I Can't Live Without You

John Farbrother is an award-winning editor whose work has aired on Discovery, History Channel, National Geographic, and CNBC. Most recently, he was the editor of Finding Yingying, for which the director, Jenny Shi, received the 2020 SXSW Documentary Feature Special Jury Recognition for Breakthrough Voice. John was co-editor of Steve James’ Emmy-winning and Academy Award-nominated documentary, Abacus: Small Enough to Jail. Recipient of the 2017 Critics’ Choice Award for Best Political Documentary, the film was nominated for a Peabody and was selected by the National Board of Review as one the Top Five Documentaries of 2017. John’s first feature documentary, Siskel/Jacobs’ Louder Than a Bomb, won the 2011 Humanitas Prize for Documentary and was selected as part of the U.S. State Department’s 2011 American Documentary Showcase.

Among his other editing credits are the NatGeo specials, Witness: Disaster in Japan and Witness: G.I. Homecoming, heartbreaking and heartwarming stories constructed from user-generated content; the feature documentaries No Small Matter, about the power of high-quality early childhood education, and The Road Up, a look at the complex challenges of the unemployed; and Head On, an inside look at an obsessive American subculture – the bone-crushing, blue-collar world of team demolition derby. He has edited numerous documentary shorts and short films, including The 5:22, winner of the Prix Panavision Grand Prize for Best American Short Film at the Avignon Film Festival and Steve James’ The Value of Work, part of the Cynopsis Social Good Award-winning web series, We The Economy.

Samantha Sanders began her career in film by working for some of her favorite filmmakers: Jim Jarmusch, Woody Allen, and Barbara Kopple. She returned to school to study film and video at Columbia College Chicago and received her MFA in June 2001. Her films and screenplays have won awards internationally. In 2018 she co-produced the feature film American Folk, a road movie musical set in the backdrop of 9/11 starring musicians Joe Purdy and Amber Rubarth. After a successful run on the festival circuit the film is now distributed by Good Deed Entertainment and available on Amazon Prime and other streaming services. Another feature film she produced, entitled Chicago Boricua, premiered at the 2004 Tribeca Film Festival and is released on home video by Screen Media/Universal. Short films she has directed have won awards in festivals throughout the world. She has written/produced television for the series American Justice and Biography on the A&E network,When Forensics Fail for MSNBC and Storm Stories onThe Weather Channel. She directed Witness: GI Homecoming which aired on the National Geographic Channel May 2012. Additionally she teaches film courses at Columbia College Chicago.