Jon Bowermaster (director, The Keeper) is a six-time grantee of the National Geographic Expeditions Council. His first assignment for National Geographic Magazine was documenting a 3,741-mile crossing of Antarctica by dogsled. Bowermaster has written 11 books and produced/directed more than 30 documentary films. His feature documentaries include Dear President Obama, After the Spill, Windshipped, and Ghost Fleet. His National Geographic-sponsored Oceans 8 project took his teams around the world by sea kayak over the course of ten years, bringing back stories from the Aleutian Islands to French Polynesia, Gabon to Tasmania, and more.

He is the president of the One Ocean Media Foundation, chairman of the advisory board of Adventure Science, and creative affiliate of The Safina Center. Jon and his Oceans 8 Films team have focused on a series about the environmental risks to and hopes for the Hudson River Valley. A visiting lecturer at Bard College, he also has a weekly radio show/podcast, ‘The Green Radio Hour with Jon Bowermaster’ at radiokingston.org.

James Dawson (director, Derek vs. Derek) is a British filmmaker whose work for television has won BAFTA, Rose d’Or, and Grierson awards. His documentaries include Albion Boys, Organ Stops: Saving the King of Instruments, and Derek vs Derek, exploring community, heritage, and nature.

Evan Goodchild (director, The Painted Life of Gilbert Gillespie) is an award-winning documentary film director/editor and Webby-nominated and Shorty Impact award-winning audio producer. Goodchild’s documentaries have appeared on PBS, in film festivals, and in NYC gallery installations and art fairs. His recent trilogy of documentaries examines visual artists, from the socially conscious, life-affirming  Art for the People: AfriCOBRA and Nelson Stevens to his feature documentary debut with the mysterious and captivating The Painted Life of Gregory Gillespie (Audience award at Cannes International Film Week, Best Feature award at Doc.Boston and David Kleiler Cinephile award at Newburyport Documentary Film Festival), and his most recent production, Heading Home, which chronicles the Revolutionary War-era enslaved people of Marblehead, Massachusetts as brought to life by a portrait artist. This Mass Humanities-produced film was broadcast for America's 250th anniversary on GBH.

Lesley “Guzzy” Grashow (film participant, Jimmy & the Demons) is a featured participant in the documentary Jimmy & the Demons, and the wife of the late sculptor James Grashow.escription goes here

Beth Howard (director, Pieowa: A Piece of America) is an author, documentary filmmaker, and a pie maker. She also is known as “the pie lady” after living in the American Gothic House in Eldon, Iowa, where, from 2010 to 2014, she ran the Pitchfork Pie Stand. She is the author of four books:  World Piece, Making Piece, Ms. American Pie (cookbook), and Hausfrau Honeymoon. She has written for the New York Times, Real Simple, Country Living, and many other publications, has given a TEDx talk about the healing powers of pie, and is a regular commentator on Tri States Public Radio. Her story has been featured on CNN, CBS Mornings, BBC, NPR, and more. She is currently touring the U.S. with her award-winning documentary film, Pieowa: A Piece of America. She divides her time between an Iowa farm and Los Angeles.escription goes here

Peter Hutchison is an award-winning filmmaker, bestselling author, impact producer, and educator.  Director and producer of over a dozen feature-length documentaries, his work has focused primarily on social and economic justice. His films include Requiem for the American Dream (featuring Noam Chomsky), The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism (featuring George Monbiot), and Devil Put the Coal in the Ground.

A sought-after commentator on issues of economic justice, hate and masculinity, he has appeared on NBC, CBS, PBS, NPR and FOX.  An adjunct faculty member and advisor in the Doc Area at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts and a member of the Glimmerglass Film Days Steering Committee since 2025, he holds an MS in Counseling Psychology. His work in understanding the seeds of violent extremism have resulted in The Cure for Hate: Bearing Witness to Auschwitz (PBS) and Healing from Hate: Battle for the Soul of a Nation (Amazon Prime) – as well as an aligned nation-wide impact campaign.

Mélissa Lefebvre (director, Bubbles) Mélissa Lefebvre develops artistic, educational, and cinematic projects that place students at the heart of her creations. Her work, focused on diversity and inclusion, has gained recognition in Québec and internationally, notably with her award-winning film Bagages, shown at Glimmerglass Film Days in 2018. Bubbles marks her second documentary film. She is currently working on Vivantes (Alive), a feature-length documentary following nine women living with stage IV metastatic cancer.

Byron David Leon (editor, Soul Patrol) is a documentary and narrative film editor based in Brooklyn, New York. His most recent work includes director J.M. Harper’s documentary feature Soul Patrol, which was awarded the U.S. Directing Award at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Some notable past work includes Xander Robin's The Python Hunt (SXSW 2025); and Paula Andrea Gonzalez-Nasser's debut narrative film, The Scout (Tribeca Festival 2025).

John Lipscomb (film subject, The Keeper) recently retired as Hudson Riverkeeper’s boat captain. From 2000 to 2024, Lipscomb patrolled the Hudson, searching out and deterring polluters, monitoring tributaries and waterfront facilities, and supporting scientific studies. He also took decision makers and media out on the river so that, as he puts it, "the river has a chance to advocate for itself.” Running from March to December, Lipscomb’s patrols covered 4,000 miles annually, from the Upper Hudson and Mohawk River all the way to New York Harbor east to Throggs Neck and south to the Verrazano Narrows. They led to increased enforcement and improved compliance of environmental laws, as well as millions of dollars in fees, fines, and environmental benefit funding. Boat-centered initiatives also have helped establish and support core Riverkeeper campaigns including dam removal, habitat restoration, species protections, water quality monitoring, water infrastructure investment, spill preparedness and response, and limits on crude oil transport. Lipscomb’s first mate on the Riverkeeper, a yellow lab named Batu, will also be at Film Days.

Robb Moss (director, The Bend in the River) is Osgood Hooker Professor of Visual Arts at Harvard University, where he has taught for 40 years in the Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies. His films toggle between the topical and the personal. His films have premiered twice at both the Sundance and Telluride Film Festivals, exhibited at Lincoln Center and MoMA, were reviewed in the New York and Los Angeles Times, nominated for an Independent Spirit award, and shown theatrically in more than 70 Landmark Cinemas. He has been a creative advisor at the Sundance Institute’s Doc Edit Labs since their inception in 2004, worked as a festival juror at Sundance, San Francisco, Denver, Camden, Seattle, Chicago, New England, and Ann Arbor, elected to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and served eight years as a Board Director for ITVS.  

Andrew Earle Simpson (composer and pianist, The Last of the Mohicans), professor of music at The Catholic University of America, is an acclaimed composer of opera, silent film, orchestral, chamber, choral, dance, and vocal music. His works make multi-faceted connections with literature, visual art, and film. His concert and theatrical works have been performed at such venues as Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Library of Congress, Smithsonian Museums, and the Getty Museum, as well as in Europe, Australia, and the Americas.  He is also a professional company member of the Alliance for New Music-Theatre in Washington, DC. One of America’s foremost silent film accompanists, he has performed across the United States and abroad. He is Resident Film Accompanist at the National Gallery of Art and a resident accompanist at the Library of Congress’ Packard Campus Theatre.  He also conducts orchestral and chamber ensemble scores for silent film, both live to screen as well as recording. His concert and silent film music appears on Naxos, Albany, and other labels.

Jane Steuerwald (Selections from the Thomas Edison Film Festival) is the executive director of the Thomas Edison Media Arts Consortium-Thomas Edison Film Festival. She curates and presents film programs for colleges, universities, museums, cinemas, and arts venues across the country and abroad. Her films have been screened at MoMA; the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC; Anthology Film Archives; and festivals across the US. Steuerwald was a professor and chair of the Media Arts Department, NJ City University, for many years, where she taught media production, history, and aesthetics. She has worked with film and video as an art medium since 1980, creating installations, documentaries, found footage works, experimental films, and single edition art books. In 2012, she was a Women's History Month Honoree in New Jersey for empowering women through education.

Mark Street (director, River of Days, Selections from the Thomas Edison Film Festival), professor of film at Fordham University-Lincoln Center, graduated from Bard College and the San Francisco Art Institute. His work has appeared at Tribeca (five times), Sundance, Rotterdam, New York, London, San Francisco, New York Underground, South by Southwest, and other film festivals. His work ranges from the abstract to improvised narrative feature films. Some of his film work has been performed live with accompanying musicians, including Marc Ribot, Zeena Parkins, Bradford Reed, Guy Yarden and Jane Scarpantoni. His filmography can be found at www.markstreetfilms.com. His projects have been supported by the Jerome Foundation, the Film Arts Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Maryland State Arts Council and the NY Experimental TV Center, among others.

Paul Tom (director, Bubbles) For the last 15 years, Paul Tom has been drawing on the intimate to tell life stories with sensitivity. His films give space to those who are not always heard, creating dialogue and opening our arms to others. Born in a refugee camp in Thailand, his favorite themes to explore are the construction of identity, family relationships, and everything that touches on the fragile side of being human. His films Bubbles (2026), Seuls (2021), and Bagages (2017) have been selected for some 40 film festivals around the world, winning a dozen awards. He is also the author of the young adult graphic novel Seuls, published by La Courte Échelle.

Elizabeth Westrate (producer, Jimmy & the Demons) is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker with more than 25 years of production experience, leading complex international projects. Her work has been broadcast on PBS, HBO, Hulu, Amazon, NBC, CNN, Sundance Channel, Public Radio International, and at major film festivals and museums around the world. Westrate is the producer of Jimmy & The Demons for Cindy Meehl/Cedar Creek Productions, winner of multiple festival jury prizes; currently in theatrical release. Another recent project is The Endless Frontier for Consequential Films, which is playing at universities, scientific institutions, and the U.S. Capitol. She was recently a producer on Jamie Boyle’s feature documentary, Anonymous Sister, which was nominated for the Outstanding Social Issue Documentary Emmy and shortlisted for Best Feature Documentary by the International Documentary Association. Westrate was the director of the critically acclaimed documentary A Family Undertaking (PBS/POV), as well as The James Wolfensohn Tribute Project, Passing on the Gift, and many other films.  She also was series producer of I Contain Multitudes.