CineSapiens Media is a collaborative content production company founded by Meri Haitkin, Danielle Franco and Liz Hodes.
We have long admired each others’ work and talent.
We have wanted to work as a trio on something for a long time as like-minded friends and creative producers.
Our backgrounds collectively include hundreds of hours of content for platforms including Hulu, Max, AMC, Vice, Bravo, Participant Media, FX, A&E, MTV, VH1 as well as varied digital media and feature films.
Our storytelling approach is a mix of character-driven, humanistic, nuanced, quirky, comical, informational, emotional and journalistic.
Meri Haitkin has years of hands-on, character-driven storytelling experience and has embedded in the worlds of fashion, farming, pro-wrestling, high school competitive science, haute cuisine and many more worlds to tell relatable stories. Meri is an Emmy-nominated producer, director, and writer of a diverse lineup of nonfiction content. Some of Meri’s favorite projects include competition shows like Project Runway and Emmy-Winning Top Chef; documentaries like It Started As A Joke, American Portrait, 30 Days: Muslims in America, James Cameron’s The Story of Science Fiction and a documentary on the iconic film Airplane!; quirky reality comedies like The Salt-n-Pepa Show, and talk shows like the Webby-winning The After Show with Christian Siriano.
Liz Hodes is an Emmy-winning documentary television and film producer. Over the past 15 years, Liz has produced content for major networks including HBO, Showtime, Netflix, Hulu and FX. Liz began her career working in production management and logistics for television shows, including: This American Life and Frontline. Liz then realized that her true passion was not filling out expense reports, but rather telling deeply human stories that make us consider and question the world around us. So, Liz transitioned into a creative role as a Producer, working on television series and feature films; including, The New York Times Presents: Framing Britney Spears, Malfunction: The Dressing Down of Janet Jackson, The Vow, and The Circus.
Danielle Franco’s foray into the documentary world began when she directed an independent film about an amateur competitive eater embarking on a gustatory journey into the professional eating circuit. Crazy Legs Conti: Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating won hearts and upset stomachs at esteemed festivals like Tribeca, Los Angeles, and SilverDocs Film Festivals. Since then she has produced and directed projects about all types of subjects and across many genre, including: stylized and provocative series like Slutever; observational episodes of True Life; investigative journalism like Vice on Showtime and the award winning Bad Goods; celebrity reality like Cyndi Lauper: Still So Unusual, as well as a documentary series and a documentary film premiering later this year on Max. When she’s not working, Dani hangs out with her 7-year-old son whose mastery of computers frighteningly outpaces his parents who are still in Beta testing.