James Tusty and Maureen Castle Tusty (on the left in the picture) are the primary filmmakers of To Breathe As One.
James and Maureen are a husband and wife filmmaking team. They founded, owned and operated a private communications firm called Mountain View Group, Ltd. , which served some of the largest international corporations in the world, such as GE, Coca-Cola, Home Depot, and IBM.
In 2008, they sold Mountain View Group and opened Sky Films Incorporated (SFI), a production company dedicated to documentary films. Their first release,The Singing Revolution, played in 125 North American theatrical markets. The New York Times wrote of the film, "Imagine the scene in Casablanca in which the French patrons sing 'La Marseillaise' in defiance of the Germans, then multiply its power by a factor of thousands, and you’ve only begun to imagine the force of The Singing Revolution." After its theatrical run, it was released on public television, and has been distributed to 10,000 American schools .
In addition to To Breathe As One, they have recently completed a documentary entitled Economic Freedom in Action, which focuses on heroic entrepreneurial stories in Zambia, Slovakia, South Korea, and Chile. This film will be released on public television in fall, 2013.
James and Maureen live with their daughter Skyler and their many pets in the rural upstate community of Sand Lake, NY.
Mike Majoros (USA) spent more than a year editing and writing the film. Together with Jim and Maureen, Mike played a major role in shaping the structure of the story...no easy task given the complexity of the history. He shares the Director/Writer credit with the Tustys. Mike has spent the last 20 years making feature-length documentaries about a broad range of subjects: Maasai warriors from Kenya marketing their culture in the US, homeless men surviving on the streets, veterans protesting to raise awareness about the futility of the Vietnam war, and people in wheelchairs confronting an inadequate healthcare system. His work has received dozens of awards, and has been screened internationally at festivals including Sundance and Berlin, as well as on PBS. In 1985, he received his graduate degree from the MIT Media Lab, and later he taught thesis level film production at the Rhode Island School of Design for 15 years. He has recently finished a documentary about nomadic life Mongolia.
Bestor Cram (USA) has over twenty years of experience as a director, producer and cinematographer. A friend of the Tustys for decades, Bestor was involved from the very beginning in formulating the creative approach to this story. He founded Northern Light in 1982, and has built it into one of the premiere documentary production companies producing works ranging from broadcast documentaries to historical, dramatic and educational media to Fortune 500 image pieces. As a cinematographer, Bestor has filmed and videotaped for all the major networks. The company has won numerous awards and prizes for its work, and additionally, Bestor has won many grants and prizes for his independent work. His independent film, Unfinished Symphony , premiered at Sundance in the Documentary Competition in 2001 and has won top honors at film festivals around the world. Bestor holds a BA in economics from Denison University, pursued graduate studies at the West Surrey College of Art and Design in Guildford , England , and has taught film at MIT, and the Maine Film & Television Workshops. He is a Vietnam Veteran.
Piret Tibbo-Hudgins (Estonia) worked as a Producer in Estonian state film studio Tallinnfilm after graduating in 1985 from All-Union State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow. Over a five-year period from 1986-91 she produced three feature films. In the beginning of 90's she became a freelance filmmaker in different international productions. In 1995 Piret co-founded Allfilm and was a Managing Director of company until 2002, when she once again became a producer. She is currently Head of Production for the Estonian Film Institute