Advisory Council Members

The Advisory Council are a team of trusted individuals helping us shape the campaign to fight the climate emergency.

Jill is an activist, storyteller and the executive director of The Redford Center, a nonprofit organization co-founded by Robert Redford and his son and board chair, James Redford. The Redford Center harnesses the power of film, video and new media to engage people through inspiring stories that galvanize environmental action. Jill is the lead producer on all of the organization’s original content, including the award winning feature films Happening: A Clean Energy Revolution for HBO, Watershed: Exploring A New Water Ethic for the New West and Fighting Goliath: Texas Coal Wars. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and two children.

Katherine is Executive Director at the Planet in Focus International Environmental Film Festival, Canada's largest environmental media arts organisation that promotes film as both an art form and a meaningful tool for social change. She has worked extensively in the arts sector as a producer in film, theatre and visual arts including the UK-based Cape Farewell as Development Director for Carbon 14: Climate is Culture in partnership with ROM Contemporary Culture. Katherine has an MA in Communication and Cultural Studies with a research focus on freshwater as both a commodity and a human right through the historical narrative of Toronto’s R.C. Harris Filtration Plant. She also serves on the steering committee of CREW Toronto, a Project of Tides Canada.

Kyle Gracey is Chair of the Board of Directors for SustainUS: U.S. Youth for Justice and Sustainability. He is the former Executive Director and Delegation Leader to the United Nations climate change negotiations for SustainUS. Kyle co-founded the youth constituency at the UN climate change negotiations and served on its coordinating council for 5 years. He is also Chair of the Board of Directors for Engineers for a Sustainable World.

Katie Eder is 19-years-old and is the co-founder and Executive Director of Future Coalition. Built by youth activists, for youth activists, Future Coalition is a national network that fosters community and collaboration among youth leaders and youth-led organisations by providing these young people with the tools, resources, and support to power their ideas and amplifies their impact. Katie is also a co-founder of 50 Miles More, an organisation working to end gun violence in the United States, and Kids Tales, a nonprofit that empowers kids to find their voice using creative writing. Originally from Wisconsin, Katie is currently taking two gap years before starting at Stanford University in the fall of 2020.

Jack Lechner’s credits as Producer, Executive Producer, Supervising Producer, or Consulting Producer include Explorer for National Geographic; The New Yorker Presents for Amazon; The Fog Of War; Blue Valentine; Bite Me; Untouchable for Hulu; Left Of The Dial for HBO; TruInside for TruTV; Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys for Sundance; The New Public and Playwright: From Page to Stage for PBS; and the pilot of Mad Men for AMC. As an executive at Miramax and Film Four, he was involved in the production and development of dozens of movies, including The Crying Game, Good Will Hunting, and The Full Monty. His book Can’t Take My Eyes Off You was published in 2000, and his picture book Mary Had A Little Lamp in 2008. He also wrote the lyrics for the 2010 off-Broadway musical The Kid. Jack is an associate professor at Columbia University.

Jessica Hall Upchurch is Vice-Chair and Sustainability Ambassador of Virtuoso, a premier global travel industry network. In 2017, Jessica organized and hosted Virtuoso’s Inaugural Sustainability Summit and leads the company’s commitment to making sustainability a key factor guiding consumer travel decisions.

Jessica is a longtime advocate for children and their futures, supporting multiple charities in Africa and at home in the US. She is involved in the charity and youth empowerment organization, WE, serving as WE Day Texas Co-Chair.

Jessica approaches sustainability efforts with a “no shame, no blame,” credo; believing we can “start where we are” to bring about essential change. Her deepest desire is to see a global movement in sustainability for our world.

Don Edkins is a South African documentary filmmaker and producer who has produced documentary projects that have been broadcast and seen around the world, such as Steps for the Future, Why Democracy? and Why Poverty? He is executive producer of Dare to Dream, a documentary film project with Asian filmmakers, and is developing a new project with African filmmakers, Generation Africa. He is also executive producer of AfriDocs, a free-to-view VOD platform and broadcast documentary film strand across Africa.

Michael Barnett is an Emmy Award winning filmmaker focused on telling human stories of culture and social justice. Michael’s first full-length film, Superheroes (HBO Documentary Films) won over a dozen film festivals, and was nominated for multiple Emmys. Other award winning films include; Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia (IFC and Sundance Selects), Becoming Bulletproof (Showtime), winner of over 25 Best Doc/Grand Jury/Audience Award prizes at film festivals around the globe, and The Mars Generation (Netflix Originals), one of the 2017 Sundance Film Festival opening night films and nominated for Best Science and Technology Documentary at the 2018 Emmys. Michael is a worldwide cultural diplomat with the U.S. State Department and the American Film Showcase and is the founder of SuperFilms!, a Los Angeles based production company focused on telling extraordinary stories across all media platforms. Michael’s newest film, Changing the Game, is about transgender high school athletes who challenge the boundaries and perceptions of fairness and discrimination. It premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival.

Michael’s mission to change the world for the better through storytelling led him to co-found EarthxFilm in 2017. EarthxFilm is an environmental festival which showcases films and emerging interactive media that explore conservation, climate change, and the environment. EarthxFilm is a division of the non-profit organization EarthX which was founded by Trammell S. Crow in 2011. EarthX is the world’s largest environmental expo, conference, and film festival which takes place every April in Dallas, Texas. The event and year-round activities provide a non-partisan platform for all parties to openly discuss environmental problems and work toward solutions. In 2019 over 177,000 attendees, 650 organizations, 6,500 youth and 400 speakers participated.

Cain received his MFA from the American Film Institute (AFI) in Producing where he was granted the honor of Commencement Speaker. Cain has produced, and executive produced over 25 feature-length films, 30 commercials and music videos. Many of them award winning projects which align with his mission of using media to inspire and create social change including his directorial debut TV Junkie which was awarded the Sundance Special Jury Prize and premiered on HBO.

Martín Vainstein is an academic, community organiser, digital campaigner and communications specialist, who currently resides in hectic Buenos Aires, Argentina. He writes about climate and human rights for various media outlets. Martín enjoys drawing, reading and playing the ukulele.

Born in Cedar Rapids and a graduate of Wellesley College, Kathy has worked as a teacher, journalist, author and film and television producer in England, Africa and the United States. In 1998 she launched Creative Visions, inspired by the life of her son, Dan Eldon, an artist, creative activist and photojournalist, killed at the age of 22 in 1993, while on assignment for Reuters in Somalia. Since 2004, the organization, recognized as a UN NGO (non-governmental organization), has impacted more than 100 million people. In 1990, Kathy founded Creative Visions Productions to produce entertaining, impactful films that would ignite action. Kathy has exec-produced eight films, including an Oprah Winfrey Network Special, Extraordinary Moms, featuring Hilary Clinton, Julia Roberts and Christiane Amanpour and the award-winning documentary, Youth Unstoppable, directed by Slater Jewell Kemker. Kweku Mandela., grandson of Nelson Mandela, and Kathy produced the The Journey is the Destination, a feature film directed by Bronwen Hughes based on Dan’s life. Kathy is the author of 17 books, including her memoir In the Heart of Life, published by HarperOne. Kathy, a popular speaker, has been featured on countless television and radio programs, including several appearances on Oprah. Kathy lives in Malibu with her husband, a few steps away from the Dan Eldon Center for Creative Activism, a vibrant hub for individuals who want to help change the world for the better.