Matthew Westfall

Matthew Westfall has devoted much of his professional career to the international development arena. Matthew is also an award-winning writer, producer and director of film and video productions that address some of the most intractable issues in our increasingly urban world: megacities, slums and managing the urban environment. His films, garnering an array of festival awards and featuring celebrity narrators such as Malcolm McDowell, Willem Dafoe and F. Murray Abraham, have been broadcast worldwide. He has produced public service announcements, featuring the music of Enya, which aired globally on CNN and Bloomberg. As an urban planner and a keen advocate of change, Matthew has written and produced flagship publications on the urban sector. Matthew's independent documentaries have been showcased at the Hawaii International Film Festival, New York's Museum of Modern Art, and at scores of festivals across the US, Europe and Asia. For his documentary On Borrowed Land, executive produced by Oliver Stone and funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Matthew received the prestigious Paul Davidoff National Award for Advocacy Planning from the American Planning Association in 1991. A graduate of the University of Colorado-Boulder (Environmental Design) and the University of Southern California (Urban and Regional Planning), Matthew began his career in international development with the Peace Corps. Born in New York City and raised in Brookline, Massachusetts, Matthew currently resides in the Philippines with his wife Laurie, three daughters and their ever-loyal French bulldog, Magnum. Matthew spends his free time reading, writing and collecting as a means to explore the fascinating history of his adopted country. The Devil's Causeway is his first work of narrative nonfiction.