Neil Berkeley
Director
Neil Berkeley is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker and entrepreneur. His third feature film, Gilbert, chronicles the life and career of beloved and intensely private comedian, Gilbert Gottfried. The film had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2017 and will be distributed by Gravitas Ventures with exclusive SVOD on Hulu. The film will be released in theaters this fall. His first feature film, Beauty Is Embarrassing, premiered at SXSW in 2012 and chronicles the life and times of the inspiring artist Wayne White. The film won several Best Documentary Awards and was featured in PBS’ Independent Lens in January of 2013. His second feature, Harmontown, premiered at SXSW in 2014 and follows self-destructive TV writer Dan Harmon on an emotional, cross-country journey of self-discovery. Berkeley is also a successful commercial and promo director and has worked with brands such as Mercedes Benz, Cadillac and Kraft Foods. He is the owner of BRKLY, a design-based production company focused on developing commercials, short form branded content and marketing campaigns for network and cable television. The company has helped launch some of TV’s most popular shows including Brother vs. Brother, Scandal, Project Runway, Top Chef and many more.
James Andre Leche
Editor
James Leche is a documentary film editor from Austin, Texas. After receiving his degree, he moved to Los Angeles in 2008 and has worked on everything from social, environmental, and personal documentaries such as Gilbert which premiered in 2017 at Tribeca.
Jake Hostetter
Additional Editor
Jake Hostetter is an editor, photographer and cinematographer from Pittsburgh, PA. After moving to Los Angeles in 2012, he began working in post-production on short films, commercials and promos. Jake is now focusing on documentary film editing and production after working on the feature documentary Gilbert.
Eddie Schmidt
Executive Producer
Eddie Schmidt is an Academy Award- and Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker, as well as a director, producer and showrunner of Emmy-nominated TV series and specials.
Schmidt has produced six projects that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. His most recent was Netflix’s CHELSEA DOES (which he also directed). Previous films include HBO’s two-time Emmy nominee VALENTINE ROAD, IFC’s infamous THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED (which he co-wrote), HBO’s TWIST OF FAITH (later nominated for an Academy Award), Morgan Neville’s music doc TROUBADOURS (Emmy-nominated, for PBS), and the prescient teenage snapshot, CHAIN CAMERA.
Schmidt was also Executive Producer of the Emmy-nominated BEAUTY IS EMBARRASSING, which premiered at South by Southwest (SXSW) and was released theatrically before airing on PBS. He is currently Executive Producer of an upcoming feature documentary on comedian Gilbert Gottfried.
For television, Schmidt was recently Executive Producer (Showrunner) and Director of THE CASE OF: JONBENET RAMSEY for CBS. Previously, he was Executive Producer (Showrunner) of Bravo’s NEWLYWEDS: THE FIRST YEAR, Co-Executive Producer of MTV’s CATFISH: THE TV SHOW, and Supervising Producer of A&E’s STORAGE WARS: NEW YORK. Schmidt also directed NBC’s Emmy-nominated series WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, documentary segments for Netflix’s CHELSEA, and contributed a short film, GOOD BREAD, to Morgan Spurlock’s FOCUS FORWARD series.
Elsewhere, Schmidt has appeared on THIS AMERICAN LIFE and in the mini-series 50 DOCUMENTARIES TO SEE BEFORE YOU DIE. He also co-authored the book, THE FINGER: A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO FLIPPING OFF.
From 2009-2011, Schmidt served as Board President of the International Documentary Association (IDA), and was its interim Executive Director during the latter half of 2008.
Schmidt is currently in production on a new series with Morgan Neville and Tremolo Productions.
He is repped by Tyler Kroos at ICM and Stephen Marks of Dialed-In Entertainment.
david heiman
Producer
David Heiman is a producer and writer who enjoys spending other peoples’ money to create exciting and indispensable creative content. Having survived film school at NYU and a year teaching in China, he emigrated to Los Angeles to pursue his passion for self-importance. His hobbies include sitting silently in creative meetings and judging people for their ideas, and mansplaining. His favorite movie is Herbie: Fully Loaded and his favorite President is William Henry Harrison.
maggie contreras
Producer
Maggie has worked both behind and in front of the camera on numerous high-profile projects. In the non-fiction world, she has been a consultant on the festival circuit, helping to shape the campaigns for nearly twenty documentary features at Sundance alone. Her contributions to feature films include AMPAS nominees Exit Through the Gift Shop, The Invisible War and Twenty Feet From Stardom, which went on to win the Oscar. Before Gilbert, her last project as producer with Future You Pictures was a bio doc series about Garth Brooks. She continues to develop projects for film, television and digital both independently, with FYP. As writer/producer, Maggie sold a scripted series in the UK, co-written with Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes. She trained at Boston University and The London Dramatic Academy and holds a B.A. from The George Washington University.