Sacha Sommer’s Work on Call and Response: A Concert to End Slavery

Sacha Sommer, most well known as owner and founder of Arawak Pictures, Inc., contributed his production expertise and skills to humanitarian effort through the multimedia documentary film Call & Response: A Concert to End Slavery. As 1^st assistant director on the project, Sacha Sommer helped publicize the influence of slavery on the world today, as the public continues to be unaware of the fact that in the 21^st century, the slave trade is larger than it has been at any other point in history.

On the Staff of Call and Response, Sacha Sommer worked with well-known political and humanitarian figures like Daryl Hannah, Madeleine Albright, Ashley Judd, and Nicholas D. Kristoff. The documentary also involved a concert starring Moby, Imogen Heap, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Five for Fighting, Talib Kweli, and other stars invested in stopping the slave trade and supporting non-profit organizations. Sacha Sommer directed and produced a music video stemming from the concert, which received significant popularity and helped the get the artists’ message about stopping sex trafficking, labor slavery, and the use of child soldiers around the world.

Sacha Sommer has also been involved in other humanitarian efforts, most notably the effort to provide aid to the victims of the recent earthquake in Haiti. In fighting the effects of the destruction, Sacha Sommer has teamed up with the president of Haiti, Michelle Martelly, and Foundation Rose et Blanc to bring supplies, water, food, shelter, and medical treatment to those most affected by the destruction wrought by the earthquake. In the past, Sacha Sommer had filmed a documentary about the invasion of Hait by the United States, and in the wake of the earthquake, is directing and producing a video about the magnitude of destruction and the need for international aid, alongside Haiti’s Organization of Economic Development.

Sacha Sommer Has a Wide Range of Interests

Sacha Sommer is a producer, a director, and an artist. He has worked as a graphic designer, an actor, and as a model. Sacha Sommer’s film interests have encompassed documentaries, martial arts action comedies, and crime dramas. In short, Sacha Sommer is what you might call a jack-of-all-trades – with a wide range of experience, and an extensive catalog of interests, Sacha Sommer has experience in many fields. He was even a translator for the US military and the United Nations since he knows French and Haitian Creole fluently.

Looking only at Sacha Sommer’s film and television career, it’s easy to see how varied his interests are. Sacha Sommer has been involved in the creations of films in a wide variety of genres. He has won awards for documentaries about colonization, and has recently dipped into the reality TV business. But while his first love is film, and that is, after all, where his career lies, Sacha Sommer is also involved in a number of other fields.

Recently, and perhaps in the move most related to his film career, Sacha Sommer has become involved in photography and modeling. In Kodak’s 2008 photography ad campaign, “Middle East Meets West coat,” Sacha Sommer played the Turkish Bead Merchant and was photographed by Vava Ribiero. In 2009, Sacha Sommer was cast as the Middle Eastern Business Man in Bank of Dubai’s photographic ad campaign.

Sacha Sommer is also interested in sports. He briefly taught high school physical education in Miami in the early 2000s while on hiatus from production, and in 2010 became a certified level one archery instructor. Sacha Sommer is involved in competitive recurve archery, gracie jiu jitsu, and mixed martial arts. In the past, he has played soccer, tennis, and basketball, and has also wrestled.

In addition to film, modeling, and sports, Sacha Sommer is a reiki and crystal-healing practitioner, and is heavily involved in humanitarian efforts. Sacha Sommer was involved in the production of a 2008 concert and documentary to bring attention to slavery in the world today, and contributed his skills and resources to humanitarian aid in the wake of the 2010 Haitian earthquake. He is currently working on a documentary regarding alternative healing.

Sacha Sommer On Location

In addition to his wide-ranging production experience, Sacha Sommer also has the unique experience of having lived in a wide variety of places both in the United States and beyond, giving him a perspective on his work that transcends the boundaries of place and location.

Sacha Sommer grew up in Washington, DC, and attended the Edmund Burke School in the nation’s capital. He moved north for college, where he attended Emerson College in the early 1990s. Sacha Sommer graduated from Emerson with a degree in film and mass communications, and was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.

After college, Sacha Sommer was looking for adventure and something new. In 1995, he left the United States and moved to Haiti, where he would live until early 2001. Sacha Sommer was inspired by the history of Haiti to film a documentary called “Intervention Chronicles of Terror,” which documented the invasion and occupation of Haiti by the United States, and kickstarted Sacha Sommer’s production career in a big way by helping him found his own production company, Arawak Pictures, Inc.

In 2001, Sacha Sommer was on the move again, this time traveling to Miami, FL. He originally moved there with the intention to provide a stronger base for his business endeavors in production, but he decided to focus on providing arts education to students. Sacha Sommer taught high school art at the SMART charter school in Miami for four years, before choosing to go back into production.

Sacha Sommer moved to Los Angeles in 2006, looking to reestablish his business in an area with one of the highest concentration of entertainment industry members in the world. Here, Sacha Sommer restarted Arawak Productions, and has been working on a number of television shows since its reopening. Sacha Sommer continues to reside in Los Angeles today.

Producer Sacha Sommer: Behind the Scenes Film Entrepreneur

When many of us watch films or TV shows today, we have no idea of all of the incredible effort and leadership that goes into crafting what might be today’s most popular form of entertainment. Sacha Sommer is one of those behind the scenes wizards, using his keen eye for production to bring stories to life on the big and small screen.

While Sacha Sommer has occasionally made a foray in front of the camera, for example in 1990s films like City Dragon and Dominic’s Castle and more recently as a model for Kodak and the Bank of Dubai, his true love is working behind the camera to orchestrate the action and images that we see when we watch a movie or our favorite shows. Sacha Sommer has worked in many aspects of film – he started out as an intern, reading scripts and running errands for the on-screen stars and big name directors and musicians. Early in his career, Sacha Sommer could be found behind the camera as a cameraman, and later on in the editing room. He also has experience working for Greenpeace shooting PR material, and with Digital Underground as an editor.

Sacha Sommer quickly worked his way into the heart of the company, and more recently has fulfilled assistant directing and unit directing roles, while also working as an associate producer through his production company, Arawak Pictures, Inc.

For Sacha Sommer, the true magic of film is the way that brief cuts of actors doing their jobs are crafted into the seamless narratives that make it onto our screens. Sacha Sommer’s love of production has taken him onto the sets of all kinds of movies, ranging from crime dramas to action adventures to martial arts films to reality shows – even television commercials. One of Sacha Sommer’s favorite parts about production is putting together the pieces of a movie much like you’d put together the pieces of a puzzle, resulting in a piece of art – a marvel of both technology and vision.

Sacha Sommer’s Humanitarian Efforts

Movie producer and director Sacha Sommer is dedicated to contributing to humanitarian aid efforts around the world. Sacha Sommer has been most notably involved in such efforts in Haiti, where he lived from 1995–2001. Sacha Sommer’s interest in humanitarian relief and education about conditions in various disadvantaged places around the world began when he moved to Haiti in 1995 to film a documentary. While shooting “Intervention Chronicles of Terror,” a film about the United States’ takeover and invasion of the previously independent island nation of Haiti, Sacha Sommer became involved in efforts to restore aspects of lost culture in Haiti, and helped his neighbors find employment through establishing the country’s first casting and modeling agency.

In 2010, when Haiti was devastated by a catastrophic earthquake with its epicenter only 16 miles from the bustling city of Port-au-Prince, Sacha Sommer returned to his former home, working with the Haitian president to help the 300,000 injured and 1,000,000 homeless residents of Haiti gain access to supply and rebuild their decimated lives. Sacha Sommer filmed another Haitian documentary to publicize relief efforts and show the world the effect that the earthquake had on life in Haiti, and he donated his time and money to the relief organization, Foundation Rose et Blanc.

Sacha Sommer has also contributed to a number of other humanitarian efforts. Recently, Sacha Sommer donated his production expertise to the multimedia concert/documentary Call & Response: A Concert to End Slavery, which featured Daryl Hannah and musical artists such as Moby, Imogen Heap, Five for Fighting, Nickel Creek, and Cold War Kids. This documentary endeavored to bring attention to the fact that today, more people are enslaved around the world than ever before in human history.

In his humanitarian efforts, Sacha Sommer has employed the far reaching abilities of film to bring attention to previously disregarded, ignored, or unknown issues. He is in post-production with a documentary called "Haiti: Aftershock," chronicling the Haiti Earthquake.