About – The Ants and The Grasshopper

Filmmaker Biographies

Raj Patel, Co-director / Producer

Raj Patel co-director and producer — Raj Patel is a James Beard Award winning activist and New York Times bestselling writer. He has testified about food and hunger to the US, UK and EU governments, and his book on the food system, Stuffed and Starved, has been translated into a dozen languages. He worked for the World Bank and WTO and was tear-gassed on four continents protesting against them. His academic career spans Oxford, the London School of Economics, Cornell University, the University of California at Berkeley where he taught with Michael Pollan. He is currently a research professor at Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin.

Zak Piper, Co-director / Producer

Zak Piper is an Emmy-winning and Producers Guild Award-winning documentary filmmaker most known for producing the critically acclaimed film Life Itself, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and later won a Critics Choice Award. Zak also co-produced the acclaimed film The Interrupters, which was hailed as one of the year’s best films by The New Yorker, Chicago Tribune, Entertainment Weekly, and LA Times. Prior to these films, Zak co-produced At the Death House Door, which premiered at the SXSW Film Festival and was shortlisted for the Academy Awards. Zak is currently producing or directing a number of documentary projects in development or production.

Anita Chitaya, Narrator

Rachel Wexler, Producer

Rachel Wexler set up Bungalow Town in 2004 with Jez Lewis, to make highly individual and compelling documentaries for worldwide audiences. Bungalow Town films document an incredible array of stories, subjects and characters. From the story of the Afghan cricket team in Out of the Ashes, a brain surgeon’s work in the Ukraine in The English Surgeon, to a devastating train crash in Japan in Brakeless. Bungalow Town work with broadcasters, foundations and distributors throughout the world. Their films have screened at many A list festivals including: Sheffield DocFest, Sundance, London, SXSW, IDFA and have been awarded dozens of awards, including a Grierson, an Emmy and two Peabodys.

Peter Mazunda, Producer / Cinematographer

Peter Mazunda is the Managing Director for Xtra Solutions Communications Group. Peter was trained in Television Engineering, Television Production, Television Journalism and Computer Engineering. He attained his studies in Namibia; Namibia Broadcasting Cooperation, the Training Institute of African Media Communicators Egypt, Thompson Foundation and Deutsche Welle Television Training Centre in Germany. Peter also serves as Advisor to Special Olympics Malawi Board, and was recently assistant to Chiwetel Ejiofor on The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.

Julie Goldman, Executive Producer

Gordon Quinn, Executive Producer

Gordon Quinn founded Kartemquin Films in 1966 and has been a leading voice in documentary filmmaking for decades. In 2015, the International Documentary Association honored him with a Career Achievement Award. His recent films as executive producer include The Interrupters (2011), The Trials of Muhammad Ali (2013), Life Itself (2014), The Homestretch (2014), On Beauty (2014), Almost There (2014), Saving Mes Aynak (2014), In The Game (2015), and the six-part series Hard Earned (2015). Gordon is a supporter of public and community media, and has served on the boards of several organizations including The Illinois Humanities Council, Chicago Access Network Television, and The Public Square Advisory Committee, The Illinois Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Cynthia Kane, Executive Producer

Steve James, Executive Producer

Steve James previous work includes Hoop Dreams; Sundance and IDFA awards winner, Stevie; IDA-winning miniseries The New Americans; The Interrupters, which won an Emmy, Independent Spirit Award, and the DuPont Columbia Journalism Award; Emmy winner, Life Itself, named best documentary by The National Board of Review, and The Producers Guild of America among many others; and Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, which has earned James a fourth DGA nomination, was one of the National Board of Review’s “Top 5 documentaries of the year,” won the “Best Political Documentary” by The Critics Choice Awards, and was nominated for an Academy Award.

About The Film