JULIE ANNE MEERSCHWAM — PRODUCER / MARKETING DIRECTOR
Born and raised in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, JULIE ANNE MEERSCHWAM moved to the United States when she was 18 years old. As a Philosophy and French major at Boston University, she found herself much more interested in taking screenwriting classes and watching movies. And so after a brief stint working as a Mental Health Specialist on a psychiatric ward for children, she headed off to Columbia University’s Graduate Film Program. There she wrote and directed Audrey & Einstein, which was the first directing exercise in Columbia University’s history to be nominated for a Student Academy Award, and went on to win Best Director and Best Student Short at the Bend Film Festival. Her thesis film Celamy completed its festival run with over 25 awards—including another nomination for the Student Academy Awards and the top prize at the Angelus Awards—having screened at over 60 festivals worldwide. Upon graduation, Julie was assistant to noted film and theater writer/directors Kenneth Lonergan, Scott Ellis and Adam Brooks. In 2005 she became a partner of Kulture Machine—a feature film production company which, in association with Senator Films, produced Fireflies In The Garden, starring Julia Roberts, Ryan Reynolds, Willem Dafoe, and Emily Watson. It was as a Content Producer for FirstWivesWorld.com, however, that she began to see the future of online media and became excited by all its nascent possibilities. Now at Stork Films, she brings her experience as an artist, organizer, digital video producer, and above all else, as a mother, to her clients.
JOE TURNER LIN — PRODUCER / HEAD OF POST-PRODUCTIONAfter graduating with honors from Columbia University as an undergraduate screenwriting concentrate, JOE TURNER LIN worked on over fifty feature-length and short films, television, commercial and music-video productions including: Whatever, Joe’s Apartment, Jeffrey, Dogs, HBO: Real Sex, The Rosie O’Donnell Show, and National Geographic Explorer. He returned for his masters degree at Columbia University’s M.F.A. Film Program, where he received the Arthur Krim Award, HBO’s Young Producer’s Development Award and Columbia University’s Best Producer for the Student Academy Award-winning short, Jesus Henry Christ. As a director, his short thesis film, Seibutsu, was a national-finalist for the Student Academy Awards, won the Grand Prize at both the San Diego Asian International Film Festival and Chinese-American Festival of Film and Culture, and played in festivals all around the world. While in film school Joe co-founded a production company with two of his classmates called Kulture Machine—named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Indie Film” in 2004—and which, in association with Senator Films, produced Fireflies In The Garden, an independent film starring Julia Roberts, Ryan Reynolds, Willem Dafoe, and Emily Watson. More recently, Joe has directed and edited several corporate documentaries, viral videos and image campaigns. For three years, he worked as the VP of Digital Development and Production for a start-up social network. Currently, Joe has launched Stork Films with his wife, Julie, and best friend, Caryn, and continues to pursue projects that intrigue and fulfill him creatively.
CARYN WAECHTER — PRODUCER / DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHYHaving earned honors at Columbia University’s Graduate Film Program, CARYN WAECHTER gets her inspiration from dance and music, as experienced in her super 8 short film BEAT (2001). Her 16mm short God is Good (2004), written by Dennis Lee, was awarded the New Line Cinema Award for Best Director (Columbia University Film Festival), Kodak Film Grant, Special Jury Prize (USA Film Festival), and was a Narrative Short Finalist (IFP Market). Caryn is set to direct her first feature film written by Marilyn Fu, The Sisterhood of Night—a modernized take on the Salem Witch Trials for a teen audience. In 2007, the screenplay won the Tribeca Film Festival’s Creative Promise Award; the exposure and meetings through Tribeca All Access eventually led to working with acclaimed producer Lydia Dean Pilcher (The Darjeeling Limited, Amelia, Vanity Fair). Production is slated to begin Fall 2011. Most recently, Caryn’s work has been selected as one of the top 15 contributors out of 80,000 submissions for the Ridley Scott / Kevin Macdonald Life in a Day project which premiered at Sundance ’11. The feature film opened theatrically on July 24th, 2011. Since graduating film school, Caryn has been a freelance editor, shooter and photographer, and is a founding partner of Stork Films.