A throwback to the old days of Hollywood, Saint Aire has its roots in film production built around a central team of filmmakers that work together on every project.

Christy Scott Cashman

Founding Partner
Producer/Actor/Writer

Christy was named after the main character in Catherine Marshall's book, 'Christy'. She grew up in a family with nine siblings and spent her youth living in rural settings with a menagerie of animals. Her closeness with nature has colored her work as a writer, with an edge that is earthy and sometimes bitter-sweet. Like her literary namesake, Christy approaches work and life with tenacity and passion.

Christy’s pursuit of acting and writing lead her to Los Angeles, where her foundation in film was built. She studied acting under Janet Alhanti who taught the Sandy Meisner technique. During this time, she also read scripts for a producer at Paramount which gave her insight into the anatomy of a screenplay and story in general. At the age of twenty-four she wrote, directed and produced a short film called “The Little Things”. The film went to more than forty festivals and won several awards. She then created and produced a pilot called “The Carrie White Show”. Shortly thereafter, she starred in a short film, “Night Deposit” that won the audience award at Slamdance in 2000.

This myriad of experiences showed Christy that she was interested in all aspects of film making, and lead to her forming Saint Aire Productions, her own company. Through Saint Aire, she creates, writes, options and produces projects. The “Open Book Club” was created when a conversation inspired her while hosting the PEN New England Event at her home. Several notable authors and guests engaged in a discussion that she knew was worth capturing on film. The combination of her background in film and her love for story allowed a natural segue for this project. Christy has written three more feature length scripts and her latest, “Sunny Side Up”(aka "The Love Guide"), has acheived worldwide distribution and stars Parker Posey. She continues to act and has participated in over twenty feature films. In 2007 she produced a short animation with Whoopi Goldberg in which they also did the voiceover.

Christy is on the board at Grubb Street, a literary organization in Boston, continues to work with PEN New England and is a member of the National Council to AFI.

Christy actively manages the financing, production and distribution of all Saint Aire Projects as well as steers the creative forces that comprise the Saint Aire Brand!  

Derek Estlin Purvis

Partner
Producer/Director/Writer

Derek Purvis has recently formed a partnership with fellow filmmaker Christy Cashman under the banner of her long standing company ‘Saint Aire Productions’. Their first film together, ‘THE LOVE GUIDE’ (which he also directed) has achieved worldwide distribution and will be released in the United States in Spring 2012. Derek works alongside Christy, where they oversee and manage the development, financing, production and distribution of all Saint Aire projects as well as the company’s structured financial transactions. Previously, Derek worked with Markedia Worldwide, a film finance and production company. At Markedia, Derek brought his physical production experience and expertise to bear providing strategic analysis of potential investments, quantifying in advance the effectiveness, execution and delivery of commercially viable content. He has worked in the film and television industry for nearly 20 years, highlighted by a long working relationship with Paramount Pictures where he worked in the Domestic Television Group under Tzvi Small and Bertrum Van Munster. In 2003, he founded TQM Teleproductions specializing in national broadcast DRTV campaigns. Mr. Purvis sold his majority interests in TQM to sign on as Executive Producer at Hobnox.com an upstart web based media delivery platform with $20 million in Phase one Funding.

Mary Chiochios

Trans-media Producer

Mary’s interest in multi-platform and transmedia storytelling stems from her experience in various media fields including film production, website creation, social media strategy and digital media creation. She has collaborated on several crossmedia, online and mobile projects, most recently an interactive mobile application for the 2011 International Special Olympics held in Athens, Greece. As the founder and co-owner of Chiochios Studios, a Boston-based production and post-production facility, Mary was intricately involved in the development, physical production, and post production of new media, television, feature film, and corporate projects.  Mary’s work has been broadcast on National Geographic, MTV, NECN, WGBH, and PBS. Mary’s feature film credits include: Sundance Film Festival’s Could Be Worse , Barstow 2008, Rendezvous In Samarkand and Stiffs, which was the first movie produced under the Massachusetts film tax credit law. Mary’s series credits include: The Next Big Thing, a television talk show interviewing leaders in the high tech world and Open Book Club. Her responsibilities included coordinating packaging and marketing efforts for domestic and nternational distribution. In 2008, Mary began serving as the Director of Operations for the Massachusetts Film Office where she has been instrumental in the procurement and facilitation of more than two dozen major productions shot in the Commonwealth, which brought the state over a billion dollars of direct spend.  Mary is a graduate of Boston University with a degree in Broadcasting and Film.