Deep inthe Heart 2

Ben Masters is a filmmaker and writer specializing in wildlife and adventure stories. He is most known for directing the feature-length documentary The River and The Wall (SXSW 2019 award winner) and for producing Unbranded (Mountainfilm 2015 Audience Award winner). Masters studied wildlife biology at Texas A&M University and founded Fin and Fur Films, a production company specializing in short films featuring wildlife research, conservation, and activism. He is the author of two books published by Texas A&M University Press and has written for National Geographic and Western Horseman. His films have been distributed on Netflix, National Geographic, STARZ, PBS, and he has worked with The Wildlife Society, Borderlands Research Institute, YETI, Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation, and other great brands and NGOs. A proud Texan, Masters loves riding a good horse through new country, filming wildlife stories that haven’t been documented before, and using movies to help conserve wildlife and wild places.

Josh Winkler is an impact and film producer in Austin, Texas. Born and raised in the Texas Hill Country, Josh was shaped by his childhood spent on his family’s ranch on the Pedernales River. Moved by his own experiences in the outdoors, Josh spent time in the outdoor education space leading trips across the American West before settling back down in Austin to pursue a career in conservation documentary filmmaking.  Driven by storytelling that drives on the ground impact, Josh has shot on and produced several shorts and features as well as the HEB series Our Texas, Our Future.  He studied environmental science and philosophy at Colorado College, and was formerly the Creative Lead at Explore Ranches, on the consulting team at Mission Capital, and served as the Board Chair for Westcave Outdoor Discovery Center.

A lifelong history buff and cinephile, Sam's passion for film and storytelling took root early. After earning a BA in Film & Digital Media with a minor in History from Baylor University, he returned to his beloved hometown of Austin, TX, where he cut his teeth in live music cinematography, editing, and commercial production.  He soon gravitated toward feature documentary work, serving as Post-Production Supervisor and Assistant Editor on Keith Maitland's Dear Mr. Brody — a project that earned him a Cinema Eye Honors nomination for his motion design.

Specializing in editing, post-production workflows, and motion graphics, Sam has cut the Fin & Fur Films features Deep in the Heart, American Ocelot, The American Southwest, and Deep in the Heart II: A Texas River Story, with his work earning a nomination for Best Editing at the 2022 Jackson Wild Media Awards. In 2023, he edited and helped produced the HEB series Our Texas, Our Future for Fin & Fur Films.  His editorial work has premiered on PBS and in numerous ad campaigns, and his motion design appears in commercials and acclaimed documentaries including Dear Mr. Brody and Ben Masters' The River and the Wall.

When he's not in the edit bay, Sam can be found browsing the used bins at Waterloo Records, playing pickup basketball, or taking a night swim at Barton Springs.

Chet is an editor and post-production supervisor based in Austin, TX. His passion for the natural world started at a young age while sharing a backyard with bears, elk, and sandhill cranes in southwest Montana, where he also received his BSc in Conservation Biology & Ecology from Montana State University. Since then, he has worked in both the camera and editorial departments for landmark features and series from The BBC Natural History Unit, Fin and Fur Films, Silverback Films, and Wild Space Productions.

Ethan Hawke is a five-time Academy Award®-nominated actor, director, writer, producer and novelist. His prolific film acting credits include Dead Poets Society; Reality Bites; Gattaca; Training Day; Boyhood; the Before Trilogy; and First Reformed. In 2026, Hawke received his fifth Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of Lorenz Hart in Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon. He has also worked extensively in the theater and been nominated for the Drama Desk award as both an actor and as a director. 

Directing credits include Blaze (Sundance, Locarno FF), and the documentary feature Seymour: An Introduction (Telluride, TIFF). In 2022, Hawke directed The Last Movie Stars (SXSW, Cannes) for CNN Films and HBO Max, a six-part documentary about the lives and careers of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. His latest film Wildcat, starring Maya Hawke as the Southern Gothic author Flannery O’Connor, premiered at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival.
A best-selling author, in 2021 he released A Bright Ray of Darkness and the graphic novel Meadowlark: A Coming-of-Age Crime Story. Other written works include the novels The Hottest State and Ash Wednesday, the graphic novel Indeh, and the young adult book Rules for a Knight.


With his Under the Influence banner, Hawke Executive Produced and starred in Sterlin Harjo’s The Lowdown for FX. The AFI Award winning, hour-long, noir-comedy was renewed for a second season and will premiere this fall on FX. Other upcoming projects include The Weight (Sundance, Berlin), a throwback adventure thriller with Russell Crowe coming to theaters September 18.