BIOGRAPHIES

Andrei Jewell Creator/Writer/Director
Website – andreijewell.com
The creator behind The Holiwater Project, Andrei has a long history with filming and photographing indigenous cultures of North India and in particularly those of the Tibetan Himalayas where he spent a period over 4 years living and studying Indian and Tibetan philosophy and customs.

Starting his career as a photographer, videographer and multimedia creative in 1981, Andrei has won numerous awards internationally, honing his skills in the rigorous worlds of documentary and advertising photography respectively. In the last five years this has expanded into a reputation as an innovative director of music videos and television commercials, which are strongly influenced by his history both as a documentary and sought-after fashion and advertising photographer.

HOLIWATER is the first feature length docu-film for Andrei, which combines his skills as an ethnological documentary photographer/ film maker with that of a music video director focused around an innovative entertainment / cultural / environmental film project. Forming an alliance with Tom Bailey and a group of rising kiwi Hip Hop artists a protest music video against genetic engineered food in NZ was made, called “Public Service Announcement” it was released nationally by Sony Music. The music video work has since been curated into the Te Papa Museum, New Zealand’s premier art and culture Institution.

Andrei has also done collaborative work with other project member James Pinker and his partner Lisa Reihana with the video installation work “Fantastic Egg” which has screened at the 2002 Asia Pacific Triennial in Brisbane and the Australian Centre for Photography. Andrei has recently been voted into the prestigious Archive Magazine World Top 200 Ad Photographers. He also been honoured with the Indian Avantika National Humanity Award for services to Culture and Environment.

Tom Bailey – Executive Music Producer
Born out of the seething post punk era The Thompson Twins was Tom’s attempt to take a ragbag hybrid of experimental ideas and pop attitude to a commercially oriented audience. They stormed the world’s charts with 80s classics like ‘Hold Me Now’ and ‘Doctor Doctor’.As with any such commercial success, despite their relatively brief reign of chart-topping terror, the Thompson Twins are still the most visible part of Tom’s varied and vibrant artistic odyssey. Tom’s early interest in dub, however, is attested to by the inclusion of his contribution to works by Lee Scratch Perry, Grace Jones and Sly & Robbie, while his post-Thompson Twins work has included numerous production and composition credits (including Blondie’s Debbie Harry, Ben E King, Foreigner! And Underworld). Tom’s musical contribution to a cause is most notable with his performance fronting The Thompson Twins vocally backed by Madonna in the massive LIVE AID event broadcast to over a billion people worldwide from Philidelphia in 1984.

Tom has produced two albums by Kiwi group Stellar* and worked on various film soundtracks as well as sound for video installations. Tom is currently also a dub producer as “International Observer” an Electronic Dub duo, based out of New Zealand, which has recently been gaining international acclaim for their debut album Seen, which entered the top ten in the “Big Chill” selection of 50 best albums of the year and has 2 tracks included in Richard Dorfmeister’s compilation of Dub for label Different Drummer. Tom has recent prominent involvement in the GE Free movement in New Zealand with a call to halt the release of genetically modified organisms into New Zealand soil.

Nicolas Yazgi - Co-producer / writer / anthroplogist
Nicolas Yazgi is a freelance Swiss writer, scholar and creative agent. Initially trained as an anthropologist, Nicolas is a specialist of India. and was a professional scholar / museum professional until 2006. He has been a lecturer at the Universities of Heidelberg and Neuchâtel, and has had his work published by houses such as Oxford University Press, MIT Press and Sage.

Nicolas also worked as a (co)curator / invited artist on more than 25 exhibitions / patrimonial sites worldwide and been active within different other spheres of museum work (event design, as advisor, collecting objects, etc.). He currently collaborates with American artist Elise Goldstein on a long term project addressing the politics of institutional dispossession of body control.

As a playwright, Nicolas is the resident writer / dramaturgist for the company Pied de Biche. Lausanne since 2006. His popular plays receive the support of the major funding Swiss agencies and state grants as well as several private foundations. He is also active as an essayist, guest-columnist and public speaker.

Since 2005 Nicolas has run a freelance practice from where he offers his creative, research and project design/management skills. He is active in several different branches, such as the cultural sector, higher education and industry, through advertising (conception, screenwriting, storytelling), creative marketing and product development. He also designs perfume names for prestige fragrances, notably for the Italian brand BVLGARI.

Nicolas has collaboratively set up relief and/or development projects in Bosnia & Croatia (1990-1993), India (1996-2006), Afghanistan (2008- ) and rural Switzerland (2011- ), which have been supported by NGO’s, governments, international organizations with most importantly the people concerned being joint collaborators in all these participative projects.

Vikash Maharaj – Sarod Maestro
Vikash comes from a family who has a very long line of musicians dating back over 500 years. His family name as suggests pays homage to a line of court musicians who played for generations of visiting nobility to Banaras.

Trained from a very young age by his father, Vikash has carried the tradition of classical music forward by training his 4 sons in various classical instruments. Prabash, his son is a highly awarded tabla player and accompanies Vikash in a unique and dazzling manner.Vikash’s ambition is to popularise the classical music of North India to the world through his Sarod. His history is impressive having performed over the last 20 years with renowned artists such as Herbie Hancock, Bootsy Collins, John Handy, Paul Horn and John McLaughlin amongst others during his numerous tours in Europe and the US.His style contains a strong classical background yet brings an innovative and fresh resonance to this delicate instrument once only heard in the courts of Indian nobility.

Vikash is a master of the Sarod in every sense and also holds a high standing in his community as a Trustee, serving on multiple boards for the preservation of Indian classical music as well as those dealing with Human Rights and the Environment.

James Pinker – Associate Music Producer
James is a highly experienced producer, percussionist and sound engineer. His work as a percussionist has led him into stints with bands such as The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Pogues, Dead Can Dance and two albums with Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn and Michael Brook on Peter Gabriel’s Realworld label. Further production includes work with Michael Brook on film scores for Kevin Spacey’s film Albino Alligator as well as the Imax film The Fires of Kuwait. Current work finds him collaborating with HOLIWATER’S director Andrei Jewell and iconic international Maori artist Lisa Reihana on video installation work.