The 13th Morelia International Film Festival Co-Hosts Workshop with Sundance Institute

• Sundance Institute Artist Services Workshop offers assistance, knowledge and strategies for financing, marketing and independent distribution.
• The workshop will be held on October 26 at the Teatro José Rubén Romero.
• The event will be free of charge and is open to the public, with prior registration.

 
 
The Morelia International Film Festival (FICM), which will celebrate its 13^th edition from October 23 to November 1, is pleased to announce Sundance Institute’s Artist Services workshop, an initiative that helps filmmakers navigate in the changing world of independent film without losing the creative control of their projects. Through online resources, live workshops and a network of partner organizations, Artist Services provides assistance, knowledge and strategies for financing, marketing and independent distribution.
 
Regarding the partnership, Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute, said, “We’re honored and excited to be collaborating with Morelia, a magnet for creators from all parts of the world. We’re looking forward to bringing our workshop Artist Services to Mexico and, with the generous support of FICM, exploring these new models of creative control for producers and filmmakers.”
 
Since its launch in 2011, Sundance Institute’s Artist Services program has provided directors and producers with a series of intensive workshops throughout the United States. These events offer training, discussions with leaders in the industry and advice on the distribution tendencies and analysis of new technologies. In the past four years, Artist Services has helped more than 200 films reach the digital market. In addition, it has supported more than 300 projects in raising more than 13 million dollars through the Kickstarter crowdfunding platform.
 
 
The Artist Services workshop will be held during the 13^th FICM on Monday, October 26, at the Teatro José Rubén Romero in Morelia. The event will be free of charge and is open to the public, with prior registration. The confirmed participating experts include the following:
 
• Janet Pierson, director of Film, South by Southwest (SXSW). Before joining SXSW in April 2008, she spent more than 30 years championing independent films in a variety of roles. Pierson is on The Guardian’s “Film Power 100” and 2013’s Indiewire Influencers List. She regularly serves on panels, festival juries and for agencies including the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Independent Television Service (ITVS), British Film Institute (BFI) and Creative Capital. She is currently a member of the Austin Film Society Advisory Board and the University of Texas Press Advisory Council.
 
• Peter Gerard, content director at Vimeo. He was the founder and director of the production company Accidental Media for 10 years, where he produced and directed a range of documentaries, music videos and short films. He picked up many awards, including a BAFTA Scotland New Talent Award. Gerard also built and is the web master for The D-Word, the premiere online community portal for documentary professionals. In 2013, he won the British Council’s Creative Entrepreneur Award. As a thought leader in digital distribution and marketing, Peter is regularly invited to speak at film festivals, including the Cannes Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival, and to teach workshops for film producers.
 
• Ondi Timoner, founder and chief executive artist of Interloper Films. She has won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival twice – for her 2004 documentary,Dig! and her 2009 documentary We Live in Public. Both films are part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA). Her other award-winning films include The Nature of the Beast(1994), Join Us (2007) and Cool It(2010). Her newest feature doc,Brand: A Second Coming, premiered as the opening night film at SXSW 2015. Ondi is the founder/CEA of Interloper Films and A Total Disruption, a network for entrepreneurs and artists documenting the top thought-leaders driving the current technological revolution. Ondi also produces and hosts BYOD (Bring Your Own Doc), the only documentary talk show in the world. She also produced and directed the original VH-1 series Sound Affectsand has directed music videos for The Pixies, The Jonas Brothers, The Vines, DMC, Lucinda Williams, the Dandy Warhols and OK GO, among others.
 
 
 
 
• Paul O’Neill, associate director of business development at Premiere Digital Services. He is very involved with Premiere’s online indie filmmaker distribution portal, Quiver, which enables filmmakers to self-distribute onto digital platforms while maintaining control of their rights. In his 3 plus years in the post, O’Neill has helped many global partners to successfully launch more than 1,500 films and hundreds of TV seasons
into digital marketplaces. Prior to working at Premiere, O’Neill held a variety of positions at Paramount Pictures and assisted on projects for 2929 Entertainment.
 
• Dan Schoenbrun, head of film for Kickstarter. Dan Schoenbrun currently resides in Brooklyn, where he works as the Film Partnerships Lead at Kickstarter. Prior to joining the Kickstarter team, Dan was the Associate Director of Programming at the Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) and the Associate Editor of FILMMAKER Magazine. Dan has served on programming committees and juries for festivals including the Hamptons, Nantucket, and Slamdance, and has been a panelist at SXSW.
 
• Andrea Stavenhagen, FICM Industry Coordinator. She began her professional career in the field of film promotion and dissemination collaborating in the Directing of Short Film Production at IMCINE. She went on to become Deputy Director of Research and Dissemination at the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica. At the Guadalajara International Film Festival she was head of the Ibero-American Co-production Meeting. She was the Director of Industry with the FICG until August 2013. She also co-directed the Morelia Lab Workshop for Young Producers in Latin America at the Morelia Film Festival. She is currently Industry Coordinator at the Morelia   Film Festival and delegate for Latin America for the San Sebastian Film Festival.
 
• Yissel Ibarra, general coordinator of the new platform FilminLatino. Yissel Ibarra has worked in film production since 1998 as a founding member of AltaVista Films. Her first independent production was God Only Knows, directed by Carlos Bolado. She produced the feature documentaryPresumed Guilty, directed by Roberto Hernandez and award-winning director Geoffrey Smith (The English Surgeon, 2008). She is the associate producer of the documentary Back to Life directed by Carlos Hagerman. She is currently responsible for Strategic Projects of the Mexican Film Institute (IMCINE), where she works with Jorge Sánchez developing and operating new projects. She also serves as coordinator of the new digital platform FilminLatino created in partnership between Filmin Spain and IMCINE.
 
 
• Paula Amor, outreach coordinator for the Morelia International Film Festival (FICM). She has worked in this position at FICM since 2010. She and her staff work all year to develop the festival’s communication strategy, content, partnerships, relationship with cultural institutions,  websites, mobile apps and the festival’s social media. Before joining FICM, she worked for three years at the Grupo Editorial Expansión. She also worked at Burson-Marsteller, a global public relations and communications company.
 
• Marco A. García de la Cruz, assistant director at Cinépolis Klic. With more than six years of experience in the entertainment industry and extensive expertise in electronic platforms, mobile apps and digital content distribution, Marco de la Cruz is now the head of Cinépolis Klic, where he faces the challenge of consolidating the platform as the best VOD experience in Mexico. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Systems from the Tecnológico de Monterrey, a Dual Degree of Master of Science in Information Technology from Carnegie Mellon and ITESM. He is currently pursuing an Executive MBA degree (MEDEX program) at IPADE Business School.
 
• Christine Davila, director of Ambulante California. Christine Davila is the Director of Ambulante California, a 501c3 nonprofit and traveling documentary film festival founded by Diego Luna, Gael García Bernal, Pablo Cruz and Elena Fortes. She has been a Programming Associate at the Sundance Film Festival since 2008, and is the Programmer of Curaçao International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Yellow Robin Award Competition, dedicated to promoting emerging Caribbean filmmakers. Davila tracks Latino films and the festival scene on her blogchicanafromchicago.com, and is a regular contributor to Indiewire’s Latinobuzz.
 
• Marissa Laney, manager of Artist Services at Sundance Institute. She has guided more than 250 artists through successful Kickstarter campaigns, totaling over $13 million dollars since joining Sundance Institute in 2012, including Sean and Andrea Fine’s Oscar winner Inocente (2012), and Adam Nimoy’s latest documentary,For the Love of Spock, which is the largest documentary to be funded on Kickstarter to date. Laney strategizes with filmmakers leading up to their digital premieres and specializes in organizing their marketing efforts to maximize success. She has presented panels and workshops in institutions such as Sundance Film Festival, Knight Foundation, San Francisco Film Society, IFP and SXSW.
 
 
 
• Joseph Beyer, director of digital initiatives for Sundance Institute. He is responsible for the launch of the Sundance Institute Artist Services Initiative, under the direction of Keri Putnam and the Board of Trustees. Artist Services provides creative funding, distribution, marketing and theatrical support to more than 6,000 Sundance Institute alumni artists. Beyer led the team that developed the first-ever collaboration with crowdfunding leader Kickstarter to provide Institute alumni exclusive training and promotion support in creative funding. More than 300 projects, totaling over 13 million dollars, have been raised through the partnership since its launching in January 2011. Beyer has been with Sundance Institute for 13 years.
 
For FICM it is an honor to receive these key figures in the film industry in Morelia and provide, together with Sundance Institute, the professionalization of independent Mexican filmmakers. This workshop will permit experts in the new models of financing, circulation and content consumption to share their experiences with the audience and professionals in the industry who meet in Morelia. It will be held at the Teatro José Rubén Romero in the center of Morelia on October 26.
 
Consult the Artist Services program at the 13^th FICM here:http://moreliafilmfest.com/en/programa-artist-services/
 
Find out more about Artist Services with this link:www.sundance.org/blogs/artist-services
 
In order to reserve a place it is important to register by sending an email to:artist.services@moreliafilmfest.com