About
A mother who kisses the cheek of her child’s killer.
A victim of genocide bows in respect to the soldier who oversaw the murder of his parents and sister, as well as his own torture. An Israeli husband kisses his Palestinian wife. These are the stories of SMOOCH, a global documentary and online forgiveness initiative which profiles individuals who have found the humanity in the very persons they thought they could never forgive.
Our team of award-winning documentary filmmakers will hold free and public “Forgiveness Shoots” around the world, collecting stories on forgiveness. The resulting film represents people of all nationalities, ethnicities, genders, gender identities, and socio-economic backgrounds to create an archive that showcases our shared humanity and illuminate the power of forgiveness between two people.
Amidst these inspirational moments, stories where the choice not to forgive or struggle to forgive in the future rise to the surface, illuminating the complexity and challenge of forgiveness.
SMOOCH offers hope, healing, and reconciliation to a world in desperate need of understanding and forgiveness.
Primary Production Personnel
Dawn Mikkelson (Executive Producer/Director/Writer):
2010 McKnight Filmmaking Fellow Dawn Mikkelson’s work has been seen on PBS, OUTtv, and Free Speech TV, and has screened at numerous international festivals including the Galway Film Fleadh, 
Cambridge Film Festival, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, DocuFest Atlanta, Leipzig DOK Market, American Indian Film Festival, Planet in Focus, and Washington DC Environmental Film Festival. Mikkelson has completed four award-winning independent feature documentaries, The Red Tail, Green Green Water, THIS obedience, and Treading Water: a documentary, which illuminate larger societal issues while creating understanding through the intimate stories of individuals.
A former television news reporter at an ABC affiliate, Mikkelson often speaks and writes on issues around documentary filmmaking and social justice for MPR (Minnesota Public Radio) and MovieMaker Magazine and at festival panels, colleges, and universities. Mikkelson has taught Documentary Film as Adjunct Faculty at Ottawa University in Kansas, as well as at IFP Minnesota. In 2006 Mikkelson’s film, Hope for Recovery: Understanding Mental Illness (produced in collaboration with Twin Cities Public Television and NAMI-MN) won the Eric Sevareid Award by the Northwest Broadcast News Association (NBNA).
Matt Ehling (Director of Photography USA/Associate Producer):
Matt Ehling is a producer, cinematographer, and writer who works in both television and radio. His original documentary programs have aired on PBS, IFC, and Bravo. His St. Paul-based company, ETS Pictures, produces a variety of television and film work, including material that has been seen on Court TV, PBS, and at the Sundance Film Festival. Matt is a founding member and former board member of the Midwest Media Arts Access Center. His films include Access, a journey into the dark recess of the American psyche via the medium of cable access television, and Forbidden City, an investigation of the growth of privatized, gate-guarded communities in suburban America. He recently helped shoot Of Dolls and Murder, a documentary on dollhouse crime scene dioramas.
Adrian Danciu (Director of Photography, International Locations):
Adrian is an award-winning cameraman who started his career in Romania where he worked for Romanian Television and was involved with projects ranging from breaking news and documentary 
dramas to educational videos. His assignments took him from crowded city streets to remote regions of the Carpathian Mountains and to underwater caves of the Banat region. He is also credited in documentaries for Duna TV and Hungarian Television in Budapest, Hungary and WDR in Germany.
Upon moving to Minneapolis, MN in 1999 Adrian contributed to programs for NBC, PBS, and several production companies. He also enjoyed photographing treasure hunters for National Geographic Television in the Gulf of Mexico, flew around the world with the Travel Channel’s Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, the Caroline Rhea Show, and was Director of Photography on Mikkelson’s film, The Red Tail. He is currently in production on a story about our ancestors: The Early Humans in Europe.
Miranda Wilson (Producer)
Miranda Wilson is a producer and fundraiser with a background in radio, television, politics, and non-profit communications. Her production resume includes work for the Food Network (Outrageous Food, Good Deal with Dave Lieberman) and Sundance Channel (The Al Franken Show), and she has served as Finance Director for Keith Ellison for U.S. Congress, Deputy Finance Director for Paul Hackett for U.S. Senate, and Director of National Communications for Clean Water Action. She has also engaged in a variety of fundraising and communications projects with non-profits, including Youth to Youth International, DC Schools Project, New York Theological Seminary, Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, and Global Citizens Network.
Miranda's work has led her abroad to Cantel, Guatemala; Edinburgh, Scotland; and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in Canada. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking, reading, gardening, watching tv on the internets, and dancing to pop songs while driving in her car.
Monte Swann (2nd Camera/Grip/Intern) 
Monte Swann is a documentary story teller based in the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul MN. He is driven by an intense interest in the human experience, and enjoys the magic of an editing room almost as much as the magic of a one on one interview. “To meet people who I may not have otherwise met, whether it be in a new and exotic location or my own seemingly familiar neighborhood. Not only to meet new and interesting people and hear their stories but to be able to share these stories with others is a real gift.”
Heidi Tungseth (Grip/Intern)
Heidi Tungseth has produced and acted in her own independent films and worked on larger
productions (A Serious Man, A Prairie Home Companion, Jingle All the Way). She holds a Masters of Education in Art, BA in Philosophy and a certificate from Wheaton College’s international Human Needs and Global Resources program. In her previous teaching position she created collaborative online initiatives connecting high school Minnesotan students with South African and Palestinian students, and designed curriculum centered on her own video footage of interviews with artists in Cuba, Rwanda, South Africa, Ecuador, Thailand, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.