JAN SELBY
Director/Producer
Jan Selby is an award-winning Filmmaker whose work has been screened internationally in settings ranging from film festivals and art museums to university classrooms and on Public Television. BEYOND THE DIVIDE premiered at Montana’s Big Sky Documentary Film Festival and won Best Feature Documentary at the Peace on Earth Film Festival. After a year of traveling to festivals worldwide, BEYOND THE DIVIDE was broadcast on Twin Cities Public Television, which led to national distribution by American Public Television.
Jan’s previous film, A CIRCLE AND THREE LINES, won a regional Emmy, screened at numerous film festivals including the Woodstock Film Festival, and was featured in the Walker Art Center exhibit, The Reed Thing. Her second feature-length film, INSIDE MONTESSORI, co-directed and produced with Vina Kay, reimagines schools and learning through the lens of Montessori education. Jan is the founder of Quiet Island Films where she brings her documentary and storytelling experience to projects for corporate and non-profit clients.
ELGIN SMITH
Director of Photography
Elgin Smith is a Producer and Editor with credits in documentary, reality television, docudrama, and scripted entertainment. His work in recent years includes MOUNTAIN MEN and MOUNTAIN MEN ALASKA (History), THE CRAFTSMAN (Magnolia Network/Max), INTO THE WILD FRONTIER (INSP), THE TALL TALES OF JIM BRIDGER (INSP), AN AMERICAN STORY (Magnolia Network/Max), and FISH OR DIE (Animal Planet). Documentary credits include LAFAYETTE: THE LOST HERO (PBS/Arté), CONSTANTINE’S SWORD (theatrical release), SISTER ROSE’S PASSION (HBO/2004 Academy Award® Nominee), THE TOPDOG DIARIES (PBS), THE SHAKESPERE SESSIONS (PBS), and AMERICAN MASTERS (PBS). He lives in Missoula with his wife and BEYOND THE DIVIDE field producer, Sarah Frick Smith, two kids, and a very vocal cat.
BILL KERSEY
Editor
Bill Kersey has edited several feature documentaries in addition to BEYOND THE DIVIDE. Previously he edited the festival hit, THE STARFISH THROWERS, which garnered numerous awards and was named the most heartwarming film of 2014 by The Huffington Post, and he edited and scored the Emmy-winning AMERICAN HEART, which was nationally broadcast on PBS’s America Reframed in 2015.
He also edited and scored the award-winning THICKER THAN WATER, and edited the broadcast version of the PBS Independent Lens documentary PRECIOUS KNOWLEDGE. His other works as editor include the documentaries RITA OF THE SKY and BLACK, WHITE AND YELLOW. His own award-winning short films were screened internationally at numerous film festivals. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, and holds a BFA in Media Arts from the University of Arizona. He is currently at work as director and editor of a feature-length documentary on the life of Senator Eugene J. McCarthy entitled ALONE IN THE LAND OF THE AARDVARKS.
CHRISTOPHER KOZA
Original Music
Composer/Performer Chris Koza is an internationally-recognized Americana artist. Chris has toured the US extensively, sharing the stage with Gordon Lightfoot, Brandi Carlile, Ingrid Michaelson, Andrew Bird, Stephen Kellogg, and many others. His music appears regularly on ABC’s GENERAL HOSPITAL, 60 MINUTES, and GOOD MORNING AMERICA, and his song Be Wild was featured in a State of Minnesota tourism campaign. In 2021, Chris recorded a version of Willie Nelson’s classic On The Road Again, for a Winnebago campaign benefitting National Parks. His song (Rogue Valley) The Wolves and the Ravens was featured in Ben Stiller’s film THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY. Chris also created the soundtrack for the 2014 film Beyond The Divide, a Missoula, Montana-based documentary centered around conversations between peace activists and war veterans who are seeking Peace.
Chris embraces classic Americana with a contemporary feel and utilizes a wide range of textures in creating music rooted in folk, pop, and storytelling. Subtle synthesizers, rich harmonies, and pop-music sensibilities interweave with acoustic and electric guitars, earthy pianos, and familiar rhythms. For every song that sounds like it could be strummed from a boxcar clacking slowly across a grassy midwestern plain, there’s a tune sailing from a city rooftop, echoing across a valley of streets and traffic, or a melody twisting and shimmering like a dim frequency deep into the starry night.
Solo, with Rogue Valley, and his moniker Nobody Kid, Chris has self-produced, written, and released sixteen albums and EPs. In 2023, Rogue Valley will release their 6th album Shell Game. In the background, Chris continues to build out his studio and is currently working on a compilation of B-sides and rediscovered sessions called Graveyard Shift representing lost songs and enduring sparks spanning the last twenty years.