Obselidia

Diane Bell

Director/ Writer

Diane Bell is a writer and director currently residing in Santa Monica, California.
Originally from Scotland, she grew up in Japan, Australia and Germany.  She later earned a Masters degree in Mental Philosophy from Edinburgh University. In 2006, she optioned her first solo effort screenplay, and relocated to Los Angeles from Barcelona, Spain.  Since then, she has written four more original screenplays, including one with director John McTiernan (Die Hard).  She is a long-time practitioner of Ashtanga Yoga and Buddhist meditation, which undoubtedly influence her work.  She opened the first Ashtanga-dedicated yoga studio in Barcelona in 2000, and studied yoga in India with the late Sri K. Pattabhi Jois. OBSELIDIA is her first film.

Matthew Medlin

Producer

Hailing from rural Northern California, Matthew moved from San Francisco to New York City in 2002 where he worked his way up the production ranks in the commercial and independent film scene. He has produced a myriad of creative projects, ranging from commercials and music videos to new media campaigns, to feature and short narrative films. In the 2005 Matthew was the cofounder of a Brooklyn based film making collective entitled Radius 5 Films, and produced his first feature in 2006. Working closely with artist Doug Aitken in 2007 and 2008, he helped produce Sleepwalkers, a massive public art piece that was projected onto the exterior of the MoMA in New York City, and Migration which debuted at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh and showed at Sundance in 2009. After moving to Los Angeles in 2008, Matthew dived directly into independent films first with OBSELIDIA, and more recently Losing Control (currently in post production).  Additionally, he had a hand in the film Night Catches Us, also in competition film at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, and has several projects slated to begin production in the coming year.

Zak Mulligan

DP

Cinematographer Zak Mulligan, an Ohio native, started his career in New York after studying art and photography at Arizona State University.  Mulligan’s narrative feature Obselidia premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival in the Dramatic Film Competition where he was honored with the Excellence in Cinematography award for his work.  Obselidia also took home the Alfred B. Sloan award and was recently honored with two Independent Spirit Awards nominations.
Mulligan's documentary Open Heart about Rheumatic heart disease in Africa was nominated for an Academy Award in 2013. Other feature film work includes Future Weather  (dir. Jenny Deller) which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival, Blumenthal (dir. Seth Fisher), A Piece of America (Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival) and the Noah Buschel scribed You’re Gonna Feel Funny After (Charlotte Film Festival, Zero Film Festival)  and the narrative feature I’m Not Me (imnotmethemovie.com) which marks the cinematographer's debut as a writer and director.
Mulligan’s extensive commercial client list includes Google, Kraft, Sony Ericsson, and American Express. Recently his work on the General Electric funded short documentary Always A Fire was featured on Vimeo's top 12 of 2012 staff picks. Mulligan has shot music videos for artists such as Passion Pit, Cults, Mute Math, Flying Lotus, and Woodhands (his video for “I Wasn’t Made For Fighting” was an official selection of Slamdance 2009 and The 49th Annual Krakow Film Festival).

Chris Byrne

Producer