A Hidden Star Filmmakers
A Hidden Star began as a way to work through the impossible loss of our dear friend Allison Wilke Gryphon.
MARY ELIZABETH GENTLE
Director/Producer/Editor
Mary Elizabeth has spent the past 20+ years working in the entertainment industry on a number of films on both the filmmaker side and as an Executive at a major Studio. Her affinity for storytelling has led her to write several feature screenplays, and produce the feature length documentary What the F@#- is Cancer and Why Does Everybody Have It?. Mary Elizabeth is currently working on her first Novel.
ALIA TARRAF
Director/Producer
As a diverse filmmaker, Alia has been featured on MTV and in Glamour magazine and has been working in production at a major Studio for the last 10 years. She was also a producer on the feature length documentary What the F@#- is Cancer and Why Does Everybody Have It? and has written and performed for the CBS Multicultural Comedy Showcase, The New York Arab American Comedy Festival and The Middle Eastern Comedy festival.
Dr. Staci Emerson
Writer/Producer
Harvard-educated clinical psychologist, Dr. Staci Emerson, Ph.D., unwittingly became a death midwife over 17 years ago when a beloved patient’s breast cancer returned and the question of whether to accompany her to the door of death became an unexpected life-changing choice. Staci has been helping people and their loved ones process the death experience and live with resilience, exuberance, and love ever since. She’s also an outspoken supporter of women’s empowerment, inclusion and fairness.
Dr. Emerson has served as a psychological consultant for numerous companies (The Walt Disney Company, Netflix, CBS), hospitals (Cedars-Sinai), schools (David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, USC, LAUSD), and non-profits (PBS).
Dr. Emerson has also worked with hundreds of world-class athletes, executives and filmmakers, in exploring what it means to create projects that dive deep into the human experience.