With 20 years of experience, award-winning producer, Frederico Lapenda, has built a global career in all areas of the entertainment industry. As a filmmaker, he has produced over 20 films, and his documentary, Kidnapping, competed for Oscar nomination. Lapenda was the founding partner of Mandalay Lone Runner, independent division of Mandalay, a company chaired by Peter Guber, former CEO of Sony Pictures. Mandalay produced Seven years in Tibet,with Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie in Beyond Boarders, Donny Brasco with Johnnie Depp, and others. Lapenda also produced two video games with XBox, Fight Game Rivals and with Sony Ericsson, Fight Game Heroes.

Hailed by many industry magazines as one of the originators of the MMA, Lapenda produced over 100 MMA fights in countries like USA, Japan, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Brazil, etc. His TV show Channel 22 “COMBAT MORTALE has been in the air for more than 3 consecutive years in Los Angeles, achieving high ratings and raising Lapenda as the first producer to telecast on broadcast in the United States MMA. He was the fourth producer of conveying his franchise WVC fights on pay per view in the U.S. Introduced pay-per-view in Brazil in 1997 and in May 2011 produced the first pay-per-view on YouTube. This pay-per-view was televised live from Moscow.

In the world of music, Lapenda has already produced 10 shows in Brazil and his latest co-production was in the city of Americana in partnership with the Brahma where Lapenda brought country singer, Alan Jackson, who sang for an audience of 45 thousand people.

Edward Ryan is the founder and CEO of TENAX Media, a new private equity backed entity that acquires international film and TV distribution rights.

Prior to TENAX, Mr. Ryan was the Senior Vice President of Europe, Middle East and Africa for Paramount Pictures International, based in London. In addition to supervising theatrical distribution, he ran the studio’s EMEA film acquisition strategy, both English and local language. He successfully directed office restructuring in mature markets such as UK, France, and Spain. Finally, he co-managed the UIP distribution joint venture, including transformation projects in the key emerging markets of Turkey and United Arab Emirates.

For the seven years ending in 2009, Mr. Ryan ran the Research and Analysis Group at the William Morris Agency in Beverly Hills, focused on the areas of film and TV economics. He worked with key corporate clients such as Hasbro, using entertainment as the vehicle to extend the value of their intellectual property. In one example, this culminated in WMA negotiating a groundbreaking deal for Hasbro to launch a children’s cable channel in a JV with Discovery Communications. He also authored “white papers” on subjects as varied as mobile content distribution and motion picture distribution, for investor clients.

In the years prior to WMA, Mr. Ryan ran film buying as part of the team that launched Cinemark Theaters in Brasil, now the country’s largest exhibitor. He began his career in theatrical distribution at Twentieth Century Fox International in 1995, with stints in Los Angeles, Mexico City and São Paulo.

He resides in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter.

Alfonso Arau has had a long and fruitful career both in front and behind the camera. He is one of the most prominent filmmakers of the Latino community in Hollywood. He was a drama disciple of Seki Sano–a Japanese teacher, classmate of Lee Strasberg with Konstantin Stanislavski in Russia–and traveled the world from 1964 to 1968 with his one-man show, “Pantomime Happy Madness”, after studying with Etienne Decroux and Jacques Lecoq in Paris.

A renowned writer-producer-director-actor in theater and film for more than 20 years, Alfonso directed his first feature film, El águila descalza (1971), in which he also starred. He has directed many films in Mexico, among them Inspector Calzonzin (1974) and Mojado Power (1981). He has received six Arieles–the Mexican equivalent of the Oscar–and numerous international film awards.

Arau has acted in a number of Mexican and Hollywood films, including The Wild Bunch (1969), El Topo (1970), Mojado Power (1981), Used Cars (1980), Romancing the Stone (1984), ¡Three Amigos! (1986) and Committed (2000). In addition to Like Water for Chocolate (1992), his directing credits include A Walk in the Clouds (1995) with Keanu Reeves and Picking Up the Pieces (2000) with Woody Allen. For television, he has done The Magnificent Ambersons (2002), based on the script of Orson Welles’ film version, The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), and the novel by Booth Tarkington.

Pamela Wallace is an American screenwriter and author. She won an Academy Award for co-writing the screenplay for the movie, Witness, as well as awards from the Mystery Writers of America and the Writers Guild of America. The Writers Guild later named Witness to their list of the Top 101 Greatest Scripts.

Wallace also adapted one of her own novels, Straight From the Heart, into a screenplay for Hallmark Channel. The resulting movie became the highest-rated film for the network in 2003. She also penned the screenplay for the 2006 Hallmark Channel movie, Though None Go with Me, starring Cheryl Ladd and has written several other Hallmark Channel and Lifetime Network movies.

In 2000, Wallace wrote a nonfiction book called You Can Write a Screenplay. Drawing on her own experiences in Hollywood, the book walked readers through the entire screenwriting process beginning with the initial idea. It provided tips for writing the screenplay, as well as advice on how to sell the completed work. Wallace has written a total of 25 romance novels.

She has served as an executive producer for the cable television series Beyond the Break, as well as for the television movies, Last Chance Cafe and A Very Merry Daughter of the Bride.

In September 2017, Kirk Shaw embraced a new film-making adventure by forming the publicly traded company, Wonderfilm, as a founding producer along with Dan Grodnik, Jeff Bowler and Bret Saxon. Wonderfilm has a $60 million slate of production in place for 2018 with one of the first films under this new venture being Moose, with John Travolta, followed by Nicolas Cage in Primal, going to camera in Puerto Rico.

Kirk Shaw is one of the leading independent filmmakers in the U.S., having produced 230 films. Kirk has a proven, innovative approach to financing and packaging television and film content around the world including Canada, many U.S. states, Europe, Asia, and South America. In an industry often more interested in the bottom line than artistic merit, Kirk is equally proud that his producer resume illustrates a strong creative balance between strictly commercial films and more meaningful artistic film endeavors that can also turn a profit for the producer and investors.

Shaw has worked with all the major studios and contributed his creative and financing talents to the Oscar winning, The Hurt Locker and worked with many notable stars such as Charlize Theron, Woody Harrelson, Cuba Gooding Jr., Kim Basinger, John Travolta, Jean Claude Van Damme, Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone.

Roberta Augusto is a 37 years old Brazilian, who has lived in Los Angeles for the last 15 years. She has been working in the Film Industry since 2005. Her career started at Summit Entertainment releasing movies like Mr. & Ms. Smith, Sahara, among others.

She currently works as the Vice President of Marketing, Distribution & Publicity at IDC, a Lionsgate Company, and she is in charge of more than 20 countries in Latin America.

She has released over 140 movies theatrically to date. She was also in charge of successful franchises in Latin America such  as The Twilight Saga, The Hunger Games, and other movies including the 6 time Oscar winner, La La Land, and most recently, the successful, Wonder.

Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa got his first big break as an actor when he was casted in Bernardo Bertolucci‘s The Last Emperor. A U.S. Army brat, he was born in Tokyo and lived in various cities while growing up. His father was in the army, stationed at Ft. Bragg (NC), Ft. Polk (LA) and Ft. Hood (TX). His mother was an actress from Tokyo. The family finally settled in Southern California, where Tagawa began acting in high school. He was an exchange student in Japan while studying at the University of Southern California. He has recently been involved off-screen in addressing student groups (at SFSU and Stanford). He has also been coaching the martial artist portraying Shang Tsung in the Mortal Kombat Live Tour, and in his free time developing his new form of martial arts, called “Chuun Shin.”

Katherine Kaufman, a Los Angeles native, is a seasoned film and television content distribution executive with over 20 years of experience in both international and domestic markets.

She started her career as a television Sales Executive in Latin America for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and from there, moved into positions at Southern Star in Sydney, Australia, Alliance Atlantis, Televix, First Look Media and Porchlight Entertainment as the Vice President, International Sales.  She then moved into Film distribution for Moctezuma Esparza’s Maya Entertainment where she headed up worldwide sales.  In these positions, Katherine forged relationships with producers and represented products from all over the world including Japan, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, China and the UK.

Presently, Katherine is the Vice President, Domestic Television Licensing at Paramount Pictures where she licenses both new releases and library product to US broadcasters and on-demand services.  She holds a BA in Spanish and Bilingual Education from the University of California, Irvine and a certificate of completion in International Business from UCLA.   Katherine is fluent in Spanish and proficient and Portuguese. She lives in Mar Vista with her husband and stepdaughter.

Emmy nominated, Paul Ruven, started with a student Oscar for the screenplay, Alaska, and an Academy Award for best foreign student film.

His first movie, How To Survive A Broken Heart, was selected by the Berlin Film festival and was shown in every continent.

After that, every movie he made was in a different genre: the big budget reality-comedy movie, Ushi Must Marry, with guest appearances of Patrick Dempsey (Grey’s Anatomy) and Chris Noth (Sex & the City).

Paul Ruven produces drama, documentaries and other media with Talent United, which he owns. He lives in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and co-produces movies with countries all over the world. “Robin’s Road Trip” was nominated for an International Emmy 2017.

Paul Ruven also co-wrote the successful book, Screenwriting for money and awards.

Rudy Youngblood is a Native American of Comanche and Cree decent. He is very proud of his roots. Prior to making his on-screen debut in Mel Gibson’s Oscar nominated film, Apocalypto (2006), Youngblood worked as a laborer in a variety of fields. For instance, he toured for three seasons with Peter Buffet’s Native American Dance/Theatrical Production, “Spirit-The Seventh Fire”, as a warrior protector. Rudy was also part of the Native American Dance Theatre. However, in 2005, Youngblood decided to move to Los Angeles to create his own theatrical production. It was at this point that he was cast for the lead role of Jaguar Paw in Apocalypto.

Youngblood spent weeks preparing for the filming of the movie, for which he had less than a month to learn the Yucatan Mayan language. In addition, due to his natural athleticism, he performed all his own stunts, including a death-defying 175 ft free fall during the waterfall scene and running in front of a live two hundred pound jaguar.

Youngblood also starred in other films, including the lead role as ‘Brandon’ in the 2010, MMA film, Beatdown, a natural role for Youngblood considering he was no stranger to the world of mixed martial arts. (As of May 2016)

He is currently attached to several other pictures, including The Dance of the Blue Tattoo. He is the executive producer, and he also stars in the upcoming film Say Something.

Rudy is also the co-producer and leading role in the upcoming film AG-1 Adrift. Rudy is very talented and is one of the few mainstream Native American actors of his generation. He has endured many struggles in his life and prevailed hardships as a child and young adult. To Youngblood, youth are the future, so he feels obligated and privileged to share his knowledge with them. He hopes his struggles are one example which will motivate the youth to strive for success and have a positive outlook on life as he encourages personal growth in all individuals.