Our Team

Chris Ungco

Supervising Instructor

Chris Ungco

Supervising Instructor

Chris Ungco is an Academy Award-winning cinematographer (Best Animated Short - 2024). After graduating from the School of Visual Arts with a Master’s in Film, Chris spent the next decade working with some of the most progressive filmmakers in New York and LA on commercial content and series episodes for agencies and studios including Billboard, Universal McCann, Comedy Central, NBC, HBO, Amazon, Netflix, and Sesame Street. In 2014, his sense of public urgency and cultural curiosity led him to the Patton Veterans Project where he relearned definitions of valor, service, and community through both active duty and transitioning veterans, and their families. “We may all feel a sense of otherness at times, but honest expression in safe spaces can often help us find peace and self-fulfillment as well as broaden our understanding of community.” chrisungco.com/cinematography

Jon Olson

Senior Instructor

Jon Olson

Senior Instructor

Jon Olson has been working in film since 2009, and has been a film educator since 2016. He spent his early years in film working in a variety of roles on set, but predominantly in the sound department, mostly on independent shorts in and around New York City. In 2015, he co-founded J Squared Productions, which has served clients predominantly in the non-profit sector, including Kids Against Cancer, the Long Island EDC and the Actuary of New York. The following year, he started teaching at the New York Film Academy and began working with the Patton Veterans Project (PVP). Jon was drawn to PVP not just as a film educator, but also because of his numerous family ties to the military, including both parents, who met in the Air Force, and his older brother, an Army veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dani Tenenbaum

Senior Instructor

Dani Tenenbaum

Senior Instructor

Dani Tenenbaum is a storyteller and award-winning filmmaker. He attended the Minshar for Art film school in Tel Aviv, Israel, class of 2010, and graduated with honors. His thesis film Guides was screened at several major festivals and won Best of Fest at the Indieworks screening series in NYC. He also won the Cinematography Award in the 2012 48 hours film project in NY for filming Zoe. He has produced and directed two features, - Landing Up and A New Christmas, which are now available on Amazon and iTunes He recently started "The Sandbox," a directors' collective. He and his wife and dog live in Brooklyn, NY.

Chelsey Rogers

Senior Instructor

Chelsey Rogers

Senior Instructor

Chelsey is an Experienced Filmmaker with a demonstrated history of working in commercial media industry. Skilled in Adobe Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Video Production, and Social Media. Strong arts and design professional with a Bachelor of Science (BS) Photography, Bachelor of Science (BS) Digital Media Arts - Digital Editing and Cinema from John Brown University. Currently working as Head of Production and Producer for Meatier Productions, a production house for youtubers.

Yonatan Weinstein

Senior Instructor

Yonatan Weinstein

Senior Instructor

Yonatan Weinstein is a two-time Israeli Academy Award-nominated editor based in New York. His credits include: 'Waiting for Godot' – a 3-hour long experimental film starring Ethan Hawke & John Leguizamo; 'Valley of Tears' (HBO Max/KAN) – a limited-series war drama and Israel's biggest budget TV production to date; and 'Incitement' – a feature film that won Best Picture at the Israeli Academy Awards and was Israel's submission for the 2020 Oscars. Most recently, he worked on 'Angels', a documentary feature about survivors of sexual assault in childhood.
Aside from editing, Yonatan has a rich background in production and development: he has served as Director of Development for Yaron Zilberman’s ('A Late Quartet') production company; worked in development for Protozoa Pictures (Darren Aronofsky); crewed on feature film & TV sets internationally; and helmed narrative shorts that garnered exposure at festivals and online. As a writer, he has been collaborating on developing original scripted TV series and concepts, working hand in hand with some of Israel's leading production companies. His debut film, the feature documentary 'My Grandma - Frau Masha' (which he completed at age 14), was showcased in international festivals, screened theatrically and sold for broadcast on Israeli National Television.
Yonatan is a veteran of the Israeli Air Force. He is also a proud alum of NYU Tisch's Film & TV program, where he currently teaches Editing as an Adjunct Professor.

Kurt Sensenbrenner

Senior Instructor

Kurt Sensenbrenner

Senior Instructor

Kurt Sensenbrenner is an award winning documentary media maker. He began his career as an Assistant Camera and Camera Operator working on various fiction and nonfiction projects for clients ranging from Comedy Central to the New York Times. After his directorial debut, "From Mass to the Mountain,” a feature documentary chronicling drought and deforestation in unstable eastern Panama which aired nationwide on PBS ,Kurt turned his focus to documentary full-time. Currently, he's directing and producing two projects: One, is an animated documentary-comedy series about living with a rare disorder entitled “The Low-Phe Life.” The other is a live-action doc short that tells the story of two young women fighting to protect rainforest using butterflies as bioindicators to determine the health of their local rainforest.

Erin Sanger

Senior Instructor

Erin Sanger

Senior Instructor

Erin Sanger is an award-winning filmmaker who began working with the Veteran community in 2014. A Colorado native, her films have screened at festivals including SXSW, Tribeca, and Aspen Shortsfest. She is a Wasserman Award winner, Webby Award honoree, Student Academy Award nominee, Academy Nicholl Fellowship Semi Finalist, and American Film Showcase Envoy. Her directorial work has been featured on ESPN's 30 for 30 series, ABC, PBS, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and Topic. She has directed for brands including Infiniti, Häagen-Dazs, Travelers, 23&Me, Logitech, Bai, Complex, Condé Nast, Vox, and Tribeca Studios. She is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

Juan Castilla

Senior Instructor

Juan Castilla

Senior Instructor

Juan David Castilla is a Colombian writer, director, editor and videographer based in NYC. In “El Amanecer,” his first narrative feature, an exiled colombian coronel living in the U.S tries to return home. (Winner of the Golden Palm Award at the 2010 Mexico International Film Festival). In 2016, he directed the documentary, “Viaje a la Semilla,” about the role of the shaman in the tribe and how technology has affected the lives of tribes in Columbia, Peru and Brazil. He also produced the feature, “Overexposed,” about a woman who overcomes her trauma using Overexposure Therapy (2019 Los Angeles Awards, Festigious Film Festival, Film Con and the Italian Hermetic Film Festival).

Zach Timm

Senior Instructor

Zach Timm

Senior Instructor

Zach Timm is an Austin based filmmaker whose expertise spans a wide array of talents including shooting, and editing videos to writing and managing social media platforms for different brands over the past 15 years. He has been a part of PVP since 2017 and relishes in the process of working with the veterans to help bring their stories and experiences to life through the medium of film.

Michal Barhaim

Senior Instructor

Michal Barhaim

Senior Instructor

Michal is a digital media designer, boasting over 15 years of expertise in educational media, TV production, and leadership development. With a Bachelor's in Psychology and Media from Haifa University and a Master of Arts in Digital Media Design for Education from NYU, she passionately leverages her diverse background to empower individuals in their personal and professional growth journeys. Her service as the first-ever combat female in the IDF K-9 unit (Oketz) from 2001 to 2004 adds a unique perspective to her commitment to inspiring and supporting others.

Traven Rice

Senior Instructor

Traven Rice

Senior Instructor

Writer-director Traven Rice is devoted to telling stories about the magical moments in our everyday lives. Her work leans towards social action and champions underrepresented voices. Traven’s most recent project,”Division Street,” a digital series pilot about a mixed-race young girl sent to live with her cranky Jewish grandmother in a magical neighborhood in New York City, screened at Slamdance, Raindance and SeriesFest, among others, and won national and international awards. Her first short film, “The Night Tram," was nominated for a Student Academy Award. Rice was a New York Stage & Film Filmmakers' Workshop Fellow, where she developed the feature film script for “Red Rock Falls," a psychological thriller based in a small mountain town in Colorado. She is a certified Zen Sensei and has taught meditation for more than 15 years.

Tal Shamir

Instructor

Tal Shamir

Instructor

Tal Shamir has directed, produced, written, and edited dozens of films that have been presented at a wide range of film festivals, galleries, and museums. His work has garnered several awards including a Gold Medal from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences’ 2011 Student Academy Awards. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy, film, and media from the European Graduate School, and is the author of the 2016 book, Cinematic Philosophy.

Sutton York

Instructor

Sutton York

Instructor

Sutton York is a seasoned editor and filmmaker specializing in documentary storytelling. With a BA in Creative Nonfiction Film Production from Cal State Long Beach, she excels in crafting compelling narratives that bring people's stories to life. Sutton has worked on several short documentary series for Facebook Watch and local independent news organizations, and has also contributed as an assistant editor for feature documentaries. In the commercial realm, she has edited for a diverse range of clients, including VRBO, Google, Netflix, Curology, Visa, Capital One, Nike, and Pinterest. Currently, Sutton is editing her first feature-length documentary. In addition to her editing expertise, she is a skilled one-woman band, shooting and producing numerous short independent documentaries.

José Alberto V. Chirinos

Instructor

José Alberto V. Chirinos

Instructor

José is a Venezuelan filmmaker with 14 years of experience in the field, often wearing different hats in productions, ranging from Directing, Editing, Producing, DIT, and even Acting. He’s currently a filmmaking instructor and Youth Programs Director at the New York Film Academy, Over the course of his career he has worked on short and feature films, music videos, institutional videos, commercials, conceptual videos, documentaries, and TV shows. He’s fluent in Spanish, English, and Italian.

Maya Baran

Instructor

Maya Baran

Instructor

Maya Baran is a Brooklyn-based award-winning photographer and filmmaker. After a two-year military service in the IDF as a Military intelligence photographer, She attended The Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, Israel. She has worked with cancer patients, people with mental challenges, and endangered youth and has helped them express themselves through film and image.She also graduated with an MFA from the Hunter College studio art program, specializing in experimental Cinema and photography. She relates to the camera as a powerful, all-seeing machine and uses it to look at light and place with a focus on human beings and their presence within both.

Roi Vissel

Instructor

Roi Vissel

Instructor

Roi Vissel is a Dutch-Israeli cinematographer with over 10 years of experience in film, television and commercial work. Over his career, Roi has worked on such programs as Tyrant, Game of Thrones, and many others. His work has been screened around the globe including at the Cannes Film Festival and the London Worldwide Comedy Short Film Festival. In 2018, he was selected as the first cinematographer to be recognized as a BAFTA "Newcomer." Roi graduated from the American Film Institute’s Master of Fine Arts Program in Cinematography. Previous to his native film work, Roi served in the Israeli Air Force as Chief Aerial Combat Cinematographer.

Erick Pferdehirt

Administrative Assistant

Erick Pferdehirt

Administrative Assistant

The newest member of our team, Erick recently graduated from Penn State University where he earned a BA in Biological Engineering. Prior to earning his degree, he worked in metal manufacturing, restaurant management, and as a ski instructor. The grandson of a WWII combat veteran, he was instilled with a deep appreciation for family history and service. Erick was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA.

Seth Castro

Social Media Director

Seth Castro

Social Media Director

Seth Orpheus Castro is a filmmaker and social media expert with over four years of experience. He graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts degree in Filmmaking with a concentration in editing and directing from Columbia College Hollywood in 2021. After graduating, he found a love for social media, spending countless hours researching strategies and creating unique content that amassed millions of views. He's edited short films, movie trailers, and viral short-form content for creators on YouTube and TikTok