With Covid-19 accelerating the transition from cinema to platforms, and more scheduled releases on the horizon, what does an alternative distribution model look like? This blue-sky session provides ideas, prompts and new questions, continuing a conversation begun at last year’s CineLink Talks.
Presented by Documentary Campus
Speakers
- Amy Hobby, Producer, Tangerine Entertainment, USA
- Andy Caley, Distributor, Bohemia Media, UK
- Ester Bernal, Head of Distribution, Piano Distribucion, Mexico
- Ryan Harrington, Head of Film, Kinema, USA
Moderated by
- Paula Alvarez Vaccaro, Producer, Pinball London, UK
Amy Hobby
Amy Hobby is Executive Director at the Tribeca Film Institute as well as an Emmy Award-winning, Academy-Award nominated producer whose films include Steven Soderbergh’s And Everything Is Going Fine, Shepard & Dark, which was an Official Selection of the Festival de Cannes, Secretary, starring James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal and Love, Marilyn for HBO, directed by Liz Garbus with whom Hobby collaborated again on What Happened, Miss Simone? for Netflix. At her production company, Tangerine, films include the Tribeca Film Festival award winner Keep the Change, Paint It Black by Amber Tamblyn and the documentary The Last Laugh by Ferne Pearlstein. In her various capacities, Hobby has been on numerous film festival juries and panels over the past ten years.
Andy Caley
Andy Caley is Head of Acquisitions at Bohemia Media, a distribution and production company that champions diversity and supports individual voices. He acquires and manages films and television series, from script stage to completion, that are by and/or about communities that have been underserved and under-represented by mainstream media, such as those who identify as LGBTQ+, disabled, BIPOC, neuro-diverse etc. Prior to this, Caley worked at the production and finance company Head Gear Films for four years, as well as for production companies including Heyday Films, Pathé Productions and StudioCanal.
Ester Bernal
Ester Bernal is a film-industy professional with experience in distribution and international sales. Focused on distribution since 2011, she has collaborated with Mexican film festivals in the area of programming. She collaborated for five years with the Alfhaville Cinema, an independent distribution company focused on art-house cinema. From 2018 to 2019, Bernal worked for the Mexican Institute of Cinematography to coordinate Eficine 189 – Distribution, a fiscal stimulus that is granted to Mexican films for their theatrical distribution. In 2019 and 2020, Bernal was Programming Coordinator for the Black Canvas Contemporary Film Festival. Currenty, she is is Head of Distribution at Piano.
Ryan Harrington
Ryan Harrington is Head of Film at Kinema, a new social cinema platform in the non-theatrical event space. Most recently he served as Vice-President of National Geographic Documentary Films, where he developed, commissioned and acquired feature-length cinematic documentaries for all National Geographic and Disney+ platforms. Harrington helped launch A&E IndieFilms and Discovery Docs, as well as the Tribeca Film Institute’s grant programs as VP of Artist Programs. As a producer, he has won Emmy, Peabody and International Documentary Association awards, and has been nominated for both Academy Awards and Producers Guild of America Awards.
Paula Alvarez Vaccaro
An award-winning producer and scriptwriter, Paula Alvarez Vaccaro began her career as a journalist in Argentina and has over twenty-five years’ experience working in film, television, radio and print media on three continents. Pinball London, the company she founded in London in 2009, has worked with directors from more than fifteen countries and has won more than thirty awards at A-list festivals worldwide. She is a member of BAFTA, the Writers Guild of Great Britain, the European Film Academy and the European Women’s Audiovisual Network. She is currently on her third mandate as Vice-President of the European Producers Club and is one of the founders of the Anti-Racism Taskforce for European Film.