Karen Cardarelli’s (She/Her) impressive background in theater echoes FACETS’ lifelong educational mission. She co-founded Emerald City Theatre in 1996 and grew the organization to serve 60,000 Chicagoans on a yearly basis. During her time as the theater’s executive director, she partnered with Broadway in Chicago, KPMG, and Chicago Public Schools so she could cultivate unique, ambitious projects that amplify diverse voices, promote media literacy, and center education.

Matt Silcock (He/Him) is a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where the faculty in the film department avidly recommended FACETS as a source for obscure, independent, and international cinema. Upon moving to Chicago in 2001, Matt made FACETS one of his first stops, and ended up working in the shipping & receiving department later that year. Twenty years later, Matt is still with FACETS, now as Director of Operations.

Charles Coleman (He/Him) is FACETS Film Program Director and has more than twenty years of experience in programming. He has taught film courses at the University of Chicago and given lectures at the Chicago Public Library and the Art Institute. He is responsible for bringing to Chicago rare, one-of-a-kind screenings that range from retrospectives of acclaimed filmmakers to the most recent films by up-and-coming directors.

Paul Gonter is the Marketing Director at FACETS. They received a B.A. in Psychology and English from the University of Central Florida and an M.A. in Literature from Loyola University Chicago. Before joining the FACETS team, they helped establish and run a nonprofit pre-med study abroad program. Paul has also written for DINCA.org and in 2019 was published in Distant Future Utopias, Volume 1.

Deidre Searcy (She/Her), former Project Director at Education Development Center is a media educator and arts education expert with 20 years of experience developing in and out-of-school curriculum. She is an experienced, media artist, instructor and trainer who has designed and led project-based trainings and workshops for youth and adults. She was previously Co-Director of Street-Level Youth Media where she worked to position media arts as a catalyst for change in inner city schools.

Nick Edelberg (He/Him) has worked at FACETS since 2014, first as a projectionist and over time working his way up into the basement, where he now heads shipping and catalog fulfillment. Before coming to FACETS, he spent 16 years going to roughly 3 schools. Before that, he had a pretty good time for a while, and before that, he was born in Chicago.