PETER FRIEDMAN is the founder of Strange Attractions, Inc. (www.strange-attractions.com), an independent film production company based in New York and Paris. Since 1984 he has directed and produced films which have received numerous awards, including the Sundance Grand Jury Prize, the LA Film Critics Award for Best Independent Film, a Peabody Award, the Prix Italia in Rome for Best Public TV Documentary Worldwide, and the Prix Europa in Berlin for Best Documentary Broadcast in Europe.

His work has been nominated for an Emmy and an Academy Award®. His films include The Life and Times of Life and Times (1998), There are No Direct Flights from New York to Marseilles (1998), Death by Design (1995; named "One of the 10 Best Films of 1995" by Film Comment Magazine), Silverlake Life (1993; named "One of the 10 Best Films of the Year" by the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and the Boston Globe, and "One of the Best Films of the Decade" by Utne Reader and the Village Voice), Fighting in Southwest Louisiana (1991), and I Talk to Animals (1991).

Friedman has served on the juries of the FIPA Film Festival in Biarritz, France, the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, and the Visions du Réel Film Festival in Nyon, Switzerland.

 

ROGER MANLEY's books, screenplays, photographs and curatorial endeavors have earned him a world-class reputation, particularly in the field of Outsider Art. His vast range of experience includes years spent documenting the lives of Australian Aboriginals, Carolina Sea Islanders, Palestinian villagers and Native Americans, exploring Greek caves and Arctic tundra, and curating the inaugural exhibitions of the new American Visionary Art Museum.

Manley has won fellowships from the Fondation d'Art de La Napoule, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and The National Endowment for the Arts, and film awards including the Andrew Carnegie Medal (1998, 1991), a C.I.N.E. Golden Eagle, and Best Feature Screenplay (Washington Film Festival).

Manley's still photos of indigenous peoples and outsider artists have been exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide, while his published works include Modernist Eye (2000), The End is Near! (1998; winner of the Benjamin Franklin Book Award; with Stephen Jay Gould and the Dalai Lama), Self-Made Worlds (1997), The Tree of Life (1996), Dear Mr. Ripley: Wonders of the Age from Ripley's Believe It Or Not! (1993), Plankhouse (1993), Hacia La Luz (1990), Home-Made (1990), Signs and Wonders (1989), and A Blessing from the Source (1988).