Raise the Roof is a production of Trillium Studios
John Rubin, Executive Producer
Cary Wolinsky, Producer
Yari Wolinsky, Director and Editor
Written by Yari Wolinsky and Cary Wolinsky
Barbara Wolinsky, Production Designer
Wiktoria Michałkiewicz, Associate Producer
Rian Brown, Associate Producer
Consultants:
Rick & Laura Brown, Handshouse Studio
Thomas Hubka, Historian and author of Resplendent Synagogue
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Program Director, Core Exhibition, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews and author of They Called Me Mayer July: Painted Memories of a Jewish Childhood in Poland Before the Holocaust
Maria Piechotka, Architectural Historian and author of Heaven’s Gates, Wooden Synagogues in the Territories of the Former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Antony Polonsky, Albert Abramson Professor of Holocaust Studies, Brandeis University and author of The Jews in Poland and Russia
John Rubin www.johnrubin.com
Writer-producer-director John Rubin turned to documentaries after completing his Ph.D. at MIT in cognitive science. Winner of a Peabody Award and three Emmys, Rubin is President of John Rubin Productions, Inc. in Cambridge, MA, USA. Rubin has made films for the PBS series Nature, American Experience, and Nova and National Geographic Explorer. Rubin is currently an Executive Producer for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Cary Wolinsky www.trilliumstudios.com
Cary Wolinsky began working as a photojournalist for the Boston Globe in 1968 while completing a degree in journalism at Boston University's School of Communications. Wolinsky is known for his international, historical, scientific and cultural photographic essays published regularly in National Geographic magazine since 1977. His numerous stories include: Sichuan: Where China Changes Course, Inside the Kremlin, Australia A Harsh Awakening, New Eyes on the Oceans, Diamonds - The Real Story, and The Down Side of Being Upright. Wolinsky's articles and photographs have been printed in publications throughout the world. In 2006, he began collaborating with his son, Yari Wolinsky, to produce documentary films.
Yari Wolinsky www.trilliumstudios.com
After graduating from Bard College in 2004, Yari Wolinsky worked for John Rubin Productions, Inc. on three one-hour, PBS documentary films: Raptor Force, The Living Weapon, and Ape Genius. He has worked as director and editor on narrative and documentary films for educational, editorial, nonprofit, and commercial clients that include Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston University, National Geographic, PBS, AARP, Issey Miyake, Helping Hands Monkey Helpers, Life is Good, and Marriott Hotels. Wolinsky began documenting the Browns efforts to rebuild a Polish wooden synagogue in 2007.
Barbara Emmel Wolinsky www.barbaraemmelwolinsky.com
Barbara Emmel Wolinsky began her formal training at Parsons School of Design and Harvard’s Carpenter Center. Early in her career, she worked as an art director in New York City and for the Real Paper, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she launched her first design firm, Brook Five. Beginning in 1978, her design work took on a global perspective when she began traveling the world with her husband, Cary Wolinsky, a National Geographic Magazine photographer. In 1981, she founded Trillium Studios.
Wiktoria Michałkiewicz
During and after the studies (Joint MA degree in social and cultural anthropology at 6 european universities, cultural studies (MA) and Swedish linguistics (BA) at the Jagiellonian University) Wiktoria Michałkiewicz worked as a project manager in Poland and internationally, including organization of film festivals, photographic festivals, conferences and research expeditions. As a freelance journalist and translator she has worked for National Geographic Traveler Poland, Foto magazine, and published in National Geographic Poland, Focus, Harper's Bazaar and monthly travel magazine Podróże, and was editor in-chief for scientific quarterly focused on Scandinavian culture. She has experience in production and development of feature and documentary films in Spain (Pontas Literary & Film Agency, Minimal Films), Sweden (Folke Rydén Production), and Poland (Arkana Studio). Wiktoria also worked with organization of major photographic events in Europe (Nordic Light Festival, Stockholm Photography Week) and with production of long-term photographic projects (Sputnik Photos, National Geographic).
Rian Brown
Rian Brown is an independent filmmaker, artist and professor of Cinema Studies at Oberlin College where she teaches film and video production. Her short films, Into the Scrum, Presence of Water and The Settler and Death of the Moth have shown at numerous film festivals and museums including the L.A. Hammer Museum of Art, Cleveland Cinematheque, Wexner Art Center, Anchorage Museum, New York Shorts Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Women in the Director’s Chair and many others. Her most recent piece, Blue Desert-Towards Antarctica is a three-channel video installation shot on a three-week expedition to Antarctica which premiered at Laconia Gallery in Boston. She has received numerous awards including an Ohio Arts Individual Excellence award, Ford Foundation and Andrew W. Mellon grant. Brown’s work comes out of a background in painting and cinematography and incorporates a wide range of mediums and forms from 16mm film to High Definition as well as hand-painted stop motion animation and sound design. In 2017 she completed The Foreigner's Home, a feature documentary film based on conversations with Nobel Laureate author, ToniMorrison.
