American Teacher is the feature-length documentary created and produced by Vanessa Roth, Nínive Calegari, Dave Eggers, and Brian McGinn. The film includes a musical score by Thao Nguyen and is narrated by Matt Damon. The film chronicles the stories of four teachers living and working in disparate urban and rural areas of the country. Their stories are told through a mixture of footage and interviews with students, families, and colleagues, as well as the teachers themselves. By following these teachers as they reach different milestones in their careers, our film tells the deeper story of the teaching profession in America today.

	ERIK BENNER Erik Benner has been teaching Texas history for fifteen years in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Benner, now forty years old, grew up in the small Texas town of Haslet, just a few miles north of Fort Worth. He graduated from the University of North Texas in 1996. He is the proud father of two beautiful daughters, Victoria, age eighteen and Addison, age five. Benner and his family currently live in Keller, Texas.
	JONATHAN DEARMAN Jonathan Dearman is a lifelong San Francisco resident who has worked in real estate and education for the past twenty years. As a lifelong learner and educator, Jonathan has worked on education non-profits and school boards while running his family-owned real estate business since leaving the teaching profession in 2002. Jonathan is now looking to combine two of his passions, education and music, in a community project for young people in his neighborhood.
	JAMIE FIDLER Jamie Fidler has been teaching for eleven years. She went to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst for both her undergraduate and graduate degrees. When Jamie isn't in the classroom or working at her second or sometimes third job, she is working to fight against teacher layoffs and budget cuts to public schools. Jamie lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband David and her daughter Charlotte.
	RHENA JASEY Rhena Jasey taught for six years in the South Orange/Maplewood School District where she grew up, attending the public schools and graduating from the local public high school there. She earned her BA from Harvard University and holds an MA in Elementary and Early Childhood Education and an MEd in Educational Leadership, with a concentration in Public School Leadership, both from Columbia University. Rhena pursues her interest in public education policy issues by participating in programs and panels that address issues of urban education and currently teaches at the Equity Project Charter School (T.E.P.) serving Washington Heights in New York City.

PRODUCER/DIRECTOR
Vanessa Roth has written produced and directed award- winning social issue documentaries and headed up social media reform efforts for over a decade. Roth’s work has earned her dozens of honors including an Academy Award, two Sundance Special Jury Prizes, Cine Golden Eagles, Casey Medals, and a Dupont-Columbia Award. Her films have been catalysts for progressive social change, received the highest accolades in documentary filmmaking, and have been broadcast nationally on PBS, HBO, A&E the Sundance Channel and Discovery, and distributed internationally. Her work is always accompanied by national outreach campaigns to empower the subjects of her films to become active participants in the policies that affect them and to raise awareness and participation among the general public. Her films have been seen by congress, the National Governor’s Association, have been featured on Oprah, NPR, as the media centerpiece of the Bill and Melinda Gates Educational Summit, and at the Youth Presidential Inauguration events in 2009. Some of her films include: Taken in: The Lives of America’s Foster Children, Close to Home, Aging Out, Schools of the 21st Century, 9/11’s Toxic Dust, No Tomorrow, Freeheld, Third Monday in October, American Teacher, and the upcoming Untouchables.

PRODUCER
Nínive Calegari is a veteran teacher with almost ten years' experience in the classroom, including experience in both charter schools and large comprehensive high schools. She is the cofounder and former executive director of 826 Valencia, and most recently served as the CEO of 826 National, a literacy nonprofit that galvanizes volunteers in eight cities to support teachers and help students improve their writing skills. The program has been duplicated in thirty smaller satellites worldwide. She is also the founder of The Teacher Salary Project, the non-profit that created the film American Teacher. She holds a Master's Degree in Education in Teaching and Curriculum from Harvard's Graduate School of Education, and is a co-author of the New York Times bestselling book Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America's Teachers. She is an advisory board member of the George Lucas Educational Foundation and a recipient of Edutopia's 2007 Daring Dozen award for being one of twelve people "reshaping the future of education."

PRODUCER
Dave Eggers is the author of six books: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, You Shall Know Our Velocity!, How We Are Hungry, Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America's Teachers, What Is the What, and Zeitoun. He is the founder and editor of McSweeney's, a quarterly magazine and book-publishing company, and is cofounder of 826 Valencia, a nonprofit tutoring, writing, and publishing organization with locations in eight cities across the country. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, Esquire, and The Believer. In 2004 he co-taught a class at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, out of which grew the Voice of Witness series of books, designed to illuminate contemporary human crises through oral history.

CO-DIRECTOR/EDITOR
Brian McGinn has had his film work featured on ESPN's Sportscenter, Current TV, MySpace, Gawker, Defamer, Wired.com, and Wholphin. His third documentary, The Frozen City, which he created, produced, and edited, premiered at the AFI Film Festival in Dallas in 2008, and received an honorable mention at the 2009 Cleveland International Film Festival. Most recently, he worked with Emmy Award–winner Gary Hawkins on a documentary about Thelonius Monk, In My Mind. McGinn is a graduate of Duke University in Durham, NC.