Crew

Ryan White – Director/Producer/Editor
Born in Big Sur, California in 1979, Ryan White graduated from San Francisco State University in 2003 with a B.A. in Cinema, emphasis in Visual Anthropology. From 2004 to 2007, Ryan lived in Hanoi, Vietnam where he worked for the WWF Greater Mekong Program as Film Advisor. During that time, he directed eight WWF documentaries for broadcast on Vietnamese National Television (VTV). Ryan spent the next four years living and working as a freelance Editor and Camera Operator in Bangkok, Thailand. While there, he produced and directed his award-winning first documentary feature, CAMP UNITY (2010), an ethnographic short film, BLOOD (2011), and MONDO BANANA (2013), his second feature-length work. Ryan currently lives in Guerneville, California where he is developing his next project.

Paul Lee – Producer
Paul Lee has produced, co-produced, and associate-produced over 30 films.  Since 1991, Paul has organized, programmed, and curated film festivals in Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Argentina, Spain, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Poland, Romania, Moldova, Mauritius, Iran, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Thailand, Japan and the Philippines. His first film, THICK LIPS THIN LIPS (1994), premiered at the Berlinale, won 9 awards and screened at over 240 film festivals. In 1995, he made THESE SHOES WEREN’T MADE FOR WALKING, which won 6 awards, screened at over 90 festivals worldwide and is used in the Women’s Studies curriculum in over 30 universities and colleges.  His third film, THE OFFERING (1999) has won 71 awards and screened at over 490 film festivals. When not making films or producing, Paul takes care of International Marketing for the Cinema Development Fund in Kyrgyzstan and for the Swedish film distributor Glimz AB.

Maarten Christenhusz – Producer
Dr Maarten Joost Maria Christenhusz is a Dutch botanist and plant photographer. He was born in Enschede, the Netherlands, received his undergraduate and masters degrees from Utrecht University, and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Turku in 2007. He is the former chief editor and initiator of the botanical journal Phytotaxa and an associate editor for pteridophytes topics for the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society. He has an interest in floristic treatments and fern taxonomy, and is the current elected president of the International Association of Pteridologists. Several vascular plant families were named by him or together with colleagues.

Markku Häkkinen – Documentary Participant
Markku Häkkinen is a Finnish amateur botanist, considered one of the world’s leading experts on the taxonomy of bananas. Forty-two out of the seventy known species of wild bananas have been described by Häkkinen. The Linnaean Society of London awarded him the H. H. Bloomer Award of 2009. Häkkinen became interested in botany on his travels around the world during his career as a sea captain. After retiring, he dedicated himself to botany. He has made 15 expeditions to Borneo, Brunei, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. He has published over 80 papers in international scientific journals.