Mentors: Sales and Acquisitions
Learn about the nuts and bolts of the all-important packaging, marketing and selling of your film. Who you are selling to? How do you land that buyer? Who picks up the tab? Find out here.
Sign Up Here: http://mentor.sxsw.com.
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.
Presenters
Annick Mahnert
Acquisitions Consultant
Screen Division
Annick Mahnert studied film production at the NYFA and worked as a production assistant at Roger Corman’s Concorde-New Horizons. Back in Switzerland, she went on to work in distribution and programming at 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Pathé Cinémas and Frenetic Films. She also worked at Maximage Filmproduktion as a production assistant, working on feature films and documentaries.
Early 2012 she moved to Paris to join the renowned sales agency Celluloid Dreams, handling sales and acquisitions. Since 2013, she is working as a freelance acquisitions consultant and festival programmer and was hired in November 2013 as Foreign Representative for the Market & Festivals department at Swiss Films, the promotion agency for Swiss filmmaking.
Mahnert produced the horror western short film Dead Bones starring Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead) and Arie Verveen (The Thin Red Line). The short has more than 90 festival selections worldwide and won several awards. She is currently developing a project based on an Edward Bunker novel and serves as an executive producer on the new films by Gustavo Hernández (Dios Local) and Jeremy Gardner’s yet Untitled Project.
Benjamin Braun
Sales Agent
Submarine Entertainment
Dan Fisher
Mgr, Worldwide Acquisitions
Entertainment One
Hailey Wierengo
Agent
United Talent Agency
Hailey Wierengo is an agent in the Independent Film Group at leading talent and literary UTA, where she focuses on the packaging, financing and sales of independent film. In this capacity she has worked on titles including Mike Mills’ BEGINNERS, Miranda July’s THE FUTURE, Jesse Peretz’s OUR IDIOT BROTHER, Lynn Shelton’s YOUR SISTER’S SISTER and Lee Tolan Kreiger’s CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER.
Wierengo joined UTA’s agent training program in 2008 and was promoted to agent in 2011. Raised in Chicago, Wierengo attended the University of Michigan where she studied Film and Media Studies and Art History. Wierengo went on to intern at Bob Berney’s distribution company Picturehouse in New York, where she contributed to the release of LA VIE EN ROSE starring Marion Cotillard.
Wierengo lives in Los Angeles.
Kate Hurwitz
Exec
Cinetic Media
Peter Trinh
Agent
ICM Partners
Peter Van Steemburg
VP of Acquisitions
Magnolia Pictures
Peter Van Steemburg is the VP of Acquisitions at Magnolia Pictures and Magnet Releasing. Prior to Magnolia, Peter assisted in International Distribution and Operations for Miramax Films and worked for the Film Finance department at Cinetic Media, run by John Sloss. While at Magnolia he participated in the negotiation of such films as Drinking Buddies, The Hunter, Goon, Big Bad Wolves, and most recently, the upcoming Nymphomaniac, amongst others. He is a regular attendee to festivals and markets worldwide scouting for material. Peter graduated from Williams College with a B.A. in Art History.
Ryan Kampe
Pres
Visit Films
Prior to founding Visit Films, Ryan spent a number of years in International Distribution at Focus Features. With Visit Films, he has been responsible for the worldwide sales and development of a number of important American independent and international films that have premiered in festivals such as Cannes, Sundance, Berlin, and Toronto from filmmakers as diverse as Harmonie Korine, Werner Herzog, the Duplass Brothers, Valérie Donzelli, Joe Swanberg and David Robert Mitchell.
Ryan speaks on numerous panels each year and has served on a number of film festival juries while logging over 200,000 air miles flown annually. He is as an avid soccer enthusiast and graduated from Macalester College in St. Paul, MN.
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