TEAM

DAVID NOVACK

DIRECTOR / PRODUCER/ WRITER

David Novack of Odessa Films directed, wrote, and produced Finding Babel (Special Jury Prize, Moscow Jewish Film Festival), about executed Soviet writer Isaac Babel, and Burning The Future: Coal in America, (IDA Pare Lorentz Award, Best In-Depth Television Reporting on the Environment from the Society of Environmental Journalists) about rights activists in West Virginia. With Burning The Future, David was invited to tour China with American Film Showcase (AFS) and first met Janice Englehart. David also produced Kimjongilia (Sundance, Best Human Rights Documentary Award/One World Brussels Film Fest) about North Korean labor camps. He teaches film, formerly at Univ. of Pennsylvania and presently at Univ. Lusófona in Lisbon.

PRODUCER / WRITER

Janice Englehart co-wrote and produced All Static & Noise.  Her recent work brings together 10 years of collaboration with visual and performing artists in China, previous experience as a therapist and rights advocate, and the belief that creative storytelling is an essential tool to challenge power dynamics that threaten our collective wellbeing.  This is Janice’s first feature-length documentary film. Her vision for making the film was largely inspired by her participation as an interviewer in Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Project.  Janice received her Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy and German from the University of Notre Dame and Masters degrees in public health and social work from Columbia University.

ASSOCIATE PRODUCER

Jewher Ilham is Associate Producer of All Static & Noise, an author, and advocate for the Uyghur community and for her imprisoned father, Uyghur economist Ilham Tohti..  During the making of All Static & Noise, Jewher hosted production in Washington, DC and Bloomington, IN. She was hugely instrumental in facilitating community engagement during production and post-production and advised the team on important aspects of the Uyghur experience. She provided expert advice, contributed archival footage, and connected the team with experts, witnesses, and translators. She also brought in many of the film’s participants.  Jewher has testified before the U.S. Congress and Senate Foreign Relations Committee, published op-eds in The New York Times, CNN and the Guardian, and received numerous international awards on behalf of her father including the European Parliament’s Sakharov prize. In 2015, she recounted her experiences in her book, Jewher Ilham: A Uyghur’s Fight to Free Her Father. Her second book, Because I Have To: The Path to Survival, the Uyghur Struggle was released in 2022. Jewher currently works at the Worker Rights Consortium as Forced Labor Project Coordinator and serves as a spokesperson for the Coalition to End Uyghur Forced Labour.

CINEMATOGRAPHER

Kaya Dillon is a cinematographer and director who has worked in the documentary and commercial film industry for over a decade. His work has taken him around the world through a broad gamut of communities and landscapes. In 2021, his work in “Radical Love” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Kaya is currently in production as director of photography on the Hulu docu-series “Ring of Fire,” telling the story of Annie Mae Aquash and the American Indian Movement of the 1970s. 

CINEMATOGRAPHER

Tahir Hamut lzgil is a prominent modernist Uyghur poet, filmmaker, and activist. A leader in avant-garde Uyghur poetry in the 1990s, he is known for poems and films strongly influenced by Uyghur life. In addition to appearing in All Static & Noise, Tahir contributed much of the footage from the Uyghur region that was taken during a time before police occupation and the camps. Tahir grew up in the ancient city of Kashgar. After attending college in Beijing, he returned to the Uyghur region and emerged as a prominent film director. His poetry has appeared, in Joshua L. Freeman's English translation, in The New York Review of Books, Asymptote, Gulf Coast, and Berkeley Poetry Review. His work has been extensively translated into Chinese, Japanese, French, and Turkish. In 2017, as the Chinese state began the mass internment of the Uyghur people, Tahir fled with his family to the United States. Tahir’s new book, Waiting to Be Arrested at Night: A Uyghur Poet's Memoir of China's Genocide will be released in August 2023.

CINEMATOGRAPHER

Wang Wo (王我) is a powerful voice in independent Chinese cinema with a keen ability to capture the ordinariness of everyday life amidst the extraordinary nature of contemporary China.  Born in Hebei Providence, he spent his early adult years working in the Horse Head Power Plant in Handan, Hebei.  Following his artistic impulses in 1991, he moved to Beijing where he studied graphic design at the Central Academy of Arts and Design, and received his Masters in Arts and Design from Tsinghua University.  In 2004, his filmmaking career took off with a portfolio of experimental documentary, including:  Outside (2005), Noise (2007), (Up & Down, 2007) Zhe Teng: According to China (2011), The Dialogue (2014) and A Filmless Festival (2015).  In All Static & Noise, Wang Wo contributed the footage of Ilham Tohti from Tsering Woeser’s interview in 2009.  He also facilitated the use of Tohti’s lecture footage.

CINEMATOGRAPHER

Drew Kennedy is a Videographer, Sound Mixer, Post Production Editor and Video Studio Technician/Engineer based in Washington, DC. He has 25 years of experience in the field including, 8 years of experience at Sirius XM as a Production Director and many freelance credits including an Emmy award working with NPR Planet Money in 2013 and various national broadcast reality shows, narrative films and independent documentaries. Drew currently works as a studio technician for an international broadcast company. Drew likes biking, fixing bikes, thinking about bikes and long walks on the beach...because who doesn't.

Bahtiyar Ømer is the Chief Designer of the 3D Imagery used in All Static & Noise. He is the Chairman of the Norwegian Uyghur Committee and is one of the founders of the Uyghur Transitional Justice Database (UTJD). He serves as project manager for the UTJD and leads the 3D design team. Originally from East Turkistan, Bahtiyar currently resides in Norway. He holds a bachelor's degree in law and worked as a lawyer and psychological advisor in Urumqi before coming to Norway.