Filmmaking Team

Glenn Holsten, DIRECTOR

Glenn creates films about art, mental health and social justice. Recent feature length works include CITIZEN GEORGE, about the life and work of 88-year-old Quaker activist George Lakey; Jamie Wyeth and the Unflinching Eye, a portrait of the youngest Wyeth painter, who is part of family of American artists; and Hell or High Seas, a moving portrait of a U.S. Navy veteran who uses his own painful journey with PTSD to find healing for himself, and pave a smoother path for veterans returning to civil life. Holsten’s films often focus on journeys of gay Americans, including Saint of 9/11, Gay Bingo, Jim In Bold, Mothers March, and Gay Pioneers, about the pre-Stonewall protests at Independence Hall in Philadelphia for gay and lesbian civil rights. Glenn met Kiyoshi, briefly, when he was filming a scene for his documentary Mothers March at William Way LGBT Community Center with Dorothy Beam, proud mother of Joseph Beam, Black gay rights activist, writer and poet.

Chris Bartlett, PRODUCER

Chris is an American gay activist, feminist, educator, and researcher from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is the former executive director of the William Way LGBT Community Center. Chris befriended Kiyoshi Kuromiya in 1991 as a fellow member of ACT UP Philadelphia.  Kiyoshi became one his greatest mentors in community organizing, treatment advocacy, and living the good life until his death in 2000.    In 2021, Chris and Keith Brand discussed the need for a project to record Kiyoshi's fascinating life. They approached Glenn Holsten with a request to create a documentary and were thrilled when he took on the telling of Kiyoshi's rich life. Chris is currently pursuing a Masters of Library and Information Science at Queens College, CUNY in order to become a community archivist.  His work in support of Kiyoshi is in the spirit of Kiyoshi's archive and its value for new generations of community activists. 

Keith Brand, PRODUCER

Keith is currently a Professor in the Radio, Television & Film Department at Rowan University. His main area of. expertise is audio production and queer film. In 2021, Brand completed an audio documentary called Kiyoshi Kuromiya: The Wonderful Fabulous Life of a Civil Rights Zelig. Brand is a freelance audio producer and has produced work for NPR's All Things Considered.

Rob Buscher, PRODUCER

Rob Buscher is a film and media specialist, educator, curator, and published author who has held leadership positions in Asian American non-profit organizations for over a decade. As a person of mixed-race Japanese American heritage who is deeply involved in his community, Rob also has an expertise in cultural competency training, community organizing, and advocacy issues related to the Asian American & Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander (AANHPI) community. Rob serves as Director of Operations at Tsuru for Solidarity, a nonviolent, direct action project of Japanese American social justice advocates working to end immigrant detention, achieve reparations for Black Americans, and heal intergenerational trauma in the Japanese American community. Outside of his work with Tsuru, Rob holds an academic area of expertise in Japanese and AANHPI Diasporic Cinema. Since 2017 Rob has lectured at University of Pennsylvania’s Asian American Studies Program where he teaches courses on cinema and activism. He is the producer and host of Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation's thirteen-episode podcast Look Toward the Mountain, and host of PBS WHYY's six-episode television series Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders: A Philadelphia Story. Starting in 2012, Rob has been a Board Member of the Philadelphia Chapter of civil rights group Japanese American Citizens League. He previously served as Chapter President 2018-2023, and is a member of the Editorial Board of Pacific Citizen, the JACL’s national newspaper. Rob also works as a consultant for the Crystal City Pilgrimage Committee, an organization dedicated to preserving and educating about the history of wartime incarceration in South Texas. Recently he managed the production of a traveling exhibit "Crystal City: America's Last WWII Concentration Camp" that is now on tour throughout the US.

Che Gossett, PRODUCER

Che is associate director of the Center for Research in Feminist, Queer & Transgender Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. They recently published a special issue of the journal Social Text on Sylvia Wynter and the question of technology, which they co-edited with Yale University professor Tavia Nyong’o. They are the recipient of a 2024 Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for their project on Marlon Riggs, queer cinema and the aesthetics of the black radical tradition. They also host a podcast, titled FQT podcast, where they are in dialogue with artists, scholars, poets, writers, and filmmakers. Che is currently completing a biography of Kiyoshi Kuromiya.

Teresa Jaynes, PRODUCER

An artist and cultural consultant based in Philadelphia, Teresa works at the intersection of contemporary art, public history, and education. For more than two decades, she has led multidisciplinary collaborations among artists, scholars, nonprofits, cultural institutions, and community partners. Notable projects include the international printmaking festival Philagrafika 2010 and Lenapehoking~Watershed, a public art initiative that paired 20 environmental education centers with artists and community-driven cultural programming. A Pew and MacDowell Fellow, Teresa is a research artist who works with archives and special collections, exploring how historical materials can ground contemporary inquiry and open unexpected pathways for public engagement.

In 1997, Teresa interviewed Kiyoshi Kuromiya as curator of Folk Arts of Social Change, a 1998 exhibition at the Philadelphia Folklore Project that explored the intersection of folk arts and progressive political and social movements in Philadelphia.

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