A native of Santiago, Chile, Dante Betteo immigrated to the US at the age of 15 with the idea of becoming a filmmaker. He has a long family history connected to cinema, as his father and grandfather were film producers before being forced out of their homeland by political turmoil.
At the age of 24, Dante landed his first job in television at a local San Francisco station. In 2006 Dante was honored with an Emmy Award for Best Youth Oriented Programming. He has been nominated numerous times for Best Newscast, and Best Documentary. As a college instructor he teaches producing and production from a real world perspective, giving his students the benefit of 34 years in the visual storytelling business.
Dante is now a San Francisco Bay Area filmmaker, whose focus is telling stories that inspire people to improve thieir lives and make this a better place for future generations.
San Francisco based photographer and filmmaker Lou Dematteis has covered issues of social, political and environmental importance around the globe for over 30 years.
A former staff photographer with Reuters News Pictures, Dematteis was based in Managua, Nicaragua, from 1985-1990 during the height of the U.S.-backed Contra war. In 1986, his photographs of downed U.S. soldier-of-fortune Eugene Hasenfus received international recognition, including a citation from World Press Photo.
Dematteis began his work in film on Charles Koppleman’s feature “Dumbarton Bridge” released in 1999. He followed this up with his own documentary film “Judge Louis B. Dematteis: An Italian American Story” in 2003 and was an Associate Producer on Lise Swenson’s 2004 feature “Mission Movie”. He produced and directed the award-winning one-hour documentary “Crimebuster: A Son’s Search for His Father” which premiered in February 2011 at the California Independent Film Festival.
