Nature in the City Panel at DocYourWorld

Meet the Panelists:

ERIC KÖPPEN has been working at Columbia College for over 10 years, and working in film for over 15. He initially began by working on feature films and independent short films in Chicago, but soon realized that fictional filmmaking was not for him. Eric always held a passion for animals, and wanted to use his filmmaking capabilities to help them. So he went back to school, earned a Master’s in Zoology and in the process learned more about animals and the people that work with them. In the past five years Eric has traveled all around the world filming and working with different animals, including his personal favorite the pangolin, all the while continuing to teach at Columbia.

TOM DESCH is the founder of documentary film company House Painter Media. His work has been seen on PBS and numerous festivals. As one of the producers of the environmental history films Shifting Sands and Everglades of the North, Desch has seen his work help inspire change. SHOWING: Shifting Sands

DAN PROTESS is the Executive Producer, Producer, and Writer of the national primetime 10 that Changed America series. He has been producing and writing at WTTW Chicago for 20 years. His recent productions include season one of Urban Nature and Foodphiles as well as the feature-length architecture and history specials Chicago’s Loop: a New Walking Tour, Biking the Boulevards, and Chicago’s Lakefront. He wrote and produced the Emmy-winning, James Beard- nominated The Foods of Chicago: A Delicious History.

He began his career at WTTW in 1999 as an associate producer of arts and architecture programming, and soon after served as the associate producer and writer of A Justice That Heals, a documentary about a teenage murderer and his young victim that was shown on ABC’s Nightline. SHOWING: Urban Nature

LINDSEY HIGGINS lives and works in Chicago, IL. She attended Columbia College Chicago and earned a BA with a discipline in fine art photography. Below the Surface is a documentation of the Chicago River with an experimental twist. Through viewing my work, I wish to create a dialogue concerning the water quality within the Chicago River. This project is made on 35mm color film, which has previously been soaked in various locations along the river, in order to directly show the effects pollutants create on the images. SHOWING: Below the Surface

—Carlie Keller