My Friend Sam

Daniel Ryan is a commercial and music video director. He loves storytelling and crafting striking images to create content that stands the test of time. Recent projects include campaigns for major brands and institutions including IBM, Dyson, Meta, BT, and Warby Parker. He has created documentary shorts and social content for musical acts such as Interpol, The Strokes, and his friends, Regina Spektor and Jack Dishel, with whom he has been working with for over a decade, capturing documentary footage and music videos.

Sarah Anthony recently partnered with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck to produce Kiss The Future, highlighting the underground art and music scene during the siege of Sarajevo. She was the Story Producer of the Disney series Light and Magic for Lawrence Kasdan with Imagine and Lucas films, and the Netflix series Heist, and Producer on the Netflix documentary Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator. She produced the Grammy-winning series, The Defiant Ones, and Emmy-nominated The Price of Free, a documentary about child slavery which won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize. She was Consulting Producer for Making a Murderer Season 2. Sarah began her career in London, on subjects ranging from the Iraq war to the Ming Voyages of the 1400’s. She was an Associate Producer for PBS Frontline on The Age of AIDS. As Co-head of Documentary Features for Exclusive Media she supervised the development and production of Martin Scorsese’s George Harrison: Living in the Material World, Billy Joel’s Last Play at Shea, and the Academy Award-winning Undefeated. Sarah has worked extensively with Davis Guggenheim and the Emerson Collective on social justice issues from immigration reform to re-designing the American high school system. She is passionate about using media to inspire social change.

Judd Apatow is one of the most sought-after comedic minds in the industry—having directed, produced, and written many of the biggest comedy films and hit TV shows of the last two decades. In recent years, Apatow has forged a path in nonfiction, most recently co-directing the two-part HBO documentary George Carlin’s American Dream, which received the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special and was nominated for a Peabody and four additional Emmys. Apatow’s The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling also won the Emmy for Outstanding Nonfiction Special, and garnered two additional nominations. Other documentary projects include the SXSW-winning May It Last: A Portrait of the Avett Brothers and the Emmy-Nominated ESPN 30 for 30 film Doc & Darryl. Previous director credits include The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Funny People, This Is 40, Trainwreck, and The King of Staten Island. He produced the Academy Award-nominated The Big Sick and Bridesmaids, as well as Superbad, Pineapple Express, Anchorman, Step Brothers, Talladega Nights, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and Poster. For television, he executive produced Crashing (HBO), Girls, Freaks and Geeks, and Undeclared, and co-created The Ben Stiller Show, and Love (Netflix).

Jack Dishel is a musician, actor, writer, director, and producer. He is the creator and star of the DRYVRS comedy web series, the singer-songwriter behind “Only Son”, and was previously the lead guitarist for The Moldy Peaches. Born Yevgeny Leonidovich Dishel in the former Soviet Union, Jack and his family emigrated to the United States in 1979 under refugee status. He received a BA in Literature from SUNY Purchase College, where he met his wife, Regina Spektor.

Regina Spektor began studying classical piano in Moscow at the age of six. Her family emigrated to the US under refugee status in 1989, landing in the Bronx. Spektor continued her classical piano studies with Sonia Vargas and Samuel Marder. After graduating from the Music Conservatory at SUNY Purchase, she signed to Sire Records. Spektor’s commercial breakthrough came in 2006 with her gold-certified LP “Begin to Hope”. She has released six critically acclaimed studio albums, toured globally, appeared on Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton Mixtape, and earned a Grammy nomination for the theme to Netflix’s hit show Orange Is The New Black. Her songs have been used in a variety of shows and films including Weeds, Grey’s Anatomy, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, and Bombshell. Spektor performed at the Obama White House in honor of Jewish American Heritage Month and got her own Sign on the Bronx Walk of Fame, as well as “Regina Spektor Day,” proclaimed by Mayor Bill DeBlasio. She had the pleasure of performing her songs with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center as well as at Carnegie Hall where both Sonia Vargas and Sam Marder had played.