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Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Tools and Strategies for Making a Difference: A Session with Sundance Storytellers

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Seminar

Session Description

Join Sundance Institute filmmakers and advisors for an energising session featuring recent case studies, creative strategies and flexible tools for leveraging film effectively. Recent films like Budrus, Revolutionary Optimists and Open Heart are achieving significant results through evolving on-the-ground campaigns. Add in web-based tools and social media and you have a recipe for success. The session will include break-out groups exploring tools to identify effective storylines led by speakers and media advisors including Patrick Creadon, Mona El-Daief, Cori Sheperd Stern, Jess Search and Richard Perez.

When | Where

15:00 - 16:15 Wednesday, April 10 Seminar Room A

Session leaders

  • Julia Bacha Speaker
    Creative Director, Just Vision
    Julia Bacha is an award-winning filmmaker and Creative Director at the non-profit organisation Just Vision. Most recently, she directed and produced the critically-acclaimed feature documentary ‘Budrus’, which won over 18 major international prizes, and the short-film ‘My Neighbourhood’ (co-directed by Rebekah Wingert-Jabi), which had its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2012. Julia is the recipient of the 2009 King Hussein Leadership Prize and the 2012 PUMA Impact Award. Her TEDtalk, ‘Pay Attention to Nonviolence’ has been viewed by over a million people worldwide.
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  • Wendy Levy Speaker
    Executive Director, The Alliance for Media Arts + Culture
    Wendy’s creative work takes place at the intersection of storytelling, innovation and social justice. As the Executive Director of The Alliance for Media Arts + Culture, she is focused on facilitating collaboration, innovation, leadership and cultural impact in the media arts field, leading new national and international programs like HatchLabs, Arts2Work and The Innovation Studio. Arts2Work launched in January 2018 with the very first federally-registered National Apprenticeship Program in media arts and creative technologies, a new initiative representing the hope for the future of creative work in the US, and a pathway out of poverty for a new generation of diverse artists and storytellers. Previously, Wendy was a Senior Consultant at Sundance Institute, helping develop the Sundance/Skoll Stories of Change Program and the New Frontier Story Lab. Wendy also directed the MacArthur Foundation-funded Producers Institute for New Media Technologies, the first public media Innovation Lab in the US. She began her career in film as the Festival Director for the Film Arts Festival for Independent Cinema at Film Arts Foundation in San Francisco. Wendy is the recipient of the Princess Grace Statue Award for distinguished contribution to the media arts field.
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  • Cara Mertes Speaker
    Director, JustFilms, Ford Foundation
    Cara Mertes’ career focuses on supporting and connecting independent film communities globally as a public television executive, independent executive producer/director, funder, curator and teacher. Currently Director of Ford Foundation’s JustFilms, she funds content, networks and leadership fostering independent film/digital storytelling. She has served as Director, Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and Fund and Executive Producer of the POV documentary series on PBS, where she was awarded with multiple Emmy, George Foster Peabody, and duPont-Columbia awards. She has executive produced several Oscar-nominated films, including Street Fight, My Country My Country and The Betrayal (Nerakhoon) and led major Ford Foundation funding and support for Academy Award winner CITIZENFOUR. She served as executive director of American Documentary Inc., and has taught and written about the independent documentary movement. Mertes is a member of NATAS, WGA and AMPAS.
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