Best in Fest

Sean joined GFM Animation to develop and expand the slate of 2D and CG animated movies. We not only help finance, pre-sell and distribute films – but also help in setting budgets, tweaking scripts and artwork for sales and production, sourcing studios, overseeing schedules and key milestones. With a 20 year career in animation and VFX, Sean Feeney brings considerable knowledge and extensive experi...

Colletti's first produced feature, which was also his directorial debut, "Safe House," was the official selection of six major film festivals around the world: Slamdance, Slamdance Cannes, Hollywood Black Film Festival, San Francisco Black Film Festival, German Verzanbet Film Festival and Febiofest in Prague. With a film background in editing, Colletti's transition from the edi...

Daniel Carsenty: Berlinale Talents alumni Daniel Carsenty wrote and directed the thriller 'After Spring Comes Fall' in 2015. It won the award for Best Feature at the Zsigmond Vilmos Festival. His second film, 'The Devil's Drivers', a documentary about a Bedouin smuggler, premiered at TIFF in 2021, won the Special Jury Award at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, and was...

Alexis Iacono Growing up Bayside, Queens, New York, Alexis' artistic sensibilities have been shaped by a world-class theatre and arts community. Her early stage work included playing Elle in The Meadowlark, portraying Fay Wray (King Kong) She has studied at New York City's HB Studio and the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. Alexis Iacono has been brought to the attention of mainstream aud...

Jon is a filmmaker who works primarily on short and feature narrative films. After starting out working in production departments and as a script supervisor on indie films in New York City, he began writing, directing, and producing my own and others' movies. He is particularly interested in dark comedy, thriller, and horror satire films about people navigating powerful societal pressures. As...

Michael Friberg is an award winning editorial and commercial photographer who somehow figured out how to make films despite the fact that the camera equipment is significantly more complicated than stills cameras. His work has appeared in such publications as the New York Times, Esquire, The New Yorker, Time Magazine , Wired, GQ and many more. He has photographed projects on Syrian refugees in the...

BriGuel, Brianne and Miguel, are a NYC artist couple. The duo produces bilingual, genre borderless music, and film. While collaborating with MusicPromoToday BriGuel released seven singles and two EPs, as well as launched a documentary movie that was featured on Tribeca Film Festival. 

Tom Malloy has been involved for over two decades in all aspects of the film business. He trail-blazed the role of a multi-hyphenate, having approached projects early on as an actor, writer, and producer, recently adding director to his list. Malloy has raised millions for independent films, produced 20 films, written and sold 25+ screenplays, and has starred in many films. The roster of films pro...

Writer, producer and teacher. Born in Madrid, the son of film director Carlos Saura and film teacher and journalist Adela Medrano, brother of film director Saura Medrano. Either as executive of the film companies LolaFilms and Iberoamericana Films, or as executive producer for the film production companies Zebra Producciones and La Fiera Corrupia, Antonio Saura has produced many films in recent ye...

Clay Epstein is President of Film Mode Entertainment, a worldwide sales and production company he launched in March 2016 which aims to present 10-15 theatrical titles a year. Prior to founding Film Mode, Epstein spent several years at Arclight Films as Senior Vice President, Sales and Acquisitions. While there, he represented such feature films as Dog Eat Dog, Paper Planes, Predestination, and Las...

Danicah Waldo is a writer, director, and producer based out of New York City. She got her 10,000 hours directing and producing narrative short films for the Applause New York YouTube channel, which now sits at over 1.5 million subscribers and 1 billion views. In 2021 she took a leap to join LIT Videobooks, a startup production company making documentary versions of nonfiction books. She now acts a...

Tanna Marie Frederick is an American stage and independent film actress who rose to prominence for her title role in Henry Jaglom's Hollywood Dreams, for which she received the Best Actress Award at the 2008 Fargo Film Festival.

Angeline Walsh is a filmmaker and writer from Cleveland, Ohio. Specializing in period pieces, she has a passion for unusual histories and an interest in portraying what connects people across time. Her most recent projects as a writer-director include "The Haunted Woman," an adaptation of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's classic short story The Yellow Wallpaper, and "The Coroner&apos...

Access Entertainment is a boutique sales agency dedicated to guiding filmmakers and television producers to reach their greatest distribution potential. Before Access, DuBow managed Lightning Entertainment as Executive Vice President and transitioned the company to its corporate owners at the time, Larry Flynt Publications. DuBow was also at First Look Studios as Executive Vice President of Worldw...

After earning a degree in Theatre and Philosophy at the University of Texas, Ms Spencer moved to New York City, where she attended NYU and The Actors Studio Playwright/Director's Unit, which was run by Elia Kazan and Arthur Penn. She wrote and directed plays in New York City, and was a member of Circle Rep Lab. She also wrote and directed plays in London and Los Angeles, and is a published po...

As Co-Founder and President of American Cinema International, Chevonne began her professional journey as the President of International Sales at Quest Entertainment. Over the spans of 10 years, she successfully oversaw the production and sales of more than 176 feature films and two popular television series. In 2000, Chevonne established American Cinema International. In less than a decade, ACI pr...

In this episode Leslie breaks down the Upfronts in Hollywood.  What are they and why are they so important?

With over 30 years in the animation industry, Tony Bancroft has been creatively involved in almost every position making an animated film, video, commercial, or short film. His animation and directing skills have been sharpened and honed while working at Walt Disney Feature Animation, Sony Pictures, his own animation company, Toonacious Family Entertainment, and currently, as an independent contra...

Ken Kwapis has been a motion picture and television director for four decades. He directed eleven feature films, among them A Walk In The Woods, Big Miracle, He’s Just Not That Into You, and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Kwapis helped launch nine television series, including The Larry Sanders Show, The Bernie Mac Show, and The Office. He earned an Emmy nomination for directing the “Gay Wi...

B.J. Graf (aka Beverly Graf) lives in Los Angeles with her family and a menagerie of four-footers. Her near-future-mystery-novel, GENESYS X, featuring Detectives  Eddie Piedmont & Shin Miyaguchi, will be published 11/10/2020 by Fairwood Press and is available for pre-orders now at www.fairwoodpress.com , www.amazon.com , www.b &n.com, and an independent bookseller near you.  In her alterna...

Giovanni Labadessa Award winning film producer and storyteller, founder of Lumiere Lab a boutique film production company working since 2010 to tell stories that entertain, edify and build more understanding and empathy for others. Passionate about strengthening the independent film ecosystem as whole, in 2018 I co-founded Nòt Film Fest, a film festival and non-profit that connects audiences to st...

Rick Markovitz is a partner in Weissman/Markovitz Communications.  WMC forges connections between people, brands and media to convey powerful ideas. Grounded in the business of storytelling, we know how to use the right tools and channels in today';s complex social media environment. With decades of entertainment marketing and communications expertise, and an industry-wide network of resource...

Luca was born in a little town in the north of Italy, Castelfranco Veneto, 30 minutes far from Venice. After high school, he moved to Milan to study communication at the University without an exact idea of what I wanted to become.  Luca became an assistant to a television director who was managing some live broadcast shows for SKY Italy and wanted some help.  After the first tv gigs, Luca learned...

Everything you ever wanted to know about how to get your movie distributed, but were afraid to ask. This is the Best in Fest Best Of Distribution episode.

In 1962, while he was doing pre-production work on The Greatest Story Ever Told , Stevens was recruited by Edward R. Murrow to serve as director of the Motion Picture and Television Service, a division of the United States Information Agency . [10] [11] At age 31, Stevens moved from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., where as director of the service, he produced roughly 300 short documentary films p...