Meet the vsm crew
About the Director
Victoria Mills, Director | Producer
Victoria Mills is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and full-time, practicing psychoanalyst in New York City. Previous film directing credits include Like Any Other Kid, Mothers and Daughters: Mirrors That Bind, and Hidden Battles, all of which traveled the international festival circuit and had successful impact initiatives with organizations across the country. As an analyst with 35 years of experience, Victoria has worked extensively with adolescents, adults, and those who have experienced trauma. She is a training analyst, teacher, lecturer, and member of the International Psychoanalytic Association, the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, and the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis. In conjunction with her films, she leads workshops with universities, national organizations, and grassroots community groups. She is currently working on her fourth film, No Whining: The Story of Toni McLaurin.
Like Any Other Kid Crew
Cinematographer
Daniel Carter
Daniel Carter has worked on numerous award-winning independent and television documentaries ranging in topics from women’s and children’s rights, political conflict, the arts, and education. Cinematographer and Camera Operator credits include: Weiner (Sundance 2016 Grand Jury Prize), Cartel Land (2015 Oscar Nominated Documentary Feature), Dangerous Acts Starring The Unstable Elements of Belarus (2015 Emmy Award for Outstanding Arts and Culture Programming), Death Row Stories, Stink, and Years of Living Dangerously.
Editor
Michelle Chang
Michelle Chang previously edited the feature film 9-MAN, which won the documentary competition at CAAMFest 2015 in San Francisco, and had a broadcast premiere on the World Channel series "America ReFramed." Other credits include She's Beautiful When She's Angry (Additional Editor), American Promise (Additional Editor for POV Broadcast, Emmy nomination), (A)Sexual, Black and Cuba, Camp Victory, Afghanistan (Co-Editor) and Pushing the Elephant (Associate Editor.) She also edited four seasons of the NBPC web series Black Folk Don't, as well as many short films for Art:21’s New York Close Up series. Chang was a fellow at the Sundance Documentary Edit and Story Lab in 2009, and also attended in 2008 as an assistant editor. Before becoming an editor, Michelle was an Associate Producer for ABC News’ “20/20” and “Primetime.”
Producer and Impact Producer
Kathy Leichter
Kathy Leichter is a documentary film producer and director, fundraising and outreach consultant and media activist. Leichter directed and produced Here One Day, a documentary which follows Kathy’s quest to understand how living with her mother’s mental illness and losing her to suicide have impacted her as a woman, artist and ultimately as a mother. Previous films include, Passing On, the award-winning PBS documentary, A Day’s Work, a Day’s Pay, and has previously produced Spit it Out, and Mothers and Daughters: Mirrors that Bind. For more information about Leichter’s work please go to www.twosunsmedia.com.
Producer
Carolina Correa
Carolina Correa is a bilingual producer and editor with over 12 years of experience. Previously she was Field Producer for StoryCorps, a national oral history project that airs every Friday on NPR. She has edited and produced for broadcast networks such as PBS, FOX, Telesur, and Nickelodeon, including the Emmy Award winning PBS/WTIU children’s program Friday Zone. She also served as associate producer on Kathy Leichter’s documentary Here One Day, which premiered at IDFA in 2013 and Victoria Mills' Hidden Battles which travelled the festival circuit and was distributed by Filmakers Library. Carolina has a Masters in Media Studies from The New School University and graduated in Telecommunications from Indiana University. She is a member of the National Academy of Arts and Science and New York Women in Film and Television. Recent freelance clients include Dora the Explorer and USA De Verdad.
Composer
Maxim Moston
Born in Moscow, Maxim Moston immigrated to America in 1979. He was 13 when he made his debut at Carnegie Hall, and 16 when he hit CBGB. Since then, Maxim has divided his time between the classical and pop worlds as a multi-instrumentalist, arranger, composer and producer. He was the recipient of the Boosey and Hawkes Prize for composition when he was 18. Maxim has written and co-written numerous songs and pieces of incidental music and has arranged and orchestrated countless songs for artists such as Antony and the Johnsons, Rufus Wainwright, Keren Ann and Josh Groban. Hidden Battles was his first venture into film scoring and he is immensely grateful to the creative team of the film for giving him an opportunity to discover a new passion. More information can be found on maximmoston.com.
Assistant Editor / Assistant Producer
Marissa Gouverne
Marissa Gouverne is a New York City based documentary editor and has worked as an assistant on several major features, including Finding Babel, Into the Night, and Eero Saarinen: The Architect Who Saw the Future. She is now working as Associate Editor on an upcoming HBO feature about Jane Fonda.
Hidden Battles Crew
Editor
Bryan Gunnar Cole
As a director, producer, and picture editor Bryan Gunnar Cole’s work spans the full scope of media distribution and has been seen in theaters, festivals and television worldwide. His feature directorial debut, Day Zero starring Elijah Wood, Chris Klein and Jon Bernthal won international acclaim, and his feature documentary Boomtown premiered on the PBS showcase POV series. His television credits include programs for National Geographic (the First Dog, Street Dogs, Crows), Discovery (Return to Penguin City), and Showtime (Unfurled). He is also a union picture editor with both feature and television credits including the acclaimed documentaries Another Road Home, Arctic Son, and The Sunshine; A&E’s First 48, PBS’s Texas Ranch House, and Lifetime Channel’s Women Docs. Bryan holds a BA in Film Studies from Yale University and a MFA in filmmaking from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Director of Photography
Danae Elon
Jerusalem-born Danae Elon graduated from NYU in 1995, was the recipient of the Kodak National Cinematography and Tisch Achievement in Cinematography Awards. Her first documentary Never Again Forever participated in over 20 international festivals, broadcast on Austrian TV and won awards at the San Francisco and Chicago festivals. Her second film, Wild Mint, screened internationally, and Cut was broadcast on Israeli TV, winning a cinematography award at the Jerusalem Film Festival. Danae’s film, Another Road Home won numerous awards, was released theatrically in the United States in April 2005 and screened at many international festivals. Her feature documentary film Partly Private, premiered at Tribeca Film Festival and won Best New York Documentary.
Producer
Hayley Downs
Hayley Downs is a documentary filmmaker, producer and fundraising/outreach consultant. In addition to Hidden Battles, she produced and broadcast-edited Naturally Obsessed: the Making of a Scientist, a documentary about laboratory research by Dick and Carole Rifkind. Naturally Obsessed premiered on WNYC/Thirteen and is distributed by PBS International. She Produced J.L. Sert: A Nomadic Dream, a Spanish/U.S. co-production and directed by Pablo Bujosa. Her installations and experimental films: Move, Coleslaw Wrestling and Boar Hog, exploring multi-generational Florida folk culture, have shown at underground film festivals including NY, Chicago and SF, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Miami and Art Basel. Her angst-filled teen journal was included in Mortified: Real Words, Real People, Real Pathetic, published by Simon Spotlight Entertainment.
Producer
Kathy Leichter
For more information about Leichter’s work, please visit www.twosunsmedia.com.
Marketing Producer and Sound Editor
Lila Yomtoob
Lila Yomtoob is a producer, a filmmaker, and sound editor specializing in marketing and development. She produced the marketing and distribution end of Hidden Battles for VSM Productions, spearheaded an outreach campaign for the national PBS broadcast of Mariachi High, and co-produced Foreclosure, starring Michael Imperioli. Her feature length directorial debut High Life premiered at San Francisco Indie Fest in 2005, and she has made several shorts that played in festivals and galleries across the country. As a sound editor, she worked on over 40 feature films, docs and tv shows, garnering an Emmy Award for sound editing HBO’s Baghdad ER. For more information, please visit yomtoob.com.
Finishing Editor and Post Production Supervisor
Mar Trevino
Mar Trevino is an editor, director and post-producer based in New York City. His short films have been screened in major cites throughout the United States including New York, San Francisco, Houston and Detroit. He has worked on Doctors of the Dark Side, a feature length documentary focusing on medical complicity in torture in the United States Post 9/11. His documentary short, The Promised Land that explores a man’s journey trying to cope with his shattered dream of not being able to procreate in his own unique way made its film circuit in 2013. Mr. Trevino received an MA in Media Studies from The New School’s Media Studies Program in New York City where he was Department Fellow in Production.
Assistant Producer
Tina Flemmerer
Tina Flemmerer came to New York City from her native Germany in 2003 to study film. In May 2008 she received her Bachelors of Fine Arts in Film and Video Production from The City College of New York. Tina received awards for Best Documentary and Best Documentary Editing from the City College’s Media and Communication Arts Department for her thesis project Leslie Day – City Naturalist. In addition to serving as assistant producer on Hidden Battles, Tina has worked on a documentary about the New York based Engineers Without Borders chapter and their work in bringing clean water to a health clinic in Matunda, Kenya, as well as projects like Odd Ones Out, a feature documentary directed by Dana McClure, about trans-gendered youth in New York City, and Everything Turns, Everything Revolves, a documentary currently in production by the award winning independent media artist Dave Davidson, about the German Dadaist and avant-garde Filmmaker Hans Richter.
Assistant Producer
Samantha Silver
Half anthropologist, half filmmaker, Samantha Silver has been working in film for 5 years exploring all stages of production across a variety of genres. With camera as her real passion she is currently working in New York as a camera assistant while making her own films.
Mothers & Daughters:
Mirrors that Bind Crew
Editor
Flavia Fontes
Fontes was born and raised in Brazil, and moved to New York City to attend Hunter College and New York University. She has been making films for more than twenty years. Her work has been broadcast on HBO, PBS, BBC, Discovery Channel, Sundance Channel, Berlin Film Festival, MoMA and Sundance Film Festival. She directed and edited Forbidden Wedding, which has screened in more than twenty-two film festivals and was broadcast on the Sundance Channel. She also directed and edited Living With Chimpanzees: Portrait of a Family which broadcast in more than 23 countries; it screened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and other venues around the world. She taught film post-production and editing at The New School University for twelve years. Fontes edited various films including White Horse which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and broadcast on HBO and screened at Cinema Du Reel in Paris and Terror at Home: Domestic Violence in America broadcast at Lifetime Television, both films were directed by Academy Award-winning director Maryann DeLeo. Flavia Died April 18, 2021.
Producer
Kathy Leichter
For more information about Leichter’s work, please visit www.twosunsmedia.com.