Our Team.

Our behind-the-camera team brings a wide range of first-hand experience with civic engagement. We’ve worked City of Boston elections and observed polls in New Hampshire. We’ve served in AmeriCorps and attended our respective Town Meetings. We’ve helped clean-up parks, planted street trees, and volunteered at food pantries. We’re ready to vote and hope you are too. We’ve put together a few suggestions for community engagement here.

Erin Trahan.
Co-director. Producer.

  • Erin Trahan’s background in film includes production, exhibition and multi-platform film journalism. For the last two decades she has reported on independent film for outlets such as 90.9 WBUR in Boston, The Boston Globe, MovieMaker Magazine, and others. When The Independent Film & Video Monthly transitioned to an online magazine, she served as its editor for seven years and spearheaded the preservation of the print magazine’s archive. She’s currently on faculty in Emerson College's journalism and visual media arts departments. Over the years she has been a poll worker, AmeriCorps member, and advocate for youth community involvement. More than anything, she wants this film to remind viewers that decent people have and will continue to devote their lives to public service.

Jeff Schmidt.
Co-director. Producer. Editor.

  • Jeff Schmidt is a Massachusetts-based Emmy Award-winning producer, who for the past decade served as the program director of Salem Film Fest, one of the largest documentary film festivals in New England. Additionally, he co-produced and edited the documentary feature THE MILLION CALORIE MARCH, which premiered at the Boston Film Festival and won a FREDDIE Award for health and wellness. He also helped produce THE HOUSE WE LIVED IN, a documentary feature which screened at Ashland Independent Film Festival, San Francisco DocFest, Independent Film Festival of Boston, Woods Hole Film Festival and won the award for Best Documentary at the New Hampshire Film Festival. Jeff is currently serving as a producer on DISARMING LOVE, a documentary feature following a US military veteran who lost her arms protecting others from a bomb in Iraq who now helps fellow veterans suffering from trauma, while finding comfort and community for herself in the online video gaming world.

Maria Letunic.
Research. Story Consultant.

  • Maria Letunic is a lawyer with a degree from Boston College Law School. In addition to her years practicing law, Maria has extensive research and writing experience. She was born in Ecuador and raised in Colombia to immigrant parents who escaped political persecution in the former Yugoslavia. She is fluent in Spanish and Serbo-Croatian. Maria lives in Belmont, Massachusetts and has a deep interest in our civic and political lives and how film and media can reflect our collective experience. She ponders how things may have turned out if Michael Dukakis had won the 1988 U.S. presidential race.

Joel Roston.
Original Score.

  • Joel Roston has written music for films, commercials, podcasts, web videos, and installations, composed chamber works and solo pieces for numerous ensembles and instrumentalists, and performed nationally and internationally in the classical, new music, and rock idioms. Joel teaches guitar, music theory, and composition privately, leads workshops on music literacy and music communication for media producers, and is currently a visiting faculty member teaching media composition and film scoring at Longy School of Music of Bard College.

NiFe (Jennifer) Lucey-Brzoza.
Graphic Design.

  • NiFe (Jennifer) Lucey-Brzoza is a multidisciplinary artist and designer, whose practice focuses on internal and external landscapes. She/any makes performances, dance, photographs, and films of contemplative connection to body and land. Through immersive durational practices she/any draws attention to intricate pathways of belonging. 

    Her/any’s research over the last 6 years is in affect manifestation and embodied ways of perceiving. The inquiry is phenomenological in nature and aspires to learn the source language of connection. NiFe's short film series titled 'Presence' exemplifies this exploration, through extensive solo wilderness fellowship, and embodied spirit emergence. NiFe believes resilience is born of empathy for shared experience and faith that we are not alone. When we cradle this knowing we are whole and so is the world we create. 

    NiFe is a graduate of School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Alongside her art practice, she/any has a career in branding design spanning over two decades. NiFe owns and operates a design studio, public art space, and product line in Cambridge, MA, where she integrates art with community and stewardship.