Doc Conference
Doc Conference is a day-long series of panels and discussions devoted to the new challenges and opportunities for documentary financing, distribution and impact.
Date: Sunday, September 13, 2009
Time: 10:00am to 5:00pm
Location: University of Toronto’s Victoria College (93 Charles Street West, behind the Isabel Bader Theatre), Room 323
*Doc Conference is open to all Guest Relations, Sales & Industry and Press pass holders.
Purchase tickets to the Doc Conference here
Doc Conference Schedule:
10:00am – Key Note Speaker
Liesl Copland, Entertainment Global Finance and Distribution
11:00am – Distribution Case Study & Declaration of Independence
Peter Broderick, Paradigm Consulting
Jim Browne, Tribeca Film Festival
1:30pm – Financing in Tough Times
Franny Armstrong, Director, The Age of Stupid
Dan Cogan, Impact Partners
Lois Vossen, ITVS
3:00pm – Documentary Ethics Report and Panel Discussion
Pat Aufderheide, American University
Vikram Jayanti, Director, Snowblind
Geoffrey Smith, Director, Presumed Guilty
Michael Tucker, Director, How to Fold a Flag
Mridu Chandra, Producer
4:30pm – Interview with Jonathan DemmeDoc Conference Guest Speakers include:
Pat Aufderheide
Patricia Aufderheide is a professor in the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C, and director of the Center for Social Media there. She is the author of, among others, Documentary: A Very Short Introduction, The Daily Planet and Communications Policy in the Public Interest. She has been a Fulbright and John Simon Guggenheim fellow and has served as a juror at the Sundance Film Festival among others.
Franny Armstrong
Director, The Age of Stupid.
Liesl Copland
A fifteen-year entertainment industry veteran, Liesl Copland has focused on the specialty film sector and on democratizing distribution for unique, independently produced projects most recently experimenting with newer distribution models. Liesl joined William Morris Endeavor Entertainment Global Finance and Distribution group at the end of 2008 and also sits in the agency’s digital group. Liesl focuses on forging new distribution models and feature film marketing partnerships while also working on film financing, packaging and sales.
Peter Broderick
Peter Broderick is president of Paradigm Consulting, which helps filmmakers and media companies develop strategies to maximize distribution, audiences, and revenues. Paradigm Consulting specializes in state-of-the-art distribution techniques, including innovative theatrical service deals, hybrid video strategies and new approaches to global distribution. In 1999, Broderick founded Next Wave Films and established their "Agenda 2000", the world's first entity devoted to financing digital features.
Jim Browne
Jim Browne has been programming, distributing and producing film and video projects in New York City for the past 22 years. He has also been a Programmer for the Tribeca Film Festival since 2006. He founded Argot Pictures in 2005 an independent film distribution company specializing in theatrical releases. Since their inception Argot Pictures has released Street Fight, Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037, China Blue, Secrecy, Crips & Bloods: Made in America, Throw Down Your Heart, American Casino among others.
Mridu Chandra
Mridu Chandra has been producing award-winning documentaries and indie
films for the past decade. Documentary credits include Brother
Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin and Let the Church Say Amen,
selected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences as one of
the “most outstanding documentaries” of 2004. Her indie film credits
include Love, Ludlow, Punching at the Sun and most recently
festival winner Poundcake. She teaches graduate level classes at The
New School’s Department of Media Studies and is a research fellow and
director of the documentary ethics project at American University’s
Center for Social Media.
Dan Cogan
Dan Cogan is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Impact Partners, a fund and advisory service for investors and philanthropists who seek to promote social change through film. Since its inception two years ago, IP has been involved in the financing of over 25 films, including: Freeheld, which won the 2008 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film; The Garden, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2009; and The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, which won an Emmy in 2007 for Best Documentary Special.
Jonathan Demme
With a career spanning more than three decades, Jonathan Demme is the director of such documentaries as: Spadling Gray’s Swimming to Cambodia, Jimmy Carter Man From Plains, The Agronomist and Stop Making Sense. In fiction, Demme won an Oscar for Best Director for his film The Silence of the Lambs. His newest documentary The Neil Young Trunk Show will premiere at this year’s Festival.
Vikram Jayanti
Vikram Jayanti has worked extensively in documentary as both producer and director for over two decades. When We Were Kings, which he co-produced, won both a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the Academy Award® for best documentary feature. His other credits as producer include The Man Who Bought Mustiqueand Who Is Bernard Tapie? (01). As a director, his documentary work includes I Am a Sex Addict, James Ellroy's Feast of Death, Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine and Snowblind.
Geoffrey Smith
Geoffrey Smith was born in Melbourne, Australia, and has made over twenty television documentaries. His film The English Surgeon was named the best international feature documentary at the 2008 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. Presumed Guilty is his latest film.
Michael Tucker
Michael Tucker was born in Honolulu. He has co-directed the films Gunner Palace and The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair, which both screened at the Festival, as well as Bulletproof Salesman and How to Fold a Flag.
Lois Vossen
Lois Vossen is the founding and Emmy Award-winning series producer of Independent Lens on PBS, the largest documentary showcase on U.S. television. It has received three Emmy Awards for Best Documentary, a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Nonfiction Programming, four Peabody Awards, three Columbia DuPont Awards and has been nominated for six other Emmy Awards.