This website represents the collaborative works that we’ve produced and distributed over the course of more than forty years, ranging from journeys of discovery about lives lived in Indigenous communities, to the birth of environmental movements in different parts of the world, to art films and classroom materials for teachers and students.  Many of these films’ messages are still resonant today, decades after their release.

Both of us come from families which are politically engaged – there are even photos of each us as children at peace rallies holding “Ban the Bomb” posters. Over time we’ve found that our arts and environmental backgrounds have informed our approach to finding engaging and respectful ways to bring stories to life in the hopes of our audiences having an “aha” moment or thinking more deeply about a topic.

Sququqwel’ (squh kwuh’-kwel) To tell many stories. In the Lil’wat language on the west coast of Canada spoken by our friend and collaborator Lorna Wánosts’a7 Williams, this word refers to  the sharing of stories which transmit knowledge about change, and help to construct and reconstruct histories. Documentaries, a story-telling medium, can embrace and contribute to the sharing of these stories.

One of the joys of filmmaking is listening to stories: from the San in South Africa to the Saami and Iñupiat in the Arctic and the Naxi in China, the generosity of the storytellers we have met along the way has been crucial to our effort to make films that bring diverse Indigenous voices and perspectives into living rooms and classrooms, globally. In this we’ve been fortunate to meet and collaborate with Indigenous elders and new generations of environmental activists.

We have also worked in series television  –  Gary directing several films   for Champions of the Wild and Ancient Clues (Omni Films) and Betsy with many seasons of Champions of the Wild, Beyond Science and Healing with Animals.

Betsy’s 35+ years of producing the films of Nettie Wild and anthropologist Hugh Brody and executive producing feature documentaries with filmmaker Mark Achbar has been a wonderful education.  Learning how to find S16mm camera parts in Tanzania at 4 in the morning, sending 300 DVDs to Rwanda packed in equipment cases or finding your crew stuck at the Russian border in Murmansk for days on end has certainly added to our sense that fluidity and curiosity and a good sense of humour are essential for this kind of filmmaking. But the one consistent part of our careers has been our curiosity and our desire to always keep learning and sharing stories.

In addition to our own Face to Face Media productions, on this site you’ll also find some works for sale that belong to friends and colleagues whose work was produced by their own companies, films from directors Hugh Brody and Judy Jackson. Please look at their websites too.

www.hughbrody.com
www.judyfilms.com

We hope you enjoy looking through this site, and look forward to any questions or thoughts you might have.