The Film
From Emmy Award-winning filmmakers Jon Siskel and Greg Jacobs, The Here Now Project is a climate film unlike any other, chronicling a year of climate extremes through the eyes—and cameras—of everyday people around the world. Built out of thousands of hours of in-the-moment footage—no narration, no talking heads—the film puts the story of climate change back into the hands of the people experiencing it. The result: a movie that’s immersive, visceral, and most of all, deeply human, an urgent and riveting reminder that climate change isn’t a distant future threat, it’s happening right now, in every community. Through the universal language of cell phones and social video, The Here Now Project takes what can seem like a problem of unfathomable scale—the borderless, interconnected, ever-accelerating nature of climate change itself—and captures it in a way that we all can relate to.
THE Team
GREG JACOBS AND JON SISKEL
Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel are the founders of Siskel/Jacobs Productions, a Chicago-based documentary production company specializing in films that tackle vital stories with integrity, complexity, and emotion. Their first documentary, the landmark History Channel special 102 Minutes That Changed America, won three Primetime Emmys, was named the Best Nonfiction TV Episode of the year by iTunes, and has since been broadcast in over 150 countries. Their next film, Louder Than a Bomb, won seventeen festival awards and finished with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, before premiering on the Oprah Winfrey Network. After winning a News and Documentary Emmy for their National Geographic Channel special Witness: Katrina, Greg and Jon served as the U.S. Executive Producers of 1916: The Irish Rebellion, an award-winning public television series that aired around the globe. They then co-directed the 2018 feature documentary No Small Matter, which moved the needle on the issue of early childhood education in the U.S. through nearly two thousand screenings and an ambitious impact campaign. Their 2020 film, The Road Up, premiered at the Chicago International Film Festival, winning the Audience Award for Best Documentary. Jon is a 2023 Meier Achievement Award recipient and the Producer/Director of Memorial, a documentary short about the July 4, 2022 mass shooting in his hometown of Highland Park, Illinois. Greg is a 2016-2017 New America Fellow and the author of Getting Around Brown, a history of school desegregation in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.
Co-Directors/Co-Producers
WENDY ABRAMS
Wendy Abrams is the founder and CEO of the Eleven Eleven Foundation, devoted to sustainability, education, healthcare and social justice. In 2019, Abrams was honored by RFK Human Rights as a Ripple of Hope Award Laureate for her activism. Abrams is a founding partner of The Earthshot Prize, in partnership with the Royal Foundation. Abrams has used public art as a platform for activism; she curated the “Invisible Words” exhibition to amplify the voices of the homeless, and in 2006, Abrams established Cool Globes, Inc., a nonprofit promoting climate change awareness.
Executive ProducerJOHN FARBROTHER, ACE
John Farbrother co-edited the Academy Award-nominated and Emmy-winning PBS Frontline documentary Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, directed by Steve James. He also edited the MTV Documentary Films feature Finding Yingying, directed by Jiayan “Jenny” Shi, which won the 2020 Documentary Special Jury Prize for Breakthrough Voice at South by Southwest; Hidden Letters, which premiered the Tribeca Film Festival and aired on Independent Lens; Surf Nation, which premiered at Mountainfilm; the Peabody Award-winning One with the Whale, which aired on Independent Lens; and The Dating Game, which premiered at Sundance in 2025. A frequent collaborator with Siskel/Jacobs Productions, John edited Louder Than a Bomb and The Road Up, and co-edited No Small Matter with Miranda Yousef.
EditorKATERINA SIMIC
Katerina Simic’s work has been seen on PBS, CNN, History, A&E, the National Geographic Channel, and at various film festivals, including Sundance and Tribeca. Katerina edited Siskel/Jacobs Productions’ National Geographic Channel special Witness: Katrina, which won the 2011 News and Documentary Emmy for Historical Programming. Since then, she has collaborated with Kartemquin Films on a number of projects, including Steve James’ acclaimed City So Real, Raj Patel and Zak Piper’s The Ants and the Grasshopper, and Maria Finitzio’s In the Game.
EditorKUBILAY UNER
Kubilay Uner makes adventurous, eclectic, colorful music for media ranging from film and television to concerts and records. Credits include his SCL Award-nominated score for the Al Pacino historical drama American Traitor: The Trial of Axis Sally; the 90s throwback action film Force of Nature starring Mel Gibson; the Lionsgate Western Gone Are the Days starring Lance Henriksen, Tom Berenger and Danny Trejo; as well as Big Sur, based on Jack Kerouac's novel; plus a genuine Wyld Stallyns track for Bill & Ted Face the Music, record productions for soul legend Bobby Womack, music for the Busch Gardens theme park ride Corkscrew Hill, and music for a video art installation in the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Kubi has served as the director of the Music Composition for the Screen MFA program at Columbia College Chicago, named the world’s leading program of its kind by The Hollywood Reporter in 2022 and 2023.
ComposerSAROFSKY
Sarofsky is a one-stop cross-media production company, specializing in creating high-end, premium storytelling content for brands and for the entertainment industry. Sarofsky is well-known for their title sequences for Apple, Netflix, Amazon, and Marvel Studios, as well as several documentary films. Sarofsky is based in Chicago's West Loop neighborhood.
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