crew
Dylan Stirewalt
Director
Director Dylan is non-binary femme filmmaker and wildland firefighter, who studied Film Production at the University of British Columbia. Their thesis film, SAVAGE, premiered in TIFF Student Showcase in 2013. In 2011, their first narrative films, Sbear Some Love, aired on OPB’s Oregon Lens. Over the years, they have worked on a number of films as an Assistant Director and Cinematographer. Dylan was also accepted as a key speaker at TEDxTerry 2013, an independent TED event held at University of British Columbia.
Solange Yépez
Co-Director
Solange studied Environmental Communication at Universidad San Francisco de Quito. Her career has been broadly interdisciplinary, including a foundation in communication, journalism, cinematography, editing, photography, digital animation, social networking, and biological sciences. Solange has created journalistic documentaries and participated in a wildlife filmmaking course with a National Geographic instructor. At university, Solange wrote and produced radio reports that were aired on a local radio station in Quito, Ecuador; her final project was the pilot of a radio program on environmental issues. Solange was a volunteer in the environmental project “Recupera”. In addition, she is a volunteer in Plasti.Co Project organization, where they seek to raise awareness about plastics contamination through cleanups and environmental education. She currently works as Administrative Coordinator and Community Manager at Huella Verde, where she has worked in the area of communication, producing videos and photography.
Antonella Carrasco
Director of Photography & Editor
Antonella is an Ecuadorian born filmmaker. She received a BA in Environmental Communication and photography in Quito at USFQ. In 2013, she was awarded a full scholarship from the Ecuadorian government to begin her Master’s studies in the MFA Social Documentary program at the School of Visual Arts in New York. In 2014, she was awarded a scholarship grant from the Master of SOCDOC at SVA for the production of her short documentary “Pele, My Paradise”. This film has been screened at festivals around the world, in France, Colombia, Ecuador, Portugal, Poland, and the USA. She has been an editor and cinematographer on documentaries for the past 8 years.
Roo Vandegrift
PRODUCER
Roo is a queer scientist and illustrator. He received his doctorate in mycology (the study of mushrooms and fungi) from the University of Oregon’s Institute of Ecology and Evolution, doing much of his dissertation work on the ecology of fungi at Los Cedros, in Ecuador. He has published peer-reviewed research in internationally acclaimed journals such as Microbiome, Biotropica, and the Journal of Tropical Conservation Science. Most recently, he was awarded a National Geographic Explorer grant to coordinate a multi-disciplinary, international expedition to expand knowledge of the biodiversity at the Los Cedros Biological Reserve.
Clayton Kruse
Additional Cinematography
Clayton Kruse is an explorer, cinematographer, photographer, and creative director who is in his senior year at Walla Walla University. Entranced by the beauty in travel, the wilderness, and the uniqueness of people, Kruse’s work seeks to encourage others to develop a more positive relationship with the natural earth. His visionary perspective has earned him opportunities to work on film and photo projects across the globe including places like Haiti, Rwanda, Micronesia, and Vietnam. He has worked as a volunteer with Eclectic Reel, a non-profit specializing in human rights-centered documentaries, and served for two years as a volunteer environmental science teacher in the Marshall Islands.