DIRECTOR

 

Thierry is an amateur photographer hailing from Butare, Rwanda. In 2005, he moved from Houston, TX to Sag Harbor, NY to attend the Ross School. He subsequently attended the University of Maine in Orono, ME and Suffolk Community College in Riverhead, NY. More recently he has worked as the manager of The UPS Store in Sag Harbor while also developing his photography skills. Thierry loves Louis De Funès and Bourvil (the greatest French Comedians), documentaries, and most of all soccer. 

Gail Bruesewitz, DIRECTOR OF ADMINISTRATION AND CUSTOMER RELATIONS

 

A veteran of the music industry, as Director, National Dance Music Marketing for Columbia Records/SONY Music, Gail worked on the team that launched the careers of recording artists such as George Michael, LL Cool J, The Beastie Boys, Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam. Ranked # 2 in Billboard’s year-end Dance Music Charts for 7 years, she published a newsletter (pre-dating online communication) called “Brueser’s Boogie Backpage,” a kitschy, weekly tome of dance music hype and photos.

Sara Meyers, TECHNICAL DIRECTOR/PROJECTIONIST

Sara has been a 35mm film projectionist since 2007. She graduated with a BA in Film Studies from Suffolk University, Boston in 2011 and went on to receive a Certificate in Film Preservation from the L. Jeffrey Selznick School in 2013. Sara has filled positions at a number of non-profit cinemas, film archives, and international film festivals, most recently working at the Museum of Modern Art as an audio visual technician. Outside of motion-picture related endeavors, Sara enjoys making visual art and music.

Sam Hamilton, COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER

 

Sam was born and raised in Sag Harbor. After graduating from the Ross School, he received his degree in Film Studies from Columbia University. Sam works as an assistant editor on documentary films and television shows, directed and edited Our Own Main Street Fire, a short documentary about the fire that burned down the former Cinema and creates the Sag Harbor Stories short films series spotlighting the local characters that make our village unique.
Amelia Garner, PROGRAMMING COORDINATOR

 

Amelia Garner is the cinema’s programming assistant, working under the artistic direction of Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan. She earned a degree in English Literature and Film Studies from Barnard College. After graduating, Amelia studied 16mm film at London Film Academy. Her experience in film is wide ranging, from working at Hungry Man, a commercial production company in Manhattan, to the costume department of Jessica Jones to editing videos for a subscription based educational program. Along with film, Amelia’s special interests are 18th Century British poetry and prose and surveillance art.

Joe Salerno, CAFE MANAGER

 

Joe Salerno is the manager of the Cinema Café at Sag Harbor Cinema. Before coming to the cinema, he worked for a number of years in the hospitality business in Manhattan, most recently for Executive Chef David Pasternack and restauranteur Joe Bastianich at Esca in the Theater district.  Joe is looking forward to welcoming you to the beautiful Sag Harbor Cinema.  Favorite film: Raging Bull.

Sag Harbor Cinema Board

Executive Committee

John Alschuler, PRESIDENT
 

John is the Emeritus Chair of Friends of the High Line, NYC. His work focuses on development finance and revitalization of urban communities. John’s core skills include structuring public-private partnerships, development finance, building parklands, and creating innovative development strategies. His practice is national and international in scope, focusing on large-scale urban transformations and discrete real estate transactions. Since founding the New York office of HR&A in 1984, he has led bold plans for important waterfront developments around the world.

Susan Mead, TREASURER
 

Susan served as a partner in a major US law firm for many years with the highest ABA rating. She has served on many not-for-profits as an officer and/or board member, such as the Dallas Fine Arts Museum, Dallas Arboretum and Downtown Dallas Association. Since relocating to Sag Harbor, she has been a founding member of Save Sag Harbor, the Sag Harbor Partnership and the Sag Harbor Cinema.

Hilary Mills Loomis, SECRETARY
 

Hilary is the author of Mailer: A Biography. She is a former syndicated book columnist, and her non-fiction work has appeared in Vanity Fair and other national magazines. Her fiction has appeared in Southampton Review and Manhattan Magazine. She is currently the co-Director of Save Sag Harbor and a founding member of the Sag Harbor Partnership and the Sag Harbor Cinema.

Gregg Winter, FINANCE CHAIR

Gregg Winter is founder and principal of W Financial Fund, a commercial real estate lender structured as a REIT, that makes short-term, bridge loans secured by multifamily and commercial real estate nationwide since 2003, and he is the principal of Winter & Company, a commercial mortgage brokerage and advisory firm that arranges underlying mortgages for New York cooperatives and structures construction financing for developers and owners of mutifamily and commercial real estate. He is a member of the Finance Committee of the Real Estate Board of New York.

Bill Collage, EDUCATION CHAIR
 

Bill is a screenwriter who lives and works full-time in Sag Harbor. He has worked on more than 50 projects for major studios, with produced credits totaling over a billion dollars in worldwide box office. His films include Assassins Creed, Allegient, Exodus: Gods and Kings, Transporter Refuelled, Tower Heist Accepted, and many more. His next project is the feature film Emancipation for Apple, starring Will Smith and directed by Antoine Fuqua.

Wendy Keys, DEVELOPMENT CO-CHAIR

 

Wendy was Executive Producer/ Programming of the Film Society of Lincoln Center until 2008. For over 30 years she was on the New York Film Festival selection committee, curated film programs at the Walter Reade Theater and produced and directed their annual gala tribute to a major film artist, among whom were Laurence Olivier, Federico Fellini, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn, Clint Eastwood, Mike Nichols and Meryl Streep. Tributes to John Huston and Billy Wilder were aired on PBS on Live from Lincoln Center.  At the Walter Reade she directed many retrospectives of actors and directors and organized a variety of thematic series. Ms Keys produced and directed Milton Glaser: To Inform and Delight and All Aboard, a film for the Friends of the High Line. She is a Director Emeritus of Human Rights Watch, and from 1969-2003 was a board member and film programmer for the International Design Conference in Aspen. She currently sits on the boards of the High Line and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Nick Gazzolo, DEVELOPMENT CO-CHAIR

Nick is a founding Partner of Denver-based Solar Fund SolRiver Capital. He has also been an early investor in successful software companies Riskalyze and Intelligent Generation. Nick has previously worked for Habitat for Humanity International, Options Xpress, and Charles Schwab. Nick has served as President of the boards of the John Jermain Memorial Library and The Sag Harbor Partnership. Other boards include the Breakwater Yacht Club and Hamptons Community Outreach. He loves movies and sailing and feels lucky to call Sag Harbor home with his partner Renee and dog Atticus.

Philip I. Kent, GOVERNANCE CHAIR

Phil Kent served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. from 2003 until 2013. He was a resident Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School during the 2014 Fall semester, as well as a 2016 Advanced Leadership Fellow.  As CEO of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., Mr. Kent oversaw all of Turner’s domestic and international news and entertainment businesses including CNN, TBS, TNT, and Cartoon Network, among others.   Before joining Turner, Mr. Kent  was a television packaging agent at Creative Artists Agency.  He has served as Chair of Atlanta’s Woodruff Arts Center, The Advertising Council and The Atlanta Committee for Progress, and currently serves on the advisory board of The Shorenstein Center at the Harvard Kennedy School, The Center for Disease Control Foundation Board, The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center Board, the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center, and is currently vice-chair of The Better Angels Society, an adivsory board led by filmmaker Ken Burns, for which he is leading education and community outreach efforts. 

Susan Lacy, ADVISORY BOARD CHAIR
 

Susan created the celebrated PBS series, American Masters and served as its executive producer for 29 years. She then formed Pentimento Productions. Under an HBO exclusive, multiyear production contract, she has completed films about Steven Spielberg, Jane Fonda and Ralph Lauren. Under her leadership, American Masters earned a record 71 Emmy nominations and 28 wins, 12 Peabodys, 3 Grammys, 2 Oscars, and a host of other awards, including the Producers Guild award for best documentary series for three consecutive years. The multi–award-winning films she has directed include subjects as diverse as Leonard Bernstein, David Geffen, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Lena Horne, Rod Serling, and Judy Garland.

 

Directors

Diana Diamond

Diana has published extensively on the subject of mental health and the application of psychoanalytic concepts to understanding film narratives. She is a professor of Clinical Psychology in the City University of New York, adjunct assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College and is on the faculty of NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis and the New York Psychoanalytic Institute.

Francois deMenil

Having grown up in the company of artists and listened to his father’s keen interest in film, Francois decided to leave Columbia University in 1965 and pursue documentary filmmaking. 

 In 1966 he met artists Jean Tinguely and Niki de St. Phalle in Paris and made his first film on the destruction of “The Hon”, a large temporary collaborative work by Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely and Swedish artist, Per Olof Ultvedt in the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. De Menil ultimately made a half hour film on each (“Tinguely-A Kinetic Cosmos” and” Niki”), as well as an hour length documentary on the sculptor Mark di Suvero, “North Star: Mark Di Suvero”, with author and art critic Barbara Rose which aired on the PBS network. He also produced “Gizmo” with Academy Award documentary filmmaker Howard Smith and, with producer Hanna Weinstein, de Menil developed and associate produced “Stir Crazy,” the comedy with Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor and directed by Sidney Poitier.

 In 1983 deMenil returned to college to study architecture at the Cooper Union and graduated in 1987. He established his architecture practice in 1991 and is a member of the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects and a LEED Accredited Professional with a Building Design and Construction specialty.  He is a registered architect in three states and certified by the National Council of Architectural Review Boards.

Akiva Goldsman

Raised in Brooklyn Heights, New York, Akiva Goldsman received his bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University and attended the graduate fiction writing program at NYU. His feature writing credits include The Client, Batman Forever, A Time to Kill, Practical Magic, Cinderella Man, I Am Legend, The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, Insurgent, and I, Robot. He also wrote A Beautiful Mind, for which he won an Oscar, Golden Globe, and WGA Award. Upcoming features include Brilliance, Major Matt Mason, and the sequels to I Am Legend and Constantine. 

 

He has worked in television as a producer, writer, and director for the TV show Fringe, for which he garnered a Saturn Award and a Hugo Award nomination; as well as Underground, which was nominated for multiple NAACP Image Awards.  Current television includes the live-action series Titans, Star Trek: Picard, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Goldsman is now in post-production on The Crowded Room and will also EP the upcoming series The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

 

Under his Weed Road Pictures banner, Goldsman has produced Deep Blue Sea, Constantine, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Hancock, Without Remorse, The Map of Tiny Perfect Things, Back to the Outback, Firestarter, and Meet Cute.

April Gornik

 

April is an artist and community activist/organizer working with the Sag Harbor Partnership, and was Campaign Chair for the restoration of the Cinema. With artist Eric Fischl, she has co-founded The Church, a new arts and creativity center in Sag Harbor. She has fundraised for local and national causes and believes in the power of art and culture to unite and move a community forward.

Ryan Greenawalt

Ryan joined the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center board in December 2020, where he serves on the executive committee as Development Chair. He also currently Co-Chairs the Board of Trustees for the Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) – where he has served since 2011. He is a managing director at Ramirez & Co., where in 2013 he started to build an investment bond trading and sales business for the firm.  Ramirez is one of the oldest Hispanic/family-owned firms on Wall Street.

After attending the New York Film Academy in 2011, Mr. Greenawalt founded Harrison Street Productions, a film production company based in Los Angeles. He served as executive producer on Codebreaker, a documentary about British mathematician Alan Turing, which aired globally on broadcast and cable TV networks.  In 2013, he helped produce the documentary, The Battle of amfAR, which aired on HBO and tells the story of Dr. Mathilde Krim and Hollywood superstar Elizabeth Taylor joining forces to start the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) in 1985.

Michael Haggiag
Michael had been a filmmaker, television producer and publisher in the United Kingdom before returning to the USA in 2012. In London he co-founded and managed several media companies as well as a successful property firm. His first venture, Aurum Press, was known for publishing the multi-volume Aurum Encyclopedia of Film, and Angelina Ballerina. ‘Global Arts Productions’ produced Ken Russell’s Lady Chatterley for the BBC and ‘Indie Kids’ produced award-winning children’s programs like The Worst Witch.  Lately he has concentrated on art photography and mixed media installations, exhibiting in galleries in Italy, New York and Miami.
Suzanne B. Harwood

The New York Times Magazine Group, Meredith, Sesame Workshop and Horizon Media were Suzanne’s early employers.  She began handling publicity and promotion, before transitioning into marketing, new business development and department management.  

 

Career highlights include directing the launch publicity and promotion of Us magazine for the New York Times Magazine Group and heading up business development at Horizon Media, an independent media buying service, while a member of its operating committee and running the company’s most profitable and largest business unit.

 

Beginning in 2002, Suzanne redirected her over 30 years of career experience as a senior executive in sales and marketing within the advertising and media industries to a private consulting practice and volunteer initiatives.  

 

In 2002 Suzanne was asked to join the AARP New York State Executive Council, a volunteer strategic and policy-making board that helped guide the overall direction of the office. 

 

Suzanne became a member of the Jacob Burns Film center in 2004. She became a major supporter, providing generous donor gifts annually since 2008.  In 2020, Suzanne and her husband provided the funds that allowed the Burns to refurbish the theater marquee with special lighting.

 

Early in the Burns development of what is now an expanding range of teaching tools for educators, Suzanne partnered with Burns staff to create stop-motion videos with 4th graders in their classrooms.  As a result of close relationships developed over the years with JBFC Board members and staff, an exchange of ideas among them continues.

 

A graduate of Alfred University, Suzanne pursued a combined Master of Arts in 

American History at The College of William and Mary with a Fellowship/Apprenticeship from Colonial Williamsburg.

John Kaplan
 

John is a media executive with over 20 years of experience working at the crossroads of entertainment, brands and culture. He is currently the founder of Prizefighter, a boutique entertainment consultancy, and a partner at Alldayeveryday, an award-winning, full-service entertainment production and branding company with offices in Los Angeles, New York, Portland and Tokyo. Previously, he spent a decade as an agent at Creative Artists Agency (CAA). He is a recent transplant to Sag Harbor and loves movies.

Nicole Miller
Niclole  launched her eponymous collection in 1982, which has become a global luxury fashion brand. Her celebrity fans include Angelina Jolie, Beyoncé, Elizabeth Hurley and Blake Lively. A CFDA member, she is the recipient of numerous awards such as the Legend of Fashion Award in 2006, Fashion Group International Lifetime Achievement Award 2012, and the Visionary Woman Award in 2014. A strong believer in protecting the environment, she also supports the Rocky Mountain Institute and Riverkeeper.
Jennifer L. Morgan
Jennifer is Professor of History in the department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University where she also serves as Chair.  Her research examines the intersections of gender and race in in the Black Atlantic world. She is the author of Laboring Women: Gender and Reproduction in the Making of New World Slavery (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004) and Reckoning with Slavery: Gender, Kinship and Capitalism in the Early Black Atlantic (forthcoming, Spring 2021, Duke University Press).  She has been coming to Sag Harbor for summers with her family since she was born.  Her Great Uncle and Aunt Edwin and Dorothy Spaulding were early residents of the Azurest Community.  She is a longtime lover of film and is honored to serve on the SHC board.
Michael Namer
Mike is the founder and CEO of Alfa Development, established in 1980 and LEED Gold-Certified in 2007. He started building in the Hamptons in 1976 and has lived in Sag Harbor since. His skill sets include 40-plus years of construction management, transactional, financial, real estate, and historical preservation experience.
Esther R. Newberg

Esther R. Newberg, a graduate of Wheaton College, is co-head of the Publications Department and a Partner at ICM. Prior to joining ICM as a literary agent, she had a career in politics in Washington, DC.

Her clients at ICM include Tom Hanks, Bob Iger, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Caroline Kennedy, The Skimm, Prince, Lesley Stahl, Lynn Sherr, Pete Dexter, Pete Hamill, Steve Martin, Carl Hiaasen, Thomas L. Friedman, Maureen Dowd, John Feinstein, Steve Martini, Michael Beschloss, Ina Garten, Frank Fukuyama, John Sandford, Mike Lupica, Dennis Ross, George Saunders, Ellen DeGeneres, Michael Sandel, Sally Jenkins, and Seymour Hersh, among others. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Minerva Perez
Minerva is the Executive Director of the Organizacion Latino-Americana (OLA), focuses on arts, education and advocacy for the Latino community. A Sag Harbor resident, she had previously served in 2008 as OLA’s volunteer executive director, then worked for six years as director of residential and transitional services at The Retreat in East Hampton. Ms. Perez is also an accomplished actor who produces the OLA Latino Film Festival of the Hamptons.
Ricki Roer
Ricki is the chair of Wilson Elser’s Employment & Labor litigation practice. Her practice focuses on all aspects of labor and employment law relating to contract and collective bargaining negotiations and disputes; labor arbitrations, grievances and NLRB proceedings. Ricki represents a wide spectrum of multinational and domestic companies, and non-profit organizations. Ricki is consistently called upon to lecture on employment discrimination and labor law.
Shawn Sachs
Shawn partnered with Ken Sunshine in 2002 to form the groundbreaking PR firm Sunshine Sachs. Sunshine Sachs remains a top PR and communications agency and has kept pace with technology while embracing the power to change the world, shape cultures, and create new business models of success in the world of PR, practicing for themselves what they provide – discretion. They are branching out with a production company to create content for digital, TV and film.

Honorary & Advisory Board

Honorary Board

Julie Andrews
Actor and author Julie Andrews received Tony Award nominations for her roles in Camelot and My Fair Lady. She won an Academy Award for her title role in Mary Poppins and was also nominated for her performance in The Sound of Music. Andrews was made an English dame in 2000. In 2007, Andrews received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award and a few years later received a Lifetime Achievement Grammy. Andrews and daughter Emma Walton Hamilton have co-authored many extremely successful children’s books together.
Carter Burwell

Carter has composed the music for a number of feature films, including Blood Simple, Raising Arizona,  Miller’s Crossing, Gods and Monsters, Fargo, Being John Malkovich, Before Night Falls, Adaptation, In Bruges, Twilight,  Anomalisa, and True Grit.  In 2015 he was nominated for an Academy Award for the score to Carol. He’s on the Honorary Board of the Hamptons Film Festival and is a member of the Amagansett Volunteer Fire Department.

Robert Caro
Robert A. Caro, a two-time winner of the Pulitzer prize, is the author of The Power Broker, The Years of Lyndon Johnson, and Working. He is arguably the premier biographer of American politics.
Anne Chaisson
Anne is the Executive Director of The Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF). She specialized in fundraising for non-profits including The Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York Women in Film and Television and the Hamptons and Nantucket Film Festivals. Chaisson has produced many award-winning independent films including Roger Dodger.
Blythe Danner
Blythe Danner is an actor/activist who has been acting for more than 50 years, and that’s as long as she’s been working to help make the world a ‘greener’ place to inhabit.
John DeLuca
John DeLuca recently co-directed Mary Poppins Returns and produced Into the Woods, nominated for three Oscars and three Golden Globes. He served as Executive Producer on Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides and produced Nine. Academy Award winning films are Memoirs of a Geisha and Chicago, and both received the American Choreography Award. He won two Emmys for Tony Bennett: An American Classic. Other choreography credits include Steven Spielberg’s The Terminal, the 75th Annual Acaemy Awards and Kennedy Center Honors.
Jules Feiffer
Jules Feiffer is an American cartoonist and author, and one of the most widely read satirists in the country. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1986, and in 2004 he was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame. His animated short Munro won an Academy Award in 1961. The Library of Congress has recognized his remarkable legacy from 1946 to the present, as a cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter (including Carnal Knowledge and Little Murders), adult and children’s book author, illustrator, and art instructor.
Andrea Grover
Andrea Grover has been the Executive Director of Guild Hall since 2016. Under her leadership, the legendary institution has embraced the edict “Let artists lead the way” and renewed its role as an arts town hall. Grover is the curator of the 2021 exhibition Alexis Rockman: Shipwrecks, presented at Guild Hall and at the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts. From 2011 to 2016, she was curator of special projects at the Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, New York, where she was awarded an Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation award and an AADA Foundation Curatorial Award for the exhibition Radical Seafaring. Grover is the founder of Aurora Picture Show, devoted to experimental cinema, in Houston, and has curated film programs for The Menil Collection, Houston, and Dia Art Foundation, New York. She has received fellowships from the Center for Curatorial Leadership; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University; and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
Chris Hegedus
Chris Hegedus, together with legendary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker and Frazer Pennebaker, formed one of the most respected teams of documentary filmmakers.  From politics to music, their films include the Oscar nominee The War Room, Monterey Pop, Don’t Look Back, Town Bloody Hall, Kings of Pastry, Emmy winner Elaine Stritch at Liberty and Emmy nominee Unlocking the Cage.  In 2002, Hegedus’ won the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement for Startup.com. In 2013, Pennebaker received an Honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement. Hegedus’ career awards include the International Documentary Association, Critics Choice, and the Golden Eagle CINE.
Linda Leroy Janklow

Linda Janklow is a Founding Trustee of the Museum of the Moving Image, Founding Chairman of ArtsConnection, the largest and most comprehensive arts education organization in New York City. She is Chairman Emeritus of Lincoln Center Theater, having served as Chairman for 12 years and a member of the Executive committee since 1979.

​

Katie Lee

Katie, a 16-year Hamptons resident, is the Emmy nominated co-host of Food Network’s hit show The Kitchen and the host of Cooking Channel’s Beach Bites with KAtie Lee. She is the author of three cookbooks, most recently the Endless Summer Cookbook, which is largely inspired by the food of the East End, and the novel. Groundswell. Outside of her culinary and literary adventures, Katie sits on the board of the Food Bank for New York City.

Jaqui Lofaro
Jacqui is Executive Director of the Hamptons Documentary Film Festival, which she founded in 2008. Jacqui is also an award-winning documentary filmmaker, president and founder of Justice Productions, dedicated to films on social justice issues. Her films include: The Empty Chair: Death Penalty Yes or No?, the recipient of the 2006 prestigious Thurgood Marshall Broadcast Journalism Award; 70 x 7: The Forgiveness Equation; and The Last Fix: An Addict”s Passage from Hell to Hope.
Rob Marshall
Mr. Marshall’s films have been honored with a total of 26 Academy Award nominations—winning nine, including Best Picture. He recently directed and produced Mary Poppins Returns and  Into the Woods, starring Meryl Streep, and nominated for three Oscars, three Golden Globes (including Best Picture), and chosen as one of AFI’s best films of the year. He also directed Chicago, Memoirs of a Geisha, and Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides. Mr. Marshall received Emmy Awards for directing, choreographing, and executive producing Tony Bennett: An American Classic, and directed and choreographed the Disney/ABC musical ANNIE. A 6-time Tony Award nominee, Mr. Marshall’s stage work includes Broadway productions of Cabaret, Victor/Victoria, Damn Yankees, Company, and Kiss of the Spiderwoman.
Bob Shaye
Bob Shaye founded New Line Cinema in 1967 and distributed and produced almost 600 films worldwide, including the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He states that he has accomplished some objectives.
Darren Star
Darren Star is an American producer, director, and writer of film and television, best known for creating the television seriesBeverley Hills, 90210, Melrose Place, Sex and The City, Younger and most recently Emily in Paris. In 2002, he received the Austin Film Festival’s Outstanding Television Writer Award. He sits on the board of directors of UCLA Theater and Film School.
Bettina Stelle
Bettina, a full-time resident of Sag Harbor since 1987, is a Curator and Board member of the Sag Harbor Whaling Museum, a passionate supporter of animal rights, and now Director and Curator of Montauk Oceans Institute at the Montauk Lighthouse. Stelle believes in Sag Harbor’s unique past and extraordinary potential future.
Leila Straus
Mrs. Straus, a long-time resident of East Hampton together with her late husband Mickey Straus, came to the US as Managing Director of Granada Television NY in 1981.  She has subsequently served on various philanthropic boards, currently Seeds of Peace, and as Chairman of the American Associates of the National Theatre. She recently received an MBE from the Queen for her service to the arts.
Shaun Woodward
Shaun Woodward is former UK Secretary of State who led successful negotiations between the British, Irish and American Governments, concluding the peace process in Northern Ireland. He served as a Cabinet Minister and Member of Parliament from 1997 to 2015 and was a Culture, Film and Arts Minister. Previously he was a television reporter and producer for BBC Current Affairs. He has taught at London University and Harvard. He is Chair of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and Chairs the American Friends of LAMDA. He and Luke Redgrave live in Sag Harbor.
Harris Yulin
Mr. Yulin is an American actor who has appeared in over a hundred film and television series roles, such as Scarface, Ghostbusters II, Clear and Present Danger, Looking for Richard, Ozark, Training Day and Frasier, which earned him a Primetime Emmy Award Nomination in 1996.

Advisory Board

Mirra Bank

Mirra Bank is an Academy member, and a longtime independent filmmaker whose career began with editorial contributions to Woodstock (Academy Award); Gimme Shelter; and Harlan County, USA (Academy Award).  Her directorial debut, Yudie, premiered at the New York Film Festival, aired nationally on PBS. Most recently, Bank served as both director and cinematographer on No Fear No Favor, filmed in wilderness areas on the front lines of Africa’s poaching crisis. 

A past president of New York Women in Film and Television, Bank now serves on NYWIFT’s Advisory Board, as well as on the Board of Directors of the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, and on the Advisory Board of the Bronx Documentary Center.  She is a MacDowell Fellow; a Lifetime Member of the Actors Studio as a director; and an originating member of New Day Films.

John Connor

John Chris Connor is a full time Sag Harbor resident and a member of the Historic Preservation and Architectural Review Board. He is the principal of Wharf LLC, a company focused on the preservation of contributing structures in the historic district. Over the past twenty years he has been involved with nearly two dozen renovation projects in Sag Harbor. Connor served the Obama administration as White House Liaison to the US Department of Commerce, as well as campaign and fundraising work in both election cycles.

Myrna Davis

Myrna is a writer and editorial consultant, working closely with artists, architects, designers, cultural institutions and entrepreneurs on promotional projects, exhibitions and books. She is Executive Director Emerita of the Art Directors Club, a graduate of Barnard College, and was founding co-chair of the Sag Harbor Preservation Commission in the early 1970’s which gained landmark status for the historic village. She serves on the boards of Save Sag Harbor and the School Art League in New York.

Alexandra Dean
Alexandra Dean is an Emmy award-winning journalist and documentary director. In 2014 she co-founded Reframed Pictures with Adam Haggiag and Susan Sarandon. She recently directed the feature documentary, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamar Story, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and won the Adrienne Shelly Award for Excellence in Filmmaking. She most recently directed This Is Paris, presented as the world premiere Spotlight Documentary Film featured at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2020.
Emma Walton Hamilton
Emma, with Steve Hamilton, co-founded Sag Harbor’s Bay Street Theatre in 1991, and served as its Co-Artistic Director for 17 years. She is now a faculty member for Stony Brook Southampton’s MFAs in Creative Writing and Film, where she is director of the Children’s Lit Fellows program and the Young ArtIsts and Writers Project. Emma is a NY Times bestselling children’s author, and the co-creator – with her mother, Julie Andrews – of the Emmy-nominated Netflix series for pre-schoolers celebrating the arts, Julie’s Greenroom. 
Tara Fordham
Tara Fordham, Sag Harbor Bank Manager AVP, has been with Bridgehampton National Bank (Now Dime Community Bank) for over 20 years. As a dedicated member of the local community, Tara is an active member of the Sag Harbor Fire Department Ladies Auxiliary, and since January 2016 has served as Treasurer of the Sag Harbor Chamber of Commerce. Tara resides in Sag Harbor with her husband and two sons, who are the 13th generation of Fordhams in Sag Harbor.
Gail Gallagher
Gail, currently Senior Vice President at Loop Capital Markets, had been a Managing Director at Bear Stearns & Co. Besides her successful history of working in the financial services industry, she is a painter with an in-depth historical and art blog called “Painting the Hamptons”, and former President of the Board and member of the Sag Harbor Partnership.
Gina Bruer Hadley
Mrs. Hadley is a lifelong resident of Sag Harbor and devoted supporter of the arts in the village. While in graduate school Gina was the assistant to the director of Men’s Lives by Joe Pintauro in the premier season at Bay Street Theater festival. After a career in advertising and marketing, Gina created The Second Shift, a platform she designed to retain critical female talent in the workforce.
Adam Haggiag
Adam comes from a long line of film and television producers. Before founding Reframed Pictures, Adam worked for the director Philip Noyce’s production company Rambalara Films. He also specializes in motion capture production technology, having worked on Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg’s feature film Tintin, and James Cameron’s Avatar. He graduated from the film department at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Stephen Hamilton
Steve, with Emma Walton Hamilton, co-founded Sag Harbor’s Bay Street Theatre in 1991, and served as its Executive Director for 17 years. He is now a faculty member for Stony Brook Southampton’s MFAs in Creative Writing and Film, where he runs the Southampton Theatre Conference. An acclaimed stage director and actor, Stephen’s directing credits include Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, starring Alec Baldwin and Laurie Metcalf at the John Drew Theatre, and the American Premiere of Ben Woolf’s Angry Young Man at Urban Stages in NYC.
Joe Lauro

Joe is an archivist and filmmaker who has produced and directed over 15 music documentaries the most recent beingThe Big Beat: Fats Domino and the Birth of Rock and Roll. He is the CEO of Historic Film Archive, a commercial archive specializing in the preservation and licensing of vintage music performances and Americana. Joe is on the board of directors of the Sag Harbor American Music Fesitval and a musician who performs regularly with his band, The HooDoo Loungers.

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Don Lenzer

Don  is an award-winning documentary director/cameraman best known for his cinema verité work on films covering a wide range of cultural and social subjects. His credits as a cinematographer appear on five academy award-winning feature documentaries: Woodstock, He Makes Me Feel Like Dancing, Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision, The Long Way Home, and Into the Arms of Strangers. He has worked on numerous documentaries for Public Television including Georgie O’Keefe: A Portrait, De Kooning on De Kooning Vladimir Horovitz: The Last Romantic, and James Baldwin: The Price of a Ticket Among the theatrically distributed documentaries he worked on are The Greatful Dead Movie and Say Amen, Somebody. His directing credits include Fathers and Sons and the Emmy Award-winning Itzhak Perlman: In The Fiddler’s House (1995). Don is a member of the Advisory Board of the Hamptons Documentary Film Festival.

Barbara Moss
Barbara Moss, whose life in the industry began as a child “prop” being paid in lollipops, by her trailblazing TV writer/producer mother, is a producer/director of film/tv/web content, corporate and live events. Her programs for CBS, ABC, HBO, Discovery, Lifetime, Turner, and Australian Broadcasting span news, reality-based storytelling, pop culture, lifestyle, science, medical, and sports programming. Her social activist roots came alive during the 60’s anti-war protests working in 16mm film and today continues to be radically engaged in new media and on-line activism currently with Women for Biden Harris.  She met the challenges of running Michael Moore’s production company and for more than a decade, a mission-driven on-line global community collaborating with founder actor, Woody Harrelson.  Her first indie film, an international award-winning documentary, co-produced with her husband, A CRIME TO FIT THE PUNISHMENT, as well as her role as Founder of NY Women in Film & TV’s The Women’s Film Preservation Fund , was honored with an evening at the Museum of Modern Art. She continues to engage in her passion for film preservation and is active in the Women’s Impact Network of the Producer’s  Guild of America.
Jesse Matsuoka
Jesse is one of the second generation operating partners of Sen Restaurant in Sag Harbor. A certified sake sommelier, he grew up in Japan where he studied Nihonbuyo, Japanese dance theater. He also lived in Hawaii where he danced Hula and won 2nd place with his team in the world Hula competition. In his free time, he enjoys fishing, beach volleyball, and of course, movies!
Fred Murphy

Fred Murphy ASC was born and raised in New York City, attended Columbia University and The Rhode Island School of Design. 

His Motion Pictures in the 21st century and the 1990’s include Ghost Town, Anamorph, RV,Dreamer, Secret Window, Autofocus, The Mothman Prophecies, October Sky, Stir of Echoes, Dance with Me, Metro, Faithful, The Fantastics, Murder in the First, Jack the Bear, Scenes from a Mall

Among his films shot in the 1980’s are Enemies a Love Story , Fresh Horses , Full Moon in Blue Water, Best Seller, The Dead, Five Corners, Hoosiers, The Trip to Bountiful, Eddie and the Cruisers and Heartland. He was co-cinematographer with Henri Alekan on The State of Things, which won the Golden Lion at the 1983 Venice Film Festival. His feature film career began with release of Girlfriends in 1978.

Television work includes, The Good Wife, Fringe, The Good Fight, Evil,Braindead, Witness Protection , The Final days, Sessions, The Gardeners Son and the pilot for Nothing Sacred.

Nigel Noble
Nigel Noble, a resident in East Hampton for 28 years, is a longtime documentary producer/director. He came to America from the theatre in England as cinema-verité was gaining recognition and became immediately involved as the in-house sound recordist for Wolper Productions. As a director, Voices of Serafina! and The Charcoal People, have been screened at Telluride, Sundance and The Cannes Film Festivals. He has earned numerous awards including an Oscar for Close Harmony, and a Peabody for the PBS series Craft in America. He is on the advisory board of The Hamptons Documentary Film Festival..
Carol Ostrow
Carol Ostrow is an independent theater producer in New York City. Ostrow began her producing career at Vassar, where she developed and founded the Powerhouse Season, a collaboration between Vassar and New York Stage and Film, now celebrating its 35th season. She went on to become producing director of the award winning Classic Stage Company, where she produced Sigourney Weaver and other notable artists in re-imaginings of the classics. In the wake of 9/11, Ostrow became the producing director of The Flea, where she produced over 100 world premieres. She also spearheaded the construction of an adapted use three-theater performing arts complex in Lower Manhattan. She has been an adjunct professor of theater at Vassar College, Chatham College and McGill University. Ostrow holds a B.A. from Vassar College and an MFA from the Yale School of Drama.  She is a member of the Board of Trustees of Vassar College, where she chairs the development committee and serves on the Yale School of Drama Board of Advisors. She co-chairs the Sag Harbor Partnership. She is also a member of the executive committee on the Board of the National Psoriasis Foundation. åShe is married to Michael Graff (Managing Director at Warburg Pincus LLC). They have four children and count London, Pittsburgh, Montreal, New York City and now Sag Harbor as home.
Ned Rifkin
Ned Rifkin was most recently teaching Cinema Studies at SUNY Purchase and has been a professor of art at The University of Texas (Austin), as well as a curator of contemporary art, director of art museums such as The Menil Collection, Houston, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC. He was the Smithsonian Institution’s Under Secretary for Art.  He has organized many art exhibitions and film programs and is a resident of East Hampton, NY.
Lauren Ritchie
Lauren Ritchie is a Visual Effects Producer whose career spans over 20 years, from films like True Lies and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy to the Fox musical The Greatest Showman. Her company Wildfire Vfx that created effects for over 30 films including the academy award winning film Twelve Years a Slave.  She also worked as executive in charge of visual effects for New Line Cinema for 10 years.  Her first job as a young teenager was at the Marin Cinemas, a small independent film house in Sausalito, CA, much like the Sag Harbor Cinema.
Adam Schwartz
Adam Schwartz is founder and CEO of Articulate, a global leader in online learning software. Adam founded Articulate in 2002 with a vision to create innovative technologies that make it easier for the world to learn. Under his direction, Articulate has grown from a groundbreaking idea into an award-winning company that was recognized by Deloitte as one of the fastest-growing technology companies in North America. Articulate customers include 93 of the Fortune 100 and 60,000 organizations in 151 countries. Adam is an active angel investor in more than 100 innovative tech companies and serves on the boards of Embedly and Videolicious.
Leslie Shatz
Leslie Shatz is a sound designer for feature films, television and documentaries. Nominated for the Best Sound Oscar for his work on THE MUMMY in 1999, his work won the Best Sound Editing Oscar for BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA in 1992.  He has also been recognized by the Cannes Film Festival with the Prix Vulcain de l’Artiste Technicien for his work on Gus Van Sant’s LAST DAYS. Among his past projects are many award winning film and television projects: CAROL, STILL ALICE, SINGLE MAN, MILK, GOMORRA, ELEPHANT, and APOCALYPSE NOW.
Robby Stein

Robby Stein is a child psychoanalyst, adult, couples and family therapist who has practiced in England and the USA for over 40 years. He has been a staff member of the Tavistock Clinic and Director of the Family Day Unit of the Marlborough Hospital in London. His work includes research on the neurobiology of sleep and its connection to later development, the production of a series of video films on weaning, the observation of young children, and a film on W.R. Bion, Samuel Beckett’s psychoanalyst.  He is an independent consultant to several philanthropic trusts, specializing in generational education. Robby has served as the Deputy Mayor of the Village of Sag Harbor, and on the Boards of Bay Street Theater, the British Mental Health Film Council, and as interim president of the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center. Currently he is on the Board of Space on Ryder Farm; a residential theater program, and Organic Farm in Brewster NY. He is the Board president of South Fork Bakery; an employment, training and job placement program for special needs adults.

Bob Weinstein

Bob Weinstein is President, Executive Director of Concrete Brand Imaging Group, a New York based branding and design agency who created the logo, look and feel of the capital campaign for the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center.  A longtime resident of Sag Harbor, Bob is co-President of local advocacy group Save Sag Harbor, as well as Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum.

Jane Young

Jayne Young spent over 25 years in the magazine publishing industry leading iconic brands. As President and Publisher of The Atlantic Monthly, she is credited with reviving the publication through revamping its brand and rebuilding its business base leading to profitability for the first time in decades. Successful marketing platforms were created including the establishment of The Influential Americans research and the televised public policy series The Atlantic Monthly Forum. Under her leadership The Atlantic became the first consumer magazine online in 1993 when it also launched the first-ever online live conferences. The Atlantic won numerous awards including several prestigious National Magazine Awards and inclusion on Adweek’s Top Magazine List. Prior to The Atlantic, Jayne held several executive positions including at Institutional Investor magazine. Jayne is a native New Yorker and now full time resident of Sag Harbor where she is immersed in local issues and sits on the board of Save Sag Harbor and the Sag Harbor Partnership.