The Team

Mark W. Travis & Elsha Taya Travis

Anna Ditges

Cologne, Germany

Diego Silva Acevedo

Atlanta, Georgia

is a passionate filmmaker born in Colombia who has been honored with five EMMY Awards, including one in the category of Outstanding Director Short Form. He has traveled the world to develop additional expertise in content creation for digital channels, tv commercials, as well as big-screen movies.

During his years in Spain, he studied 3D Animation and 3D modeling. After graduation, he worked at Silsa 3D Studios where he led the audiovisual production and post-production efforts for advertisements, shorts, and feature films.

Diego Silva Acevedo moved to the United States in 2016 and has done works in advertisement, music videos, short film, and PSA with different brands, including Cox Media Group, Toyota, NFL, NASCAR, and Mundo Hispánico digital network.

In 2018 he directed GUNS, a short film about gun awareness which became their official selection. It was shown 15 times at film festivals worldwide and garnered 7 major awards. HUNTING SOULS is his debut project for 2021, a horror-thriller film.

Marty Pasetta, Jr.

Lewis Webster

Milton Keynes, UK

Director, Editor and Producer, Little Orchard Media Ltd. The buyer of burning RV’s. Downhill faller. Boat sinker.

The thing that I love about the filmmaking process is the fact you have to leap before you know where it is you are going to land. You have to trust and collaborate with the people around you – help them see where you are aiming for and let them make positive choices that will help you get there … but be willing to change that landing spot if you need to. Just try and avoid too many albatrosses on the way down… they’re endangered. Happy jumping.

Rob Sarkies

Auckland, New Zealand

Born in Dunedin, Rob Sarkies is an acclaimed New Zealand filmmaker, scriptwriter and director. Sarkies is well known among the NZ film industry and is best known for his hard-hitting crime drama Out Of The Blue (2006) about the 1990 Aramoana shootings of which he was born not too far away from.

Rob made his feature debut with black comedy Scarfies that premiered at Sundance and became an instant cult hit in New Zealand.  His follow-up was  Out of the Blue, an acclaimed dramatisation of the Aramoana massacre that premiered in Toronto where it was picked up by the Weinstein Company. His third feature was buddy-comedy Two Little Boys starring Bret McKenzie and Hamish Blake, premiering at the Berlinale in 2012.

Rob’s features have all performed at the NZ box office, won numerous NZ Film awards (including ‘Best Film’ twice) and sold widely internationally. His short films (Dreammakers, Signing Off) also played and sold widely, winning awards at festivals around the world.  

Rob’s feature length television projects include Consent – an acclaimed drama based on the Louise Nicholas story that won ‘best television feature’ at the 2014 Moa Awards and Jean, about vintage aviator Jean Batten that took 9 silver and gold awards at the New York Festivals International Television and Film awards. Jean also took out 8 of 10 awards for Television Drama at the 2017 NZ Television Awards including Best Director and Best Drama.

Rob was set-up director for episodes 1-3 of Matchbox/NBC Universal production Wanted shooting in NZ and Thailand. Wanted  was nominated for an International Emmy and sold to Netflix, Amazon Prime and Sundance Selects.

Rob was also a director on the acclaimed first and second season of German-NZ  series The Gulf. This series has sold worldwide, including being picked up by Amazon Prime.

Rob is currently in development on a number of high-end feature and television projects including Demolition of the Century, Pike River, and The Ark.

Carl Drake

Auckland, New Zealand

Born in the UK and living in Auckland, NZ since age 18, Carl is an actor, director, producer and acting coach who has worked on over 30 productions in TV, film & theatre. Highlights include appearing in the wildly successful Pop-up Globe, performing to an audience of over 100,000 in 2016, and playing Henry in ‘The Great Maiden’s Blush’ (Winner of Best Independent Feature at the 2016 NZ Film Awards). Carl has directed numerous plays which have received a clutch of awards. In 2018, he formed Café Theatre which won 3 awards in the Short+Sweet Festival, including Judges Choice Award.

Carl has had masterclass training in the Meisner Technique and Mark Travis Technique, along with other approaches which he uses in his own teaching, including Jeremiah Comey, Ivana Chubbuck, Mathew Harrison, Uta Hagen, combined with the psychological and neurological principles of NLP, Meaningful Learning, Body Language, Carl Jung & Dr Jill Bolt Taylor, and many more. He is now undergoing certification training on the Mark Travis Technique.

Codrut Miron

Vasco Viana

Prague, Czech Republic