Board of Directors
Note: Our board of directors do not judge films in the Roy Dean Grant.
We have filmmakers who make a living in the film industry judge our grants . Some of these judges have been donating their time to us for over 15 years. We’re very proud of the films they’ve chosen . We believe that film makers should be judging other film makers. They’re the only ones who understand the difficulty involved in raising the funds and making films.
Carole Dean, President
Carole Dean is the founder and force behind From the Heart Productions. She created the short-end film business in 1970 which helped spawn the independent film revolution by giving filmmakers affordable film stock. In the 1980s, she produced 120 Health Styles Shows that were sold to Oasis Cable and 30 Filmmaker shows, now in the National Archives.
After seeing how difficult it was for filmmakers to raise money for important works, she created the Roy W. Dean film grants in 1992 in honor of her father. The grant has given over two million dollars in donations to date. She is Executive Producer on Women Behind the Camera; BAM 6.6; American Chain Gang; Step Away From the Stone, See IMDB for more credits. She is the author of The Art of Funding: Alternative Financing Concepts, and The Art of Manifesting: Creating Your Future, which describe financial resources and tools for filmmakers. She also teaches these financing methods in her Intentional Filmmaking Class.
Her new eBook and PowerPoint program is How to Fund Your Film: What I Learned Helping Filmmakers Raise over $30 million dollars.
Click here to read Carole Dean’s Full Bio.
Carole Joyce – Vice President, Director of the Roy W. Dean Grants
Carole Joyce is an award-winning film and television producer, documentary filmmaker, and nonprofit executive with more than thirty years of leadership in independent film. She serves as Vice President and Director of the Roy W. Dean Grants at From the Heart Productions, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit she has helped steward since its earliest years, and as Chief Executive Officer of Authentic Vision Consulting, Inc.
A graduate of the Brooks Institute of Photography, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts with honors, Ms. Joyce launched her career as a student documentarian with the award-winning film Survivors. She is the granddaughter of Roy W. Dean, the producer whose legacy is preserved in the grant program she now directs.
As a television producer, Ms. Joyce has overseen production of more than 150 cable programs, including the series Healthstyles, which featured guests such as Deepak Chopra and Dr. Andrew Weil, and Filmmakers, now preserved in the National Archives. Earlier in her career, she developed projects at the Garamella/Fitzgerald Advertising Agency for then-emerging directors David Fincher, Mark Romanek, and Jessie Dylan, pilot series for Joy Behar and Rita Rudner, and collaborated with Haim Saban and former Fox president Edgar J. Scherick. She subsequently served as Vice President of Studio Film & and; Tape, with annual sales in excess of ten million dollars.
Her recent producing credits include the documentary Living UN DONE (2024), recipient of two 2026 Gold Telly Awards — for Documentary Film and Social Impact Film — as well as the Grand Jury Award at the Ethos Film Festival and Best Short Documentary at the Paris Film Festival. She is Executive Producer of the award-winning short Stairway to the Stars (2021), starring Sean Young and Quinton Aaron.
Through the Roy W. Dean Grant program, Ms. Joyce reviews hundreds of applications annually. Two named programs at From the Heart Productions bear her name: the Carole Dorothy Joyce Grant for Student Filmmakers and the Carole Joyce Award for Excellence in Documentary Storytelling. She co-instructs FTHP’s Learn Producing class and serves as a director to the Authentic Global Film Festival and a Judge for the Ethos Film Festival.
Margarita Sweet
Margarita Sweet is a writer and entrepreneur who loves the art and business of production. She believes without effective production a project idea remains just that “a project idea”. With this understanding, her creative vision and knowledge she plays a role in producing innovative projects. She believes in the power of the filmmaker to become more than a story teller; but, an entrepreneur. Along with being an active board member, she is creator and owner of Visit My Child and the Exhibits Manager for the Creative Talent Network Expo (CTNx) and serves as a founding board member of Chocolate Chix. She has worked on a variety of published works as a story consultant helping authors complete their works on time and on budget. Margarita believes the art of film and storytelling have the ability to create culture. It is this belief that inspires her to be an active part of From The Heart.
Richard Kaufman
Richard developed his love of films as the son of screenwriter Robert Kaufman, who wrote “Love at First Bite” and “Freebie and the Bean”. He considered following in his father’s footsteps, but he met Carole Joyce and began a career of selling motion picture film to independent productions. First, for Carole Dean’s Studio Film & Tape and then for Media Distributors.
Now, as a Senior Account Executive with Filmtools, Richard assists independent filmmakers, commercial producers, and content creators with hard drives, SSD’s as well as cameras, lighting, and expendables.
