THE COSMIC ROOM
From the Secret Files and Accidental Life of Robert Carl Cohen
Peter Getzels
is an Emmy Award-winning producer, director and cinematographer of feature documentaries around the world. He is also co-creator and director of the high-end PBS series Closer to Truth, now in its 19th season. Once a professional mountaineer working in the Himalayas and South America, Peter was trained in Anthropology before turning to film, working with his partner, Harriet. For National Geographic, BBC, PBS, Discovery and Channel 4 UK he has made over 120 hours of television including a range of feature documentaries, winning top awards in around the world.
Harriet Gordon Getzels
has a long track record of producing, directing and writing award-winning films for British, American and European television in far-flung corners of the planet. Often working with Peter, their subjects range from character-driven narratives to cutting edge science, and the fringes of religion. Based in Oxford, England for sixteen years and now in Washington DC, Harriet is co-owner of Getzels Gordon Productions. She also writes narrative non-fiction, and is finishing a madcap travel memoir called MY TRIBE COMES TOO about being a mother, filmmaker and wife, while in a perpetual state of production.
Neil Barrett
is a documentary cameraman, a proud dad and a very curious traveler. He grew up in Hong Kong, went to University in Scotland and has gotten profoundly lost on all 5 continents. He has worked on 60 films, travelling through 40 countries, looking for the answer to the big mystery: Why do we do what we do? The search goes on. . . Neil’s work has been shown on National Geographic, BBC, HBO, CNN films, Discovery, Smithsonian and PBS. His feature docs have been shown at Sundance, Tribeca, Toronto and Silverdocs. His work has won an Emmy, The Edward R Murrow award, an Oscar nomination, a DuPont Columbia award and most memorably a short stay in a Bolivian jail. Neil lives in Washington DC with his partner, Julia Cohen, and young daughter Helena.
Dianna Cohen
is Executive Producer, co-founder and CEO of Plastic Pollution Coalition (PPC) and is a passionate advocate for a plastic free world. PPC is a growing global alliance of 650 organizations, businesses, and notable thought leaders working toward a world free of plastic pollution and its toxic impact on humans, animals, and the environment. With thirty years as a Los Angeles based visual artist, Dianna has shown her work internationally at galleries, foundations and museums. Using plastic bags as her primary material in her artwork to make a visual and social impact, Cohen is interested in exploring its materiality through modifications and the material’s relationship to culture, media, toxicity and the world at large. She shared this in her TED talk in 2010 on Mission Blue in the Galapagos Islands. Dianna studied Biology, Art, and Film at University of California, Los Angeles and holds a BA in Fine Arts.
Julia Cohen, MPH
As Managing Director, Julia brings nearly three decades of experience in leading executive, strategic, communications, fundraising, and outreach efforts for a wide range of government, entertainment, and non-profit groups. Julia is a founding collaborator of PPC and recently was the Senior Director of External Engagement at the Environmental Working Group (EWG), and the Development Director of Plastic Pollution Coalition. She holds a BA in Modern Society and Social Thought from The University of California, Santa Cruz and Masters in Public Health from University of California, Berkeley.
Stephen Nemeth
formed and heads up Rhino Films, the independent film company that originated as a division of iconoclastic record label Rhino Records. He has produced and executive produced dozens of films including The Sessions (Sundance 2012 Audience Award, 2013 Academy Award nomination for Helen Hunt), C.O.G. (Sundance 2013), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Why Do Fools Fall in Love, Radio Free Albemuth and Spaceman. He is developing the New York Times bestselling book Confessions of an Economic Hitman as a television series with George Clooney and Smokehouse and is in post-production on Freak Power (prequel to Fear and Loathing) and in pre-production on Hunter S. Thompson’s The Curse of Lono. Nemeth’s documentary credits include Dogtown and Z-Boys (Sundance 2001 Audience Award), Pick Up the Mic (Toronto 2005), Wardance (2008 Academy Award nomination), Fuel (Sundance 2008 Audience Award), Flow (Sundance 2008), Climate Refugees (Sundance 2010), Under the Boardwalk: The Monopoly Story, Education Inc., Pump, Good Fortune and Logan’s Syndrome. Nemeth is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and on the board of numerous nonprofit organizations including Friends of the Earth, Children Uniting Nations and the International Documentary Association and is on the dean’s board of the UC Santa Cruz’s School for the Arts. He is both an American and British citizen.