Documentary Director R.J. Cutler Expands His Development and Production Team
By Addie Morfoot
Variety
April 18, 2022
This Machine, the production company founded by veteran documentary director and producer R.J. Cutler, has bolstered its development and production team with four new hires.
Cutler, the Emmy Award-winning director behind docus including “The September Issue,” “Belushi” and most recently with “Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry,” launched This Machine in 2020 with an investment from Los Angeles-based Industrial Media.
Cutler has named Sally Rosen Phillips as vice president, creative; Qadriyyah Shamsid-Deen as director, creative; Jim Czarnecki, senior vice president, production, and Ian Egos, vice president. The four new hires bring This Machine’s employee headcount to 20. Rosen Phillips, Shamsid-Deen, Czarnecki and Egos join senior executives Elise Pearlstein, Trevor Smith, Margaret Yen and Katie Doering.
“I’m thrilled to welcome Sally, Qadriyyah, Jim and Ian — four truly creative and passionate individuals — to our rapidly growing team at This Machine,” says Cutler, who served as a producer on Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker’s seminal 1993 documentary “The War Room.” “Their talent, skills and interests perfectly complement our mission to tell compelling non-fiction stories that explore the times in which we live.”
Rosen Phillips, an Emmy-Award winning news journalist, began working in non-scripted programming and development in 2016 at MG Original Content, where she helped produce and create distribution strategies around its podcast division and helped to develop “The Innocence Files” for Netflix. In 2018, she joined Endeavor Content’s nonfiction studio, where she helped oversee the development and production of the slate and developed two projects for Netflix’ — “Giving Voice” and HBO’s “Siempre, Luis.” Most recently, Rosen Phillips worked as a senior producer and executive for Peter Berg’s non-scripted production company Film45, where she served as a producer on Netflix’s “Naomi Osaka” series, an executive producer on Amazon’s “Chivas: El Rebaño Segrado” and as a producer on an upcoming documentary directed by Rick Rubin.
Shamsid-Deen previously served as an executive at Higher Ground Productions, former president Barack Obama and Michelle Obama’s production company for Netflix, where she produced the hybrid children’s food and travel show “Waffles and Mochi.” She also produced the “Home” docuseries for Apple TV Plus. Shamsid-Deen also previously served as the program director at Ryan Murphy’s Television’s Half Initiative, where she worked to make Hollywood more inclusive by creating equal opportunities for women and minorities behind the camera.
Both Rosen Phillips and Shamsid-Deen will report to executive VP Elise Pearlstein.
Czarnecki, an Emmy-Award winning producer, previously served as executive producer and head of production at Vice Media for six years, working on Vice.com, the creation of Vice News and “Vice On HBO.” At Vice Studios, his projects included Jonas Akerlund’s “Lords of Chaos,” Harmony Korine’s “The Beach Bum” and Rick Alverson’s “The Mountain.” Czarnecki was also an executive producer on Chris Smith’s documentary “Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond.”
Egos is a post-production specialist, project manager, and events producer who has delivered more than 500 hours of programming for distributors including Netflix, National Geographic and the Discovery Channel. Egos previously served as the senior director of post-production at Matador Content, where she post-produced projects including Cutler’s “Dear…” docuseries for Apple TV Plus and “Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry.”
Both Czarnecki and Egos will report to Trevor Smith, Cutler’s longtime producing partner and This Machine executive VP.