Team
In his 27 years producing for FRONTLINE, Martin Smith has covered the world: from revolution in Central America and the fall of communism in Russia, to the rise of Al Qaeda and the war in Iraq. Smith was among the first journalists to investigate Col. Oliver North's clandestine network and one of the first western reporters to investigate the emergence of Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda network.
In 1998, Smith founded RAINmedia, an independent production company in New York city. Since founding Rain, Smith has produced and reported dozens of hours for FRONTLINE, including: Hunting bin Laden (1999); the four-hour series Drug Wars (2000); and two documentaries looking at the roots of 9/11 -- Looking for Answers (2001) and Saudi Time Bomb? (2001). Smith's reporting after 9-11 garnered him an Alferd I. Dupont Gold Baton, one of the highest honors in broadcast journalism.
After the invasion of Iraq, Smith produced four films for FRONTLINE including: Gangs of Iraq (2007), Private Warriors (2005), Beyond Baghdad (2004) and Truth, War and Consequences (2003). The latter won the Alfred I. Dupont Silver Baton.
Smith has also covered the conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan for FRONTLINE, producing the award winning trilogy, In Search of Al Qaeda (2002), in which he followed in the footsteps of Al Qaeda after the battle of Tora Bora, Return of the Taliban (2006), where reported from the forbidden tribal areas of western Pakistan, and Obama's War (2009), a film on the difficulty of implementing a counter insurgency strategy in Afghanistan.
He has also reported the recent natural disasters in New Orleans and Haiti. In 2005 he produced The Storm , an Emmy Award-winning look at Hurricane Katrina and the state of America's emergency response system; and in 2010, The Quake , a powerful report on Haiti's tragedy.
Smith is considered one of the most prolific producers with FRONTLINE. Apart from foreign reporting, he has produced three business films including Dot Con (2002), about the rise and fall of the internet economy; Heat (2008), about business and climate change; and The Madoff Affair, an investigation into the world's first global Ponzi scheme, which won an Emmy for Outstanding Documentary on a Business Topic, a Writer's Guild Award, and a George Foster Peabody Award.
Smith's work for FRONTLINE has taken him to Afghanistan, China, Comoros, Colombia, Germany, Haiti, India, Iraq, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and Yemen.
Smith has won every major award in television including two duPont Columbia Gold Batons, two George Foster Peabody Awards, and five Emmys. He's also been a three-time recipient of the George Polk Award for Investigative Journalism and a five-time winner of the Writer's Guild Award. Smith is a member of the Overseas Press Club and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Marcela Gaviria is a journalist and documentary filmmaker with RAINmedia in New York City. Over the last 10 years she has produced 20 documentaries for PBS FRONTLINE, including five films on post-war Iraq and four hours on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Gaviria's work for FRONTLINE has taken her to Afghanistan, Colombia, Haiti, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, the Palestinian Territories, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, and Venezuela.
Over the last decade, Gaviria has earned every major award in broadcast journalism, including, most recently, the 2010 Overseas Press Club's Edward R. Murrow Award for Obama's War and a 2010 George Foster Peabody Award for The Madoff Affair . The Madoff Affair also garnered the 2009 Emmy for Outstanding Documentary on a Business Topic and a 2009 Writer's Guild Award.
Gaviria first came to FRONTLINE in 1994, working with renowned producer William Cran on The Godfather of Cocaine, a film about the drug baron Pablo Escobar . She stayed on in her native Colombia and continued to field produce scores of documentaries for PBS, BBC and the Discovery Channel. In 1997, Gaviria set up the first natural history filmmaking unit in Latin America thanks to a grant from the MacArthur Foundation.
In 1999, Gaviria returned to FRONTLINE to work on the four-part series, Drug Wars . That began a 10-year collaboration with veteran FRONTLINE producer/correspondent, Martin Smith. Together they produced The Quake (2010); Obama's War (2009); The Madoff Affair (2009); Gangs of Iraq (2007); The Storm (2005); Private Warriors (2005); The Choice (2004); Beyond Baghdad (2004); Truth, War and Consequences (2003); Kim's Nuclear Gamble (2002); In Search of Al Qaeda (2002); Looking for Answers (2001); Saudi Time Bomb? (2001); and Medicating Kids (2000).
Those films also received numerous honors including, a duPont-Columbia Gold and Silver Baton, a Peabody, two Emmy's, and multiple Writer's Guild Awards.
Independently, Gaviria has also produced other films for FRONTLINE, including, The War Briefing (2008); The Medicated Child (2008); and two FRONTLINE/Worlds, Inside Hamas (2006) and Iraq: Reporting the War (2005). The War Briefing won the 2009 Emmy for Best Cinematography and an Edward R. Murrow Citation at the Overseas Press Club. The Medicated Child won a Prism Award and a Writer's Guild nomination.
In 2008, Gaviria was awarded the Peter S. McGhee Fellowship award from WGBH, which honors an individual whose work reflects excellence, intelligence, fairness, passion and scholarship.
Gaviria was born in Bogota, Colombia, and obtained her BA from Brown University and her MA from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. She lives in New York City.
Chris Durrance joined RAIN media in 2001. He has worked on thirteen FRONTLINE documentaries since then, most recently as a co-producer on "The Madoff Affair." Other productions include "Heat," on the challenge of climate change, "Return of the Taliban," about the tribal areas of Pakistan,"House of Saud," a history of US-Saudi relations, a dual biography of President Bush and Senator Kerry, called "The Choice 2004," and "Truth, War and Consequences," a report on the decision to go to war in Iraq.
He recently started production on a film about higher education in the US for broadcast on FRONTLINE in Spring 2010.
Chris moved to New York in 1999 and worked at an animation studio and web design company after a career in foreign and economic policy-making in London and Brussels.
He has a Masters degree in economics from London University and a BA in languages from Cambridge University, England. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and three children.
Gwen Schroeder interned for RAIN media in the fall of 2008 and returned in 2009 to work as Associate Producer. She recently completed a Masters degree in humanitarian assistance from University College Dublin, in partnership with the Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict in Bochum, German, and Columbia University.
In 2003, Gwen moved to New York City, where she began her career with various television shows, including Late Show with David Letterman. She then moved into feature film production, where she worked as a Production Coordinator for feature films from major studios. During her graduate internship period, Gwen also worked for the William J. Clinton Foundation.
Gwen was born in Brazil, but raised primarily in Texas, where she received undergraduate degrees in Radio/TV/Film and Finance.
