PRODUCER/WRITER/DIRECTOR
Nora Jacobson

Nora Jacobson is an independent filmmaker who makes documentaries and scripted films. After her first film, the documentary Delivered Vacant (New York Film Festival, Sundance), she went on to make three award winning narrative films: My Mothers Early Lovers, Nothing Like Dreaming and the featurette, The Hanji Box. Jacobson is developing a two-part film series A Peculiar Freedom: Portraits of Black New England, which was recently awarded a prestigious development grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. She is also developing two new feature films, including Woman of Another World, about Helena Blavatsky, and Kiwakw, or Winter’s Witch about a woman on the New England frontier during the French and Indian Wars.

Recently, Jacobson’s mixed-media documentary Ruth Stone’s Vast Library of the Female Mind was featured at the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival, Santa Fe International Film Festival, and many others. The film is distributed by Icarus Films and was broadcast nationally on American Public Television.

Jacobson is the recipient of many other grants and awards, including a Guggenheim, the Sustained Excellence in Independent Filmmaking award from the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival, the Herb Lockwood Award for Excellence in the Arts, a LEF Moving Image Grant, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Vermont Arts Council. She is devoted to telling stories of women, social justice and place, and believes that filmmaking promotes societal change by provoking meaningful discourse.

For more information, visit offthegridproductions.com

ANIMATOR
GRIER DILL

Grier Dill is an animator and visual effects supervisor working in NYC for almost twenty years. He most recently finished working on Godfrey Reggio's latest film "Once Within a Time" executive produced by Steven Soderbergh. To see the trailer and Grier’s work on it, go to https://grierdill.com/Once-Within-a-Time

Grier has also worked in television developing the art direction and animation style of shows for Comedy Central, TruTV and In Real Life. He’s also written and directed multiple short films and animations that have screened at festivals across the country including SXSW, Slamdance, Fantastic Fest, Marfa, and Sidewalk Film Festival.

Grier is our lead animator on the project. For more information, visit: grierdill.com

Greg Guma

Greg has been a writer, editor, historian, and progressive manager for half a century, working throughout the US. His tenure as CEO of Pacifica Radio highlights an eclectic career in media and politics that began in the 1960s. After working as a daily newspaper reporter, he edited Vermont’s leading alternative weekly, worked with Bernie Sanders, and wrote The People's Republic: Vermont and the Sanders Revolution (1989), acclaimed as the best book on Bernie’s pre-Congress career. His first novel, Spirits of Desire (2005), focused on the meeting of Blavatsky and Olcott in Vermont. Nora adapted this book for our film, Woman of Another World.

Greg’s other books are available for purchase here.

JOSEPH CITRO

Beloved ghost story writer and folklorist who has spent countless hours and days researching the ghost stories of Vermont and elsewhere, and in particular the story of the Eddys.  He is often called the "Bard of the Bizarre" or "the Ghost-Master General". He has documented New England's local legends, hauntings, and mysteries.

All of Joe Citro's books can be found at amazon.com, including "Ghosts, Ghouls and Unsolved Mysteries," "Passing Strange," "Shadow Child," and his newest: "False Memories," a memoir charts all the strange occurrences around his books and life.

ALLAN NICHOLLS

Our PRODUCTION CONSULTANT Allan Nicholls is a versatile film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and composer. He starred in several Broadway and Los Angeles stage productions, most notably playing the lead roles of Claude and Berger in Hair and King Herod in Jesus Christ Superstar. Nicholls was Robert Altman's principal collaborator for many years on such films as Nashville (1975), Buffalo Bill and the Indians (1976), and Popeye (1980). He received BAFTA and WGA nominations for his writing on Altman's film A Wedding (1978). He directed the cult classic "Dead Ringer" about the performer know as Meatloaf, a film about Leonard Cohen, and his latest, "La Vie en Rose."

Jason Smiley

Jason, story consultant, was born and raised in Vermont. He currently works as a creative producer and copywriter. In his spare time, he has been researching the story of Vermont’s Eddy family of spirit mediums for over a decade. Jason plans to publish his research in a trilogy of books that span the entire history of the family, including many aspects never published before. The book series will also explore the connections with other spiritualists in Vermont, New England, and beyond. Jason has also participated in several Vermont-based independent feature and short films. For more information, visit: jasonsmiley.com

Harry Lee Grey

Harry is a theosophist, screenwriter, actor and retired nurse. He introduced Nora to theosophy and lent her essential books about Helena Blavatsky that made her fall in love with the eccentric, trail-blazing and fascinating Helena.