Introducing Juan Carlos Montoya and Rodrigo Viaggio

ANTONIO ARRUÉ - Playing the Role of UNCLE UMBERTO

Born in the region of La Libertad, Antonio Arrué grew up next door to some of Peru's most prized cultural landmarks. He can seen in Peruvian films such as: La Manzanita de Diablo (1988), El Forastero (2002), Good bye Pachacutek (2006) and Solidad.com (2007). His Peruvian television stardom began over thirty-four years ago with series such as El Diario de Pablo Marcos and continue today on Graffiti, Ferrando de Pura Sangre, Tormenta de Pasiones and others. In addition to being a veteran of Peruvian theatre, film and television, Antonio was worked extensively in Ecuador and Colombia.

IRMA MAURY - Playing the Role of GRANDA

A native of Lima, Peru and raised during one of the country's most Tumultuous political periods, Irma Maury has been a national favorite of Peruvian television for over 25 years. Most know for her prolific work in some of Peru's most beloved telenovelas such as Los Unos y Los Otros and Los de Arriba y Los de Abajo y Nada Mas, Irma has been branching out in to the world of cinema more and more over the last ten years and con be seen in the Peruvian films: La Chicha Esta Fermentando (1983), Te Quiero (1995), La Mar Estaba Serena (2001) and Motor y Motivo (2009).

Tom Sanchez was born in Lima, Peru, and lived there until he was eight years old. By the time his family immigrated to the United States when he was eight, Tom was already dead set on making movies for a living. He first tried to jumpstart his motion picture career by borrowing his uncle’s camcorder to make a number of comedy skits with his friends in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, his uncle’s camcorder mysteriously quit working before he finished middle school and Tom, accused of breaking the expensive piece of equipment, was forced by his parents to take a sabbatical.

A graduate of the Cinematic Arts Program at the University of Southern California, Tom won the James Bridges Award for directing while at USC, in addition writing and directing a number of short films including the Spanish-language short Ventana, which won first place in the Hot Shops Film Festival, and Fix, which is currently traveling the festival circuit.

Tom has also directed several music videos, including: "Irresistible" for reggae jazz artist Nigel Williams and "Liar in Texas" for Team Love Records’ Cap Gun Coup.

La Navaja de Don Juan is Tom's feature film directorial debut.

Planning to produce his first film from scratch as a contingency plan if he didn't get into film school, Benjamin Wilkins spent the months between submitting his applications and learning if he’d gotten in reading every book on independent film production he could get his hands on. In 2003 he was accepted into the University of Southern California’s master program in Cinematic Arts.

Craving real world application of his education, Ben worked with the head of the production program at USC to create a new thesis option whereby students prepare a feature film for financing and production. This thesis option is now a permanent part of the MFA curriculum.

Ben’s producing credits include award winning short films and nationally broadcast music videos and commercials, as well as web content for the Lexus sponsored site L-Studio.

He was the first assistant director for the low-budget independent film Mr. Sadman in addition to a number short films.

Ben won the Entertainment Partners Producing Award in 2006.

Born and raised in Orange County, Julie Sifuentes Etheridge graduated Summa Cum Laude from California State University - Long Beach with a degree in Communication Studies, before accepted to the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts.

While at USC, Julie produced a number of short films and worked her way through every crew role possible on a number of commercials and feature films.

Learning the logistics of feature film producing as an assistant to Adam Herz (writer and producer of the American Pie films), Julie comes to La Navaja with the additional knowledge and contracts of having worked in the literary department at the William Morris Agency before its merger with Endeavor.

Growing up as a second generation Mexican-American, Julie was often confused as to her national and cultural identity - her father insist she wasn't Latino, but Hispanic, while her friends called her Chicano and her teachers tried to convince her she was just an American. It took years of soul searching, but Julie now clearly understands her place on a national and cultural level in relation to the colorful Latino culture and is very excited to contribute to the new wave of Latin American Cinema.

Cielo Garrido, born and raised in Peru, has produced short films, features, television programs, commercials, and educational programs in the twenty plus years of her producing career. She is the Director of Production for the production company she owns with her husband, Eduardo Cayo, 1405 Comunicaciones.

1405 Comunicaciones is an independent Peruvian production company well versed in all kinds of productions be it educational films, documentaries, commercials or feature films and offers a perfect balance of technical and production services for both national and international productions. They are responsible such Peruvian films as: Talk Show (2006), Illary -Amanece (2007), A… Jose (2007), El Camino del Inca (2009), 40 Años de Petroleo en el Peru (2009).

Last year, 1405 Comunicaciones became the first Peruvian production company to own, operate and rent out the Red One high-definition digital cinema camera, which they are providing, along with the required technical labor and support, to the production of La Navaja de Don Juan – the first Peruvian narrative feature film to be recorded on the revolutionary new camera.

Paul Seradarian caught the film bug in high school and quickly found himself moving to Los Angeles with dreams of making it big in Hollywood. But during film school at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, he caught a new bug, and began to focus his studies on sound design, learning from some of the finest practitioners in the motion picture industry such as veteran Bruckheimer Films supervising sound editor Midge Costin, and Tomlinson Holman, inventor of the THX Sound System.

Paul is part of the sound design team at Engine Room Studios.

Chanda Dancy, born and raised in Houston, Texas, began composing music at the age of twelve. Hailed as a musical prodigy, she earned three Bachelors degrees in Music in her four years at Houston Baptist University, in addition to winning the Charles Fitts Composition Competition and the HMTA Chamber Music Competition.

Winning the Pete Carpenter Fellowship in Film Scoring and the Henry Mancini award from the ASCAP foundation, she then continued her education at the University of Southern California, where she continued to win awards as she composed original music for over 30 short films.

Cesar Arroyo, a native of Lima, Peru, studied marketing and advertising in Baltimore, Maryland at the Towson Stratford Institute and worked as a freelance publicist for a number of advertising agencies before discovering his true calling as a casting director.

After working a number of years in some of the largest Peruvian casting and modeling agencies around, such as Corporacion Peruana de La Moda in Lima, he took his extensive casting experience in the television, commercial and motion picture industry and founded his own company, Perucasting.Com.