Creative Distribution 101

This interview was recorded in July 2022 and dives into the entire film ecosystem. Carlos serves on the board of directors of Film Forum and is the Co-founder and Executive Director of Cinema Tropical, a New York-based non-profit and media arts organization that has become the leading presenter of Latin American cinema in the United States, founded in 2001 with the mission of distributing, programming and promoting what was to become the biggest boom of Latin American cinema in decades. Carlos is also one of the co-founding members of the coalition in formation Distribution Advocates.

Christie Marchese is the founder and CEO of Kinema, a social cinema platform connecting films to in-person and virtual audiences. Before Kinema, Christie founded the award-winning impact agency Picture Motion in 2012, developing grassroots marketing and social action campaigns for films such as Free Solo, 13th, Fed Up, and many more. This episode dives into what filmmakers can expect from working with the Kinema platform, and what role this new company plays in the indie film ecosystem.

Jonathan Miller runs the new subscription video-on-demand service called OVID.tv. which is a collaborative effort between several documentary distributors. Jonathan is also president of the distributor Icarus Films. OVID.tv aims to provide North American viewers with access to documentaries, independent films, and notable works of international cinema, that may be unavailable on other platforms, streaming a library of over 1600 titles. The content partners behind OVID are a group of established distribution companies. OVID was founded with a commitment to openness and transparency regarding their data.

In this episode, we are exploring more radical paths for indie distribution with Karin Chien, an award-winning producer and distributor. She is the founder and president of dGenerate Films, the leading distributor of independent, contemporary Chinese cinema. She is also one of the co-founding members of the "coalition in formation" called Distribution Advocates.

Two young filmmakers Sarah Kambe Holland and Mollie Mulvey share tips and insights from their successful TikTok experiences for their films Egghead & Twinkie and The Better Part. Learn how to leverage TikTok to build your audience.

Naomi McDougall Jones was a guest on this podcast before talking about her second feature film called Bite Me, which developed into the Joyful Vampire Tour of America, an innovative 51-screening, 40-city, three-month tour in an RV. Naomi has since teamed up with the former CFO of the City of Chicago to found The 51 Fund, an investment fund to finance films written, directed, and produced by women. Through it, Naomi became an Executive Producer of the acclaimed documentary feature film, Cusp, which premiered at Sundance in 2021. She was also a writer for season 1 of Amazon's original series, The New Yorker Presents. In this episode Naomi dives into everything she's learned about the film ecosystem, starting with her DIY iTunes strategy.

Michaela Bethune is Vice President of Audience Development for Participant, which is a global media company dedicated to entertainment that engages audiences to participate in social change. Previously, Michaela was Head of Campaigns for DoSomething.org, the largest tech company exclusively for young people and social change, and she led California’s digital strategy and voter mobilization programs for Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign. Today, Michaela leads impact campaign strategy for Participant. Participant’s more than 100 films include academy award winners Spotlight, "American Factory", "CITIZENFOUR", "The Cove" and "An Inconvenient Truth", and recently the award-winning film "Judas and the Black Messiah" which we will talk about today.

Ani Mercedes who is C.E.O., Founder and Impact Producer of Looky Looky Pictures, an impact production company that connects the power of films with the power of people. They work with stories that go beyond empathy; that aim to participate in the transformational work of building solidarity with (rather than for) the communities they aim to serve. Ani and her team have implemented and advised on impact production for over 800 filmmakers including the films Through the Night, Councilwoman, Building the American Dream, and LIYANA.

An indie horror movie case study with the acclaimed director of "Ruin Me", Preston DeFrancis.

Christina Raia is an award-winning Writer/Director. In this episode, she dives into an intriguing distribution case study and the film ecosystem. She is the Founder of CongestedCat Productions and was also head of education at crowdfunding & distribution platform Seed & Spark. Her work, consisting of over a dozen short films, a web series, and two feature films, has screened at film festivals around the world.

Sian-Pierre Regis shares everything he learned on the incredible distribution and impact journey of his first feature film Duty Free, telling the story of his immigrant mother who at the age of 75 was fired from her lifelong job as a hotel housekeeper. Duty Free premiered on PBS Independent Lens in 2021. It was not only a #1 Apple News story, but one of the most-talked about documentaries of the year, receiving press from CBS Sunday Morning, USA Today, NYT, CNN, and getting an IDA Award nomination for Best Writing in a Feature.

This episode features journalists Natalie Pattillo and Daniel A. Nelson, Co-Directors and Producers of AND SO I STAYED, an award-winning documentary about survivors of abuse fighting for their lives and spending years behind bars. This is the story of how the legal system gets domestic violence wrong. The film was featured in the NYT, ABC News, and more. It is a moving portrait of Kim DaDou Brown, Tanisha Davis, and Nikki Addimando three survivors whose strikingly similar stories are separated by over 30 years. None of them were believed, and each of them was criminalized for fighting back.

True crime fans, anyone? For our last episode of the power of fandom season, we'll talk about documentary fans with Julia Largent, an Assistant Professor of Communication at McPherson College in Kansas. Her research focuses on documentary studies, fan studies and social media. She is the vice president of The Midwest Popular Culture Association and will dive into her research on fandom and documentaries.

This episode explores the business of fandom, how marketing and fan communities are increasingly connected within the corporate world, which communities get power, inequities in media representation, and much more, with Fangirl Jeanne, a writer, media critic, consultant, and unapologetic fangirl, who built a great following with her expertise in deconstructing popular media.

A deep dive into the dark side of fandom, racism, toxic fans, the complex business of fandom, and more, with Stitch, a writer and critic who has spent two decades in online fandom and is vocal about anti-blackness. Stitch writes a Teen Vogue column called Fan Service studying fandom, and personal blog Stitch's Media Mix, with commentary on and criticism of both pop culture and the fandoms it spawns. Stitch works on projects that focus on positive and diverse representation in fandom spaces and in the media we consume.

Looking at case studies such as the Venom movie franchise, TV shows Supernatural, The 100, and more, this episode explores the power of fan communities to influence storylines and distribution in entertainment, and dives into the issue of queerbaiting, featuring interviews with fans and fandom experts Yael Tygiel, Stephanie, and Chrisha Anderson.

Interview with Samantha Highfill, a long-time writer for Entertainment Weekly. Samantha covered the CW show Supernatural for many years, interviewing the cast at Paley Fest for their Scooby-Doo crossover celebration, or planning their goodbye photoshoot cover. 15 seasons, 327 episodes later, Supernatural is the longest-running sci-fi/genre series in the history of American broadcast television, launching in 2005. It is well known for its very active and passionate fandom, the SPN Family, who has rallied many times to keep the show on the air and for various charity projects.

We discuss Fan Activism with the co-founder of Nerds of Color and the managing director of Fandom Forward (formerly Harry Potter Alliance). Shawn is a founding author of www.thenerdsofcolor.org, and a founding organizer of The Black and Brown Comix Arts Festival. He is a recognized scholar and sought-after speaker in the areas of pop culture and participatory culture studies, mythology, folk and netlore, experimental theater, and media studies. In his other life, he spent twenty years in non-profit adolescent mental health and juvenile justice work. He was a Senior Fellow with the Pop Culture Collaborative. Currently, he works as a coach and consultant for individual creatives and organizations and is a university lecturer. Katie has been leading Fandom Forward’s campaigns since 2013. Fandom Forward is an international nonprofit harnessing the power of pop culture to make activism more accessible for everyone. They've been doing this for over 15 years with hundreds of thousands of fan activists. Katie has played an integral role in some of their most iconic campaigns, and her commitment to relational organizing and community-centered leadership has played an essential role in shaping the organization into what it is today.

Sami Khan is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker whose work in fiction and documentary has been supported by the Sundance and Tribeca Film Institutes, Rooftop Films, the Gotham, and the NBC/Universal’s Directors Fellowship. Sami’s films have screened at leading festivals including Tribeca, Toronto, Hot Docs, and Mumbai. The Globe & Mail called Sami’s 2016 fiction debut, KHOYA, “an often startling work of compact storytelling.” His first feature documentary THE LAST OUT (with Michael Gassert) won a Special Jury Prize at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival and will be released in 2022. The verite doc tells the harrowing tale of three Cuban baseball players and their dangerous journeys to the United States. The Hollywood Reporter called THE LAST OUT “a powerful true story of athletics and exile.” His 2019 short documentary ST. LOUIS SUPERMAN (with Smriti Mundhra) about Bruce Franks Jr., a Ferguson activist turned politician, was nominated for an Academy Award and won prizes at Tribeca, Hot Docs, Big Sky, Traverse City, AFI Docs, and Indy Shorts. The film was acquired by MTV Documentary Films.

Julie Cohen directed and produced alongside Betsy West, the Academy Award-nominated documentary “RBG,” about the pioneering Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Their new films include "My Name Is Pauli Murray" about the non-binary Black lawyer, activist and poet, and "Julia", profiling America’s food icon” Julia Child. Before she started making documentaries, Julie Cohen was a staff producer for Dateline NBC. In this episode, we're talking about fans, social media, and audience building!