Mentors - Open Call 4
Meet with industry professionals who can give advice and answer questions about distribution, distribution options, and more for any film project in our Distribution Open Call.
Mentor session signup is open to all Film, Gold and Platinum badge holders at a first-come, first-served basis. Registrants who signed up online must check-in 30 minutes before your mentor time slot to guarantee your spot. Limited on-site signup is also available for a small number of mentor sessions spots and will begin 30 minutes before the first time slot of each session.
To sign up for a mentor session click on the link for the mentor you are interested in meeting with:
Matt Johnstone -- http://mentor.sxsw.com/mentors/276
Chad Hartigan -- http://mentor.sxsw.com/mentors/107
Doug Block -- http://mentor.sxsw.com/mentors/105
Jeffrey Abramson -- http://mentor.sxsw.com/mentors/106
Jeph Scanlon -- http://mentor.sxsw.com/mentors/103
Matt Grady -- http://mentor.sxsw.com/mentors/108
Ondi Timoner -- http://mentor.sxsw.com/mentors/104
John Bernstein -- http://mentor.sxsw.com/mentors/272
Presenters
Chad Hartigan has been tracking the box office for seventeen years. First, as a curious 10 year old reading about all the records Jurassic Park was breaking, and for the last five years as a senior analyst for Exhibitor Relations in Los Angeles. Providing in depth analysis of upcoming films, current trends, marketing and distribution strategies and more, Exhibitor Relations is the number one authority for box office information since 1974. Hartigan's work there has seen him appear on Fox News, Bloomberg News, CNBC, E! News and he has been quoted in hundreds of publications worldwide.
Doug Block's feature documentary credits as director include:
The Kids Grow Up
51 Birch Street
Home Page
The Heck With Hollywood!
As producer, they include:
Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles
A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory
Love and Diane
Paternal Instinct
Jupiter's Wife
Silverlake Life
Also, founder and co-host of The D-Word (www.d-word.com), the online discussion forum for documentary professionals worldwide.
Jeffrey Abramson is Co-President of Gen Art and oversees the creation of content and audiences for its film, fashion, and music programming.
Jeph is Executive Director of the Kansas City Filmmakers Jubilee and has been the Lead Programmer for KC Filmmakers Jubilee and Kansas City FilmFest since 2005. Jeph is an actor and writer who has performed with several theatre companies in the Kansas City area and has dozens of short and feature films to his credit. Jeph has a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Theatre. Jeph initiated and has continued to cultivate a relationship between the Jubilee and several well-known film festivals including the Toronto International Film Festival, Sundance and SXSW. Jeph was on TIFF’s selection committee for Canada’s Top Ten Shorts 2007 as well as the 2011 SXSW Film Mentor Sessions (Programming) and is happy to be returning to do the same at SXSW 2012. Jeph has directed and produced several independent shorts.
Previous positions held with the KC Jubilee include programmer of the Indy Film Showcase (a monthly feature film series) 2002-2005 and Vice-President of the Jubilee Board of Directors 2007 – 2011.
John Bernstein is Senior Producer of Creative Content at Walt Disney Studios. During his time at Disney, John has been in charge of developing shorts, documentaries, and interactive for a range of film and television projects including the Blu-ray and DVD releases of THE MUPPETS, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, ABC's LOST, and all releases from MIRAMAX during the years they were under the Disney umbrella. As a festival veteran, John helped run the Atlanta Film Festival, served on the programming team of AFI Fest, and was a short film screener for Sundance for a decade. During his years as a freelance journalist, John was a writer/photographer for Detour, Rough Cut, and served as contributor to indieWIRE during its formative years.
Grady founded Factory 25 which consistently has released edgy documentaries & Narrative's including: Frownland, Until the Light Takes Us, Brock Enright: Good Times Will Never Be the Same, Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo and You Wont Miss Me. Prior to Factory 25, Grady, was director of production at Plexifilm.Grady's mission is to use FACTORY 25 as a way to keep physical media alive, while exposing the indie world to under-the-radar films, music, and other curiosities.
Matt Johnstone, principal & founder of Matt Johnstone Publicity, offers a boutique and hands-on publicity experience to creative talent, production companies, sales agencies, film festivals, and distributors looking for a resourceful, carefully crafted and cost-effective result. He has over eighteen years of diverse domestic and international experience as a publicist and strategic marketing consultant in the film and television business, with a unique blend of extensive experience in the independent film marketplace and the studio arena. An innovative and resourceful strategist, he has strong understanding of both the creative and business mechanics of the entertainment industry.
He slate of recently publicized films includes The Cinema Hold Up (Sundance 2011), The Ways of Wine (Berlin Film Festival 2011), August (Outfest, NewFest, Seattle Int’l Film Festival 2011), Roman’s Circuit (Toronto Film Festival 2011), Always Brando (Toronto Film Festival 2011), and A Secret World (Berlin Film Festival 2012). In 2011, he was the lead senior publicist of the AFI FEST, and he was recently Head of Publicity for the 2012 Slamdance Film Festival. At the 2012 SXSW Film Festival, he is publicizing two documentary films: Trash Dance and Wildness.
Ondi Timoner has the rare distinction of winning the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival twice. Her 2004 Sundance-winning doc, DIG! about the collision of art & commerce through the lives of two bands, and her 2009 top prize-winner, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC, about an internet visionary who showed by example how willingly we will trade our privacy and eventually sanity in the virtual age, were both acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York for their permanent collection. She also directed the socio-political feature documentaries, Join Us (2007), about the cult epidemic in America, and The Nature of the Beast (1994), a hard-hitting look at the US prison system, and the short film Recycle, which premiered at Sundance in 2006, and subsequently screened at Cannes and in schools worldwide. Timoner premiered her fifth feature-length documentary, Cool It - a film that blasts through the polarizing logjam of the climate change debate to bring a solid plan for solutions at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, and was released theatrically across America in November 2010 through Roadside Attractions.
In any format, Ondi loves to use her camera as a bridge to bring herself and the audience deep into worlds they may never otherwise enter. In 2000, Timoner created, produced and directed the original VH-1 series Sound Affects, about music’s effect at critical moments in people’s lives. She has directed commercials and web series for such companies as McDonalds, State Farm, Ford, The Army, and others. She has directed films for CNN Heroes helmed the latest two short films for Honda’s innovative series, entitled Dream the Impossible, which premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.
Ondi is also currently directing and producing a documentary series follow up to WE LIVE IN PUBLIC which explores transparency now that the Internet wags the tail of the world. She just completely the opening film for President Clinton’s concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Oct ’11, which raised money for his foundation. Her film starred Steven Spielberg, Barbra Streisand, the President, and many other notables.
Having made dramatic documentaries with strong narratives (and witnessed many documentaries that fit this bill) Ondi likes to call her next directorial effort a “pre-scripted actor film.” Entitled MAPPLETHORPE, it tells the story of the life of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, and will star James Franco. Timoner attended the Sundance Director’s and Screenwriter’s Lab as a fellow in 2010 to develop MAPPLETHORPE, has since written the draft that will be produced, and is shooting the film in 2012.
Born in Miami, Florida, Timoner graduated Yale University, Cum Laude, with a double major in American Studies (concentration in Film and Literature) and Theater Studies.
Monday, March 12
