Best of NFMLA 2018

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, writer, journalist and author Ana Maria Bahiana has worked in the entertainment industry out of Los Angeles for over two decades. She is the author of nine books on film, music and pop culture, and has translated and edited the Brazilian edition of Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls and Michael Herr’s Dispatches .In addition to her work as a journalist and author, Bahiana is a lecturer, curator and consultant for film-related projects. Her first project as writer/producer, 1972, was co-produced and distributed in Latin America by Buena Vista.

A Deputy Editor of the website goldenglobes.com, she is currently working on a book about Brazil and Hollywood, and a documentary about the cultural connections between Rio de Janeiro and Los Angeles.

Anna Marie de la Fuente is Variety's Chief Latin America Writer.

Based in Los Angeles, she began her career in journalism while living in Madrid where she was the Spanish Bureau Chief for the Hollywood Reporter.

She moved to Los Angeles in 1996 where she became a freelance media writer contributing to the Los Angeles Times, Variety Deal Memo, Billboard and Broadcast among others.

In 1998, she was appointed Latin America Bureau Chief for London-based trade Screen International where she covered the Latin American entertainment industry until she joined Variety.

She has served as a juror in multiple international film festivals, including the festivals of Cartagena (Colombia), Lima (Peru), Cuenca (Ecuador) and Palm Springs.

Bettina Fisher, Director of Educational Initiatives, currently leads all education programs for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She is responsible for the Academy’s public education and teacher professional development workshops, Media Literacy Program for middle school and high school students, the Academy’s Visiting Artist and Tours Program, as well as the panels and workshops for the Academy Gold internship enhancement and mentorship program. She’s also working to expand the Academy’s national education outreach initiatives, including the development of new online classroom curriculum for teachers.

In 2015, Bettina launched the Academy’s first annual Careers in Film Summit, an educational program to inform youth about the vast jobs in the film industry. Held in Los Angeles, California, the day-long event features industry panels on various careers. The program has now expanded to London as well as New York with half-day programs.

Originally from Mexico City, Carlos Aguilar was chosen as one of 6 young film critics to partake in the first Roger Ebert Fellowship organized by RogerEbert.com, the Sundance Institute and Indiewire in 2014. Aguilar’s work has appeared in prestigious publications such as Indiewire, RogerEbert.com, MovieMaker Magazine, Remezcla Filmmaker Magazine, Variety Latino, Slate, Bustle, Americas Quarterly, among others.

Besides his work in journalism, Aguilar regularly works as a screener for the Sundance Film Festival and a screenplay reader for Sundance’s Screenwriters Lab. Carlos Aguilar has also been on the jury at renowned festivals such the Palm Springs International Film Festival, the Gasparilla International Film Festival, the Louisiana International Film Festival, and the Los Angeles Indian Film Festival. He attributes his all-consuming passion for storytelling to his mother’s love for European films. Aguilar currently co-hosts, One Week Only, a weekly podcast highlighting independent and international cinema. He also regularly participates in panel discussions about the importance of people of color in film criticism and his experience as a DACA recipient working in the film industry.

Casey is currently the Film Coordinator at Circle of Confusion, a feature film & television production and management company with offices in NY and LA. She has also worked for an Academy Award winning Producer, and previously worked in TV and Film development for director/producer team Star Thrower Entertainment (THE POST, LBJ, JAMESY BOY), writer/director Josh Greenbaum (BEHIND THE MASK, THE SHORT GAME), and VP of Federation Ent (MARSEILLE). Casey graduated from Cornell University with a B.A. in Television Studies, triple minored in Business, Communication, and Visual Studies. She dreams more than she sleeps.

Credits: BUSHWICK BEATS, MAYHEM, UNTITLED CHATEAU MARMONT DOCUMENTARY

Christine Dávila is currently a Creative Executive at Stage 13, a new, original, digital-first content brand of Warner Bros. Digital Networks. In this role she develops short-form episodic series like I Love Bekka and Lucy, which was the first digital series to ever screen at the SXSW Film Festival in 2017, and is currently being distributed online. Other shows include the critically acclaimed horror anthology series, Two Sentence Horror Stories, the upcoming action grindhouse series, La Quinceañera and comedy series,Incredible Life of Darrell. Prior to Stage 13, Davila established and ran the U.S. non-profit, Ambulante California, a traveling documentary film festival that originated in Mexico by Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal. She has over twelve years of experience in film programming at various top-notch festivals like Sundance Film Festival, where she has been a Programming Associate since 2008. Dávila is also a Programmer at the Curaçao International Film Festival Rotterdam, which focuses on discovering emerging Caribbean filmmakers. She tracks American Latino films and filmmakers, and the independent film festival scene on her blog chicanafromchicago.com.

Clint Bowie is the Artistic Director of the New Orleans Film Society, where he has worked since 2010. In this role, he oversees the curation of content for all of the organization's year-round programming, including the Academy Award-qualifying New Orleans Film Festival, now in its 28th year. He also works with the organization's filmmaker development programs, including the Southern Producers Lab and the Emerging Voices Mentorship Program.

He has spoken on panels at the 2018 Center for Asian American Media Artists Convening; 2017 Champs-Élysées Film Festival in Paris; the 2016 Palm Springs International ShortFest; the 2015 ArtHouse Convergence conference in Utah; and has served on juries at the 2017 Atlanta Film Festival, 2017 River Run International Film Festival, 2016 Cleveland International Film Festival, 2015 Florida Film Festival, 2014 Dallas International Film Festival, the 2013 Denver Film Festival, and others.

He is a graduate of the University of Chicago, and before working in film was a print journalist, having worked at both daily and weekly newspapers around the country. He currently sits on the board of directors for the Film Festival Alliance, a professional organization of film festival organizers, founded as a program of the Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP).

Deborah Del Prete is a veteran film producer. Her many producing credits include the hit Columbia Pictures comedy THE WEDDING PLANNER, starring Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McConaughey; Lionsgate’s THE SPIRIT, starring Samuel L. Jackson, Eva Mendes, and Scarlett Johansson; GREEN STREET HOOLIGANS, starring Elijah Wood and Charlie Hunnam, winner of the SXSW Audience and Grand Jury Prizes; GREEN STREET 2, starring Ross McCall; Dimension’s BURIED ALIVE, starring Tobin Bell; the romantic comedy SUBURBAN GIRL, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and Alec Baldwin, based on the best-seller Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing; and the creature feature LIVING HELL for The SyFy Channel.

Under the label Coronet Films, she produced the film LIFTED, directed by Academy Award nominee Lexi Alexander, THE SUBMARINE KID, starring Emilie De Ravin and Finn Wittrock, and two recently completed films, LOCATING SILVER LAKE, starring Josh Peck and Aubrey Peeples and THE PAY UP, starring Scott Adkins and Louis Mandylor. In addition, Del Prete served as executive producer on Paramount Classic’s MEAN CREAK, starring Rory Culkin, which won both an Independent Spirit Award and a Humanitas Award; THE OPEN ROAD, starring Jeff Bridges, Justin Timberlake, and Kate Mara; Lionsgate’s FROM PRADA TO NADA, starring Camilla Belle and Alexa Vega; HBO’S HOSTILE INTENT, starring Rob Lowe; and ENDER’S GAME, starring Harrison Ford, Viola Davis, and Asa Butterfield for Summit/Lionsgate Entertainment.

Drew Tewksbury is a Los Angeles-based cultural journalist, editor, photographer, and multimedia producer. He is currently a contributing editor at GOOD Media. Until 2017, Tewksbury was the managing editor of LA Weekly, Los Angeles' second largest newspaper and online platform. From 2012-2016, he was the managing editor / co-producer for KCET-TV's Artbound, an arts journalism online publication and Emmy-winning television show providing in-depth arts/culture coverage of 11 counties in Southern California as well as Northern Mexico. As a journalist, Tewksbury has written and reported feature articles or radio pieces for: NPR, Playboy, Time Magazine, Forbes, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Magazine, KPCC Southern California Public Radio, NME, Billboard Magazine, Hollywood Reporter, among other publications. As an educator, Tewksbury has taught Entertainment Journalism at University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

Emily Best is the founder and CEO of Seed & Spark, an entertainment platform built to increase diversity and inclusion for filmmakers and audiences. Seed & Spark’s curated streaming platform is fed by its crowdfunding platform, which has the highest campaign success rate in the world. In 2011, she produced the feature film, Like the Water, starring Caitlin FitzGerald (Masters of Sex, UnREAL). Since then she has served as executive producer on a host of film and virtual reality projects that have played at festivals from Sundance to SXSW to Tribeca and beyond. Most recently she co-created and co-directed the web series F*ck Yes!, which Refinery 29 called, "The sex education you wish you had in high school." Emily was named a 2013 Indiewire Influencer, a 2014 New York Woman of Influence, was included on the 2015 Upstart 100 list, and graduated from the 2016 class of Techstars Boston. She has raised millions of dollars in traditional funding, equity crowdfunding, and rewards based crowdfunding, and contributed to over 300 crowdfunding campaigns to date.

Eroll Bilibani is a film producer, photographer and communications manager – currently the executive director of DokuFest, Prizren Kosovo. He is extensively involved in developing programs that use cinema and storytelling as platforms for social change, through creative educational packages designed to inspire young people. He is also involved in the promotion of documentary cinema in rural villages of Kosovo through DokuFest’s traveling cinema “Cinema at Your Door”.

In 2014 “New Europe 100” an initiative of Google, Res Publica, Visegrad Fund and the Financial Times, enlisted Eroll amongst 100 people who have inspired change in Central and Eastern Europe.

Jon Gann is the a force in the film festival world, having created, consulted with and fostered dozens of events around the globe. In the past year, he has worked on AFI Docs, Key West FF, DC Environmental FF, Bermuda International FF, Port Townsend FF, SF IndieFest and the Woods Hole FF. He is a founding Board Member of the Film Festival Alliance, the first organization to professionalize the festival space, and sits on the Advisory Board at George Mason University’s School of Film & Video Studies.

Jon is the Founder of DC Shorts, a non-profit organization championing short filmmaking, and the creator of the DC Shorts Film Festival, one of the country’s premier short film showcases. He has also served as the Executive Director of CINE, a 60-year old organization that honors the best in film, TV and digital media with the prestigious CINE Golden Eagle Award.

Kelly Parker, Vice President of Student Affairs for Columbia College Hollywood and Tribeca Flashpoint College in Chicago, IL leads both colleges' departments responsible for student services, career development, entertainment internships, career fairs, and guest speakers. Her team puts on an annual Student Film Festival to showcase emerging talent and introduce students and graduates to the entertainment industry. Kelly is a Chicago native who started her career as an actor and casting director for the stage and screen. Since moving to Los Angeles in 2017, outside of education, she has centered her focus on producing. Kelly is endlessly inspired by the amazing students on both her campuses, along with the creative minds she gets to collaborate with each and every day. She looks forward to continuing raising awareness for gender equality and global diversity in education and the entertainment industry.

KRISTEN KONVITZ is an agent in the International and Independent film group at ICM Partners. She was most recently the Head of Production for New York-based film fund and production company, Stay Gold Features. Their first film was Sundance breakout, PATTI CAKE$ which sold in an all-night bidding war to Fox Searchlight. Other productions include David Robert Mitchell's upcoming UNDER THE SILVER LAKE to be released by A24 and SXSW award winner, THE STRANGE ONES.

Previous to Stay Gold, she was Director of Film for the world's largest crowdfunding platform, Indiegogo, where she was instrumental in transforming the platform from a virtual unknown in the film space. Prior to joining Indiegogo, she spent 6 years in acquisitions and production at Wild Bunch, one of the leading independent film sales, financing & distribution companies - working on films such as THE WRESTLER, TWO LOVERS and BACHELORETTE. She began her career working in acquisitions at The Weinstein Company and made the transition to Wild Bunch to assist in opening its first U.S. office. Kristen holds a B.S. in media studies from New York University and an M.F.A. in film producing from Columbia University.

Liam Oznowich is an Agent-In-Training at Abrams Artists Agency, working in the Film/TV literary department. After graduating from Oberlin College with a degree in film, he worked in film and TV development before transitioning over to the agency world.

Liz Manashil earned her B.A. in Film and Media Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, and her M.F.A. from USC's School of Cinematic Arts. Post graduation, Liz spent several years as a film critic for the PBS/Hulu series JUST SEEN IT (which she also helped produce and direct). Overlapping this, Liz worked with distribution guru Peter Broderick. Her debut feature, BREAD AND BUTTER, was called “an absolute must-watch for women everywhere” by HelloGiggles. It was released by The Orchard and can be seen on VOD nearly everywhere (including Hulu!). Liz is currently in post-production on her second feature film, SPEED OF LIFE, and lives in Los Angeles with her dog, Laura Palmer, and her partner, Sean Wright. She is the Manager of Sundance Institute’s Creative Distribution Initiative.

Lynnette is passionate about film and helping filmmakers tell thought provoking stories that entertain, stimulate social change and support their filmmaking aspirations. Lynnette holds a BA in Film Studies and another in Media Studies and has a long history of working with notable film organizations such as the American Film Institute, Film Arts Foundation, Women in Film, Toronto International Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, AFI Fest, and Hot Docs International Documentary Festival. Lynnette assists filmmakers in learning their craft through educational program design and project development support. At the Film Collaborative she developed and launched the fiscal sponsorship program and regularly advises filmmakers on fundraising strategies and sources, audience development and film distribution strategies during the development and production process of filmmaking.

Marina Moyses is an agent in APA's physical production department. She reps below the line department heads and is particularly passionate about discovering and developing diverse voices from all backgrounds in the physical production space. Originally from Sao Paulo, Brazil, Marina received her bachelor's degree in Communications, Radio and Television from Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado, Brazil’s top film school. She furthered her studies in Business Management of Entertainment and Production at UCLA. While a student in Los Angeles, she interned at Lionsgate Entertainment, eOne Entertainment and Untitled Entertainment. Prior to moving to the United States, she was a producer on a comedy TV show where she quickly discovered her passion for production. Marina began her career at APA as an assistant to the Co-Head of the physical production department and was promoted to the department coordinator shortly thereafter. After continuing to prove herself and rapidly rising through the ranks, she was elevated to agent.

Mitch Klebanoff has sold nearly 40 Film and TV projects, working for Warner Brothers, United Artists, Universal Pictures, MGM, TriStar, Sony, Paramount, Disney Live Action and Disney Animation as a screenwriter. As a producer, he’s produced films in L.A. Vancouver and South Korea and 40 episodes of television for the Disney Channel.

His writing work led to the produced films: Oceans 11, Beverly Hills Ninja, The Dancing Ninja, Disorderlies, 36 Hours to Die and There Goes The Neighborhood. He’s consulted on many more, including A Cinderella Story, The Crush and others.

Noam Dromi is the President of Legion of Creatives (LOC), a fully integrated multimedia entertainment studio specializing in scripted and unscripted digital first programming that targets underserved audiences.

A veteran writer/producer, marketing executive and digital strategist, he specializes in cross platform content development and production for media companies, consumer brands and non-profits.

Noam is the winner of the 2015 Creative Arts Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media for his work with the Fox Broadcasting Company as producer of the Sleepy Hollow Virtual Reality Experience. He co-wrote the Warner Bros/Alcon Entertainment film Dolphin Tale starring Morgan Freeman, Harry Connick Jr & Ashley Judd. The film grossed $100 million at the worldwide box office.

Ranell Shubert is the Educational Programs Manager at the International Documentary Association (IDA) in Los Angeles, a membership organization dedicated to serving documentary filmmakers, artists and activists. She provides essential programming and operational support for IDA’s educational and conference programming. Ranell has managed IDA’s Conversation Series, showcasing interviews with prominent filmmakers; Master Classes, workshops about documentary storytelling and craft; What’s New sessions, spotlighting nonfiction leaders in the entertainment industry; and technical and virtual reality workshops. She has participated in planning and managing the IDA Getting Real Documentary Filmmaker Conference (2014, 2016 and 2018). She also manages IDA’s summer Internship program and serves as a mentor and advisor for international film festivals and markets. She received her BA in Film and Video at Columbia College Chicago with a focus in documentary film production.

A Hollywood native born to Korean immigrants, Susie Kim is the Co-founder and Artistic Director of NewFilmmakers Los Angeles (NFMLA), and wrapping up her position as Director of Programming after 11 years. She has dedicated most of her professional life working together with brands and organizations on initiatives that focus on supporting the arts and inclusion of all, including her brainchild, the NFMLA InFocus diversity program.

A world traveler, Susie shares her discoveries of emerging talent by producing innovative projects and experiences for the public. On her current documentary project, 'Into the Aurora', Susie is working with NASA, the Reykjavik University and the University of Puerto Rico around the cultural and scientific understandings of the aurora borealis.

Thom Geier is an award-winning journalist who currently serves as Managing Editor of TheWrap News. He previously served as a senior editor at Entertainment Weekly for a dozen years, overseeing film and Oscar coverage among other areas of expertise. He served as a news editor there and before that as a film reporter at The Hollywood Reporter.