Ruth Gumnit, M.F.A, Director, Cinematographer and Producer, is an award-winning filmmaker and film installations artist. Their films have screened internationally and been honored with an NEA/Rockefeller Interdisciplinary Artist Award, Grand Jury Best Documentary award from the Washington D. C. Independent Film Festival, Judges and Audience Awards from the San Diego Women’s Film Festival, and Director’s Citation Award from the Black Maria Film Festival. In 2006, Gumnit was named one of Film Arts Foundation’s “Film Arts 30,” and profiled in its November/December issue of Release Print magazine.

Visible Silence, had its world premiere at Krakow International Film Festival, Poland; U.S. premiere at Frameline’s San Francisco International LGBTQI+ Film Festival, Asian premiere at Women Make Waves Film Festival, Taipei, Taiwan, and Thai premiere at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand. Visible Silence has had broad application in the spheres of LGBTQI+ rights, Human Sexuality, and Asian Studies. Visible Silence has been collected by and/or screened at numerous Universities, among them Yale, Emory, the Claremont Colleges, etc. Within Thailand and internationally, Visible Silence is doing its intended work… to spark a dialogue…..being widely used as a public policy, fundraising, community building, and educational tool for refugee rights

Gumnit’s film, Don’t Fence Me In: Major Mary and the Karen Refugees from Burma has screened in such diverse venues as HBO’s Frame-By-Frame Festival, the Commonwealth Club of California and the World Affairs Council of Northern California. It has shown at dozens of prestigious film festivals, including: Canadian Film Centre’s Worldwide Short Film Festival; Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, UT; Krakow International Film Festival, Poland; Hawaii International Festival; and, Frameline’s San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival. It has also been widely used as a public policy, fundraising, community building, and educational tool for refugee rights.

Marguerite Salmon, M.A., LMFT, Producer and Writer, is a documentary producer, writer, and psychotherapist with over thirty years experience as a social activist and psychotherapist working in the LGBTQI+, HIV/AIDS, homeless, and women’s communities. Salmon formally entered the documentary filmmaking world in 2001, as production assistant and promotion specialist on Ruth Gumnit’s film Don’t Fence Me In: Major Mary and the Karen Refugees from Burma. She was selected for the Sundance Producers Conference in 2006, for “Tomboys and Ladies” which became “Visible Silence.”

Philly Archa, M.A., Co-Producer, Writer, Translator and Thai Linguist, is a native of Thailand. She currently lives in San Francisco where she runs a Thai language school and teaches cooking. She brought her acute intelligence and cultural insight to Visible Silence.

Ben Her (name changed to protect her identity), Producer, is a scholar and educator who has lived in both Thailand and the U.S. A self-identified Thai tom, Ben Her served as producer as well as a film subject, consultant, and liaison for Visible Silence. Ben extensively researched issues underlying Visible Silence for her 2001 Ph.D. from the University of San Francisco.

Ellen Bruno, M.A., Advisor, is a world-renown San Francisco-based documentary filmmaker whose work has focused on issues at the forefront of human rights. She is a past recipient of both Guggenheim and Rockefeller Fellowships. Bruno’s films have been awarded many prestigious prizes, among them a Special Jury Award at Sundance Film Festival, a student Academy Award; a student Emmy and the Edward R. Murrow Award. Her films include Samsara, Satya, Sacrifice, Leper and Sky Burial.

Elizabeth Finlayson, M.A., Editor, is a film editor whose credits include Ellen Bruno’s three films, Samsara, Satya: A Prayer for the Enemy,and Sacrifice, all of which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.  Samsara is part of the National Film Registry. She also worked on Emmy award winning films Blink (dir. Elizabeth Thompson), and The Kids of Survival (dir. Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller.)

Marea Media — Advisory Team

Marcia Jarmel outreach consultant.
Carole Jeung graphic designer.
Thitikarn Tothong travel coordinator and photographer.

Visible Silence Film — Advisory Board

Madeleine Lim is the Founder and Executive Director of the Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project (QWOCMAP).

Trinity A. Ordona, Ph.D., has a 40-year history of civil rights activism promoting grassroots organizing strategies linking international, national and local Asian and Pacific Islander lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people in the U.S. with their counterparts around the world.