Manny Mendoza and Mark Birnbaum

Manny Mendoza

Dallas freelance journalist Manny Mendoza has been a newspaperman since 1979 when he became one of the last copy boys in America. From 1992 to 2006, he was an arts and culture critic at The Dallas Morning News and in 1997 won a National Arts Journalism Program fellowship to Columbia University, where he studied art, literature and film. Mendoza has been staff writer at The Miami News, Bergen Record and Milwaukee Journal. 'Stop the Presses: The American Newspaper in Peril," which he produced and directed, is his first film.

Mark Birnbaum

From Nicaragua in the 1980s to Tom DeLay in 2006, Mark Birnbaum’s documentary films have probed, celebrated and exposed people to places and personalities from all over the globe. In "Larry v. Lockney," he tells “a riveting story of good people — on both sides — trying to do the right thing for their children and their town” (Houston Chronicle). "The Big Buy," about Tom DeLay’s rise and fall, “presents its evidence clearly and with a welcome sense of humor” (New York Times) and is “more feisty and fun than a drunken barbecue in Beaumont” (Tallahassee Democrat). His films have chronicled the Second Vatican Council, women trash recyclers in Ecuador, American high school kids in China, medical science, sailboat racing and salsa dancing. Birnbaum is a winner of the George Foster Peabody broadcasting award and took home gold medals from film festivals in Chicago, Houston and Charleston.