The Caldera was filmed over several years in and around the McDermitt Caldera. The film was made in collaboration with community members, cultural advisors, and a small creative team.
Sean Grasso
Director, Producer, Cinematographer
Sean Grasso is a documentary filmmaker and cinematographer based in Corvallis, Oregon. He began his career creating short film portraits of craftspeople, several of which received Vimeo Staff Picks, before spending more than a decade working on documentary and commercial productions around the world. In 2021, after a close encounter with California’s largest wildfire, he shifted toward directing films focused on the intersection of environmental and social change. His short documentary The Butterfly Lab won the Artistic Vision Award at the 2026 Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. The Caldera is his first feature-length documentary.
Jessie Sears
Co-Producer
Jessie Sears, a proud member of the Karuk tribe, is a producer, cinematographer, and photographer based in Portland, Oregon. She has worked on numerous films focusing on Indigenous communities and environmental and social justice. She collaborated on the film Undamming Klamath, chronicling the Indigenous-led and largest river restoration in history. She is also a producer for Oregon Public Broadcasting under the science and environment team. She focuses on amplifying stories of Indigenous communities across the Pacific Northwest and Northern California.
Katherine Gorringe
Editor
Katherine Gorringe is an award-winning documentary editor whose work has appeared on Netflix, PBS, and at major film festivals worldwide. Most recently, she edited the PBS Independent Lens series MATTER OF MIND (Audience Award winner at SF IndieFest) and the acclaimed SXSW short CAMP WIDOW.
Her notable credits include co-editing the Emmy-nominated Netflix Original SAVING CAPITALISM. Her directorial debut, RED HEAVEN, premiered at SXSW and won the Big Sky Award at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. A former Sundance Edit Lab Contributing Editor, her work has been supported by the Sundance Institute, ITVS, Sandbox Films, and SFFILM. She holds an M.F.A. from Stanford University.
Mark Orton
Composer
Composer Mark Orton, founding member of the genre-bending acoustic chamber ensemble Tin Hat Trio, has written original scores and contributed music to over 85 dramatic and documentary films including The Holdovers, My Old Lady, Everything Is Illuminated, Buck The Good Girl,The Box Trolls, People-Places-Things, Nebraska, Sony Classics’ 12 Mighty Orphans, and On Swift Horses, Fernando Meirelles’ 360, and Pixar’s Loop. Series include Ken Burns’ The Roosevelts, Barack Obama’s Working: What We Do All Day, and Jared Hess’ Muscles & Mayhem.
Orton is a multi-instrumentalist and collector of antique and unusual musical instruments which he often employs in his scores. He lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and son.
Billy Bell
Cultural Advisor
Billy Bell is a member of the Fort McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone Tribe and serves as a cultural advisor on The Caldera. A former Tribal Chairman and member of the Tribe’s Cultural Committee, Billy has spent decades working on issues affecting tribal communities in northern Nevada and southeastern Oregon. His knowledge of the Tribe’s history, culture, and relationship to the McDermitt Caldera helped guide the film’s approach to representation and community engagement.