Manny Mendoza and Mark Birnbaum

Manny Mendoza

Mendoza has been a newspaperman since 1979 when he became one of the last copy boys in America. More recently, he spent 14 years as a television, theater and pop-music critic at the Dallas Morning News.

Earlier in his career, he was a staff reporter at the Miami News, Bergen Record and Milwaukee Journal, and a fellow in the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University.

"Stop the Presses" is his first film.

Mark Birnbaum

From Nicaragua in the 1980s to Tom DeLay in 2006, Birnbaum's documentary films have probed, celebrated and exposed people to places and personalities from all over the globe. In "Larry v. Lockney", he tells "a riveting story of good people — on both sides — trying to do the right thing for their children and their town" (Houston Chronicle).

"The Big Buy", about Tom DeLay's rise and fall, "presents its evidence clearly and with a welcome sense of humor" (New York Times) and is "more feisty and fun than a drunken barbecue in Beaumont" (Tallahassee Democrat).

His films have chronicled the Second Vatican Council, women trash recyclers in Ecuador, American high school kids in China, medical science, sailboat racing, and salsa dancing.

Birnbaum is a winner of the George Foster Peabody broadcasting award and took home gold medals from film festivals in Chicago, Houston and Charleston.