Default: the Student Loan Documentary

how much do you owe on your future?

Default: the Student Loan Documentary header image 3

Filmmakers

Producer/Writer
Serge Bakalian

Director/Writer
Aurora Meneghello

Executive Producer
David L. Brown

Director of Photography
Caio Simbula

Editing
Staci De Gagne

Animator
Kalin Stanojev

Music
Ben Flanagan

Assistant Director
Gianluca Corinaldesi

Associate Producer
Charlotte von Hemert

Camera
Caio Simbula
Mark Smith

Vreje Bakalian
Aurora Meneghello
Maria Victoria Ponce

Researcher
Jessica Zenger

Archival Footage
Crystal Mason

Technical Advisor
Mark Arellano

Interns
Allison Keeley
Meredith Pierce
Ben Sigrist

Serge Bakalian (producer/writer) is the Managing Director at Golden Thread Productions in San Francisco. He has worked as a researcher and science advisor, and presented for numerous organizations, including Greenpeace International and F.A.O. of the United Nations. He has been a founding member of several organizations,  including the Cedre Foundation and the Green Alliance. As a writer, his works have spanned both fiction and nonfiction.   His work and activism have led him to many parts of the world, most extensively throughout the Middle East and Latin America.  His expertise is in fundraising, organizing, research and advocacy.

Aurora Meneghello (director/writer) is an award winning fine art photographer and a filmmaker. Her interest in the power of images to convey thoughts and feelings started at an early age and has fueled her passion for documentary filmmaking. She has worked on fiction and non-fiction projects as researcher, director of photography, camera operator and gaffer. Her background in art and photography and her work as an educator provide her with both aesthetic sensibility and the skills to explain facts clearly and concisely Originally from Italy, she is based in San Francisco, California. Her work has been exhibited in Los Angeles and San Francisco where she has shown at Intersection for the Arts, the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts and Galeria de la Raza.

Ben Flanagan (music) is an acclaimed San Francisco musician. Co-fronting California post-punk rock act The Actual he joined up with Scott Weiland’s Soft Drive Records and toured nationally and internationally supporting Velvet Revolver on festivals such as the Van’s Warped Tour.  After the group disbanded in 2007, he signed with San Francisco’s Talking House Records under the name The Trophy Fire with long time collaborator Jamie McGoldrick. The duo has since released their first record, titled A Lifetime in the Middle of the Ocean, which has received local and national recognition as a truly beautiful and imaginative indie-pop record.