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			"Top" Nic Mevoli is the self-educated vegetarian son of a butcher who's seemingly a Jack-of-all-trades. At sixteen he built his family's house with his stepfather. At eighteen he moved into a dilapidated shack deep in South Philly and got involved in the activist community there. EXIST will be the first Feature film that Nic both co-wrote and acted in. Currently living in Brooklyn, New York, he's working on several scripts and is involved in an off Broadway theater company. "Given the current circumstances, I have to do everything in my power to ensure that I won't wake up one morning to Haliburton and Exxon-Mobile serving me breakfast in bed. Although, I do quite like gas and guns, they're a little hard to eat, let alone get vegan. And today it seems like there are people more concerned with playing army than satisfying the needs of the common people. I guess it's kinda hard to conquer the heathens by frivolously spending money on things like health care and poverty."

			"John" Tunde Adebimpe is the lead singer for TV ON THE RADIO, actor, animator and musician living in Brooklyn New York. He starred in the films JORGE and JUMP TOMORROW(IFC), has animated for MTV's Celebrity Deathmatch, and directs music videos with his friends at his animation company STUDIO IODYNE. Also, he can fly and juggle small chainsaws. "As for my character in EXIST, I think that somebody probable slipped him a copy of "The Autobiography of Malcom X" at some point, and it changed him for the better. It works like that on almost everybody. I recommend giving it a read and seeing if it works on you too."

			"Jake" Ben Bartlett, actor was born in Oakland, CA. Son of a Black Panther, he was raised in a highly politicized environment. Much of his childhood was spent eluding certain authorities due to the political beliefs. Ben discovered the power of performance at an early age. He performed in revolutionary themed morality plays at community rallies. After settling in New York he studied theatre at the Carnegie Hall Studio. He then wrote and performed in numerous plays and short films. These include the one act festival at the ENSEMBLE STUDIO THEATER, the acclaimed "Collectibles" at PS 122 with Darren Henson and C.J.Hopkins' award winning "How To Entertain The Rich". Now living in Los Angeles, Ben continues to mold art and politics, with empowerment and performance. "Working with the activists in Philadelphia was a profound experience. As we workshopped this story I began to uncover the poetry in what we were doing. A sense of artistic and human purpose was reawakened within me after the entertainment industry had beaten it out of me, I kept thinking a film like EXIST could cause a few voters to take a closer look at the motivations behind the "Three Strikes" laws, or the perplexingly draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws. Maybe they will scratch their heads and say "I wonder why the heck it is that prisons get money but schools don't?"

			"Torch" Mary Christmas is a performer, writer, and social activist living in New York City. Mary was a teen actor and fashion model who left the business and her home at age 15 to travel with a group of queer punks and anti-racist skinheads, and she has periodically lived in squats since then. She was involved in Chicago's mid-90's Homocore scene while playing in NO WAVE bands. Mary has organized for a variety of social justice causes, including sex worker's rights groups, the STREET HARASSMENT PROJECT, WOMEN'S ACTION COALITION, labor unions, reproductive rights organizations, and the current anti-globalization movement. As a member of the feminist performance network RADICAL CHEERLEADERS, she was interviewed for newspapers internationally as well as for SPIN, VENUS, MS., BUST, and the books CHEELEADER! AN AMERICAN ICON, PEOPS, and WACKY CHICKS. "I was living in Philly temporarily when the film crew came to town. They put up a casting call flyer on the door of the collective house/squat I was living at, and we (two of my then-roommates, April and Spam) decided to go. The process of auditioning seemed laid back and real. If it hadn't been for this unusual casting format, I wouldn't have been in the movie. I was not an actor, didn't have a monologue or headshots, and wouldn't have been looking through the papers for something like this to happen. Esther came to us, literally right to our door, and in hindsight that was a really smart move for the kind of film she was trying to make. If my fear of misrepresenting the world of radical politics was strong, then the desire to see our world represented at all was stronger. I stayed with the film because I realized that Esther was a driven and committed film industry person who would try to get these ideas out way past the small underground from which they stem. How often do you get a chance to do that? But sometimes while shooting I felt like I was living in a house of mirrors. Were we acting or just living on camera? Things happened like moments in my real life. For example, the eviction scene - none of us were prepared for how freaky and real those cops were going to look! ...The fear you see in that scene- well, I hope it doesn't look embarrassingly overacted, because it's all just the real demons having a chance to pour out."

			"Sarah" Shira Zimbeck has just completed "Smash the Kitty," her first trip into writing and producing. "Smash" has already won some festivals and found distribution with Atom Films. Other acting credits include "Focus Room, "Haunted Happenin"," "Mr. Citsalp," "Meat" and "Smash the Kitty." Shira can also be seen on Television in "The Sopranos," "Welcome to New York" and "Celebrity Deathmatch" as the voice of Katie Holmes.

			"Iji" Maya Alexander is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School Of the Arts Experimental Theatre Wing. She has worked with director Rene Migliaccio on the Bakkhai where she played an incarnation of Dionysus. Maya can be seen playing a figment of the imagination in director Ed Bowes "Picture Book." Most recently Maya has worked on the independent short "An Ominous Night" and an indie feature "The Brothers Gonna Work it Out". Currently Maya is going into rehearsal for the leading role in an indie feature as well as taking ongoing classes at Black Nexxus Studios. "Originally I was attracted to this project because the idea that a young person could be so passionate about anything political excited me. I feel that sometimes our generation has become apathetic since there is so much instant gratification. We rarely have to work or fight for something that we believe in. So again, the idea that a young person would leave their family for something that they politically believed in was great. I played a character, Iji, that was really the opposite of me. She was totally conservative and on a "conventional career path", afraid to express any thoughts that went against the family. I would say that Iji is a repressed woman. It's not a bad thing, it is just who she is. Since the script for the scenes was generally outlined we had the opportunity to improvise."

			"Prison Art Curator" Wendy Buss

			"Top's Activist Roommates" Chris White & April Rosenblum

			Director of Photography Photographer Tracey Gudwin of New York is currently shooting a show for MTV, her work can be seen through music videos, documentaries, shorts and two Feature Films. Music Video credits include; JAY-Z, THE RAPTURE, WU-TANG. Commercials; Budweiser and Jaguar. Previous shorts have been shown at the Mexico City Film Fest and NY Underground. EXIST is her first collaboration with Esther Bell.

			Editor Yas Rowan is a native New Yorker. Born in queens and raised in the lower east side of Manhattan. Yas studied both German and film at University of Massachusetts at Amherst where he worked with professor Barton Byg to help restore the DEFA film collection (East German films of the fifties, sixties and seventies). After graduating he worked as writer producer. Producing spots for such channels as HBO, CINEMAX, and COURT TV. Yas talks about what attracted him to the EXIST project: "It was an enticing challenge. A chance to work with filmmaker who's goal is to inspire. A film that is centered around its characters as opposed to being solely plot driven, and because most of the actors are in reality squatters and protestors the project possesses an authenticity not often found in the narrative film."