Sareen Hairabedian is an Armenian-Jordanian filmmaker currently living in Washington DC. She grew up in a home filled with film, dance and music, which enriched her cultural experience that later shaped her voice as a creator of human-driven documentaries. Her eagerness to tell socially conscious stories led to the foundation of HAI Creative, a media production company that collaborates with organizations such as UN Women, USAID, USIP and others to help bring stories of the unheard and underrepresented to screen. Sareen is currently developing her next documentary in her native homeland, tackling issues of identity, resilience and connection to land. 'We Are Not Done Yet' is her directorial debut.

“Working with these veterans and active service members has been one the great privileges of my life. They are a truly inspirational group of women, men, warriors, artists. To have witnessed parts of their journeys has been, in the best way, stunning.”

Tony, Emmy, AFI and Golden Globe Award-winning actor Jeffrey Wright has enjoyed an illustrious career that has spanned the worlds of theatre, film and television. Wright can currently been seen playing the critically acclaimed role of “Bernard Lowe” in HBO’s WESTWORLD, for which he has earned two Emmy nominations. His upcoming projects include, lead roles in Netflix’s HOLD THE DARK and the upcoming O.G. that premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival, for which he won the award for _“Best Actor in a U.S. Narrative Feature Film”. _Wright broke onto the big screen in 1996 with a harrowing performance in the feature BASQUIAT portraying the gifted, late painter Jean Michele Basquiat. Since then he’s appeared in productions such as SYRIANA, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, THE HUNGER GAMES SERIES, HBO’s BOARDWALK EMPIRE and CASINO ROYALE.

Born in Washington, D.C., Wright graduated from Amherst College and received a B.A. in political science. He later earned a doctorate of humane letters from his alma mater. He resides in Brooklyn, New York, with his family.

David Holbrooke is a filmmaker and cultural entrepreneur, as well as the founder and ringleader of Original Thinkers. In his previous role as the director of Telluride Mountainfilm he inspired and entertained thousands of people every year with his innovative programming and watched nearly three thousand documentaries over the course of a decade. He also directed The Diplomat, a film about his father, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. In this new venture, he seeks to illuminate the role that storytelling plays in a changing society. Holbrooke lives in Telluride, Colorado with his wife Sarah, three kids, two dogs and bunch of chickens (one less after an unfortunate encounter with a hungry bear.)

Patti Bonnet is a documentary producer whose work focuses on social and environmental justice and cultural awareness. She was line producer on the award-winning documentary feature Racing Extinction, served as post-production consultant on the documentary Chasing Coral and co-directed the documentary short Come Back to Sudan. She served as a cultural delegate for the US State Department’s 2010 American Documentary Showcase in Rwanda. She has also worked for National Geographic, PBS’s MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour, and the ABC News program This Week with David Brinkley. She has a BS in Journalism from the University of Colorado, and a MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

Abhay Sofsky is a filmmaker who was born in Brooklyn and raised in West Virginia. He produces, directs, and edits with his brother Halavah (HalavahAndAbhay.com). Abhay was Editor and Associate Producer of the 2012 SXSW Grand Jury Prize winning documentary Beware of Mr. Baker, for which he received the IFF Boston Karen Schmeer Award for Excellence in Documentary Editing. He also edited Shadowman (2017 Tribeca Film Festival), Before The Flood (2016 Toronto Film Festival), John Leguizamo’s HBO special Ghetto Klown, and a number of music videos for Vampire Weekend.

Wytold, a six-string electric cellist and composer from the Washington, DC area, worked collaboratively with Seema Reza, Jeffrey Wright, and Veterans to facilitate the creation of “We Are Not Done Yet”.  In addition, he composed the musical score for the film and has served as a board member of Community Building Art Works (CBAW) since its founding.  Wytold is also a regular performer and facilitator of music workshops for Veterans and Active Duty Service Members at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and Fort Belvoir. 

Wytold began working with the Veteran community through Music & Words, a biannual one-week workshop in which participants write, record and perform original spoken word poetry and songs with accompaniment by Wytold and GRAMMY-nominated progressive hip-hop artist, Christylez Bacon in collaboration with poets Seema Reza and Mahogany L. Browne.  Veterans featured in “We Are Not Done Yet” have created songs, poems and visual art, as well as deep friendship and bonds, through CBAW workshops like these.  After several years of leading Music & Words workshops and giving weekly hospital performances, Wytold joined this team of dedicated artists working daily with Service Members and Veterans to build community and share their stories and messages through art, music and poetry.  Today, Wytold continues to teach Service members to play instruments, write songs, and hear music more deeply and fully as they reconnect with their lives outside the military.

As a recording and performing artist, Wytold plays an electric cello with two extra strings allowing him to capture the depth and power of a stand-up bass, the rich tonal timbre of the acoustic cello, and the bright crispness of violin solos and harmonies.  He records his live playing on stage using a loop pedal to create his own rock-orchestral compositions.  Wytold’s original music celebrates classical technique hand-in-hand with modern grooves, improv, and rhythms of pop, rock, jazz, and world styles. Using electronic edge alongside acoustic harmonies and double-stop grit, Wytold’s electrified-chamber sound energizes rock clubs as much as it inspires reflective audiences in the concert hall.  His music has been performed by the National Symphony Orchestra and featured in the Sundance award-winning and EMMY-nominated film, “Blood Brother”, among many other theater, film and dance productions.   In 2018, he received the County Executive Award from Montgomery County for Excellence in Arts Education, and is a former Artist in Residence of the Strathmore Performing Arts Center and recipient of a number of grant awards from the state of Maryland, Montgomery County, and the District of Columbia.   For more information visit Wytold.com

Seema Reza is a poet and essayist and the author of the memoir When the World Breaks Open and the poetry collection A Constellation of Half-Lives. Based outside of Washington DC, she is the Chair and co-founder of Community Building Art Works, a unique arts organization that encourages the use of the arts as a tool for narration, self-care and socialization among a military population struggling with emotional and physical injuries. In 2015 she was awarded the Col John Gioia Patriot Award by the USO of Metropolitan Washington-Baltimore for her work with service members. An alumnus of Goddard College and VONA, her writing has appeared on-line and in print in Bellevue Literary Review, The LA Review, The Feminist Wire, The Offing, and Entropy among others.