BREAKTHROUGH PITCHFEST

ONLINE

SATURDAY MAY 6, 3-6Pm ET/ 2-5pm CT/12-3PM PT - NARRATIVE
Saturday may 13, 3-6Pm ET/ 2-5pm CT/12-3PM PT - DOCUMENTARY

Breakthrough Pitchfest is back!

Filmshop’s Breakthrough Pitchfest provides a forum for filmmakers to pitch their work and engage in discussions centered around development and distribution.

This will be a virtual event, taking place on SpatialChat, with both a narrative/fiction and a documentary day:

• May 6 (3-6pm ET / 2-5pm CT / 12-3pm PT) will focus on narrative/fiction projects

• May 13 (3-6pm ET / 2-5pm CT / 12-3pm PT) will focus on documentary projects

Programming each day kicks off with a conversation among our panelists about a topic pertinent to the independent filmmaking landscape, related to financing, development, and distribution. This is followed by a pitchfest in which 10 Filmshop members* pitch to and receive feedback from our panel. 

In addition, the program will include a 30-minute break in which attendees will have an opportunity to connect with invited industry guests and members of FS partner organizations, as well as attend a session during which alums from our last Breakthrough event present updates on their projects. 

*N.B.: a minimum of 50% of the spots in each category are reserved for members of our community who belong to groups underrepresented in the film industry (including non-male identifying, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, living with a disability, and New Orleans community members).

The Filmmakers

Narrative/Fiction

Albert Beniada, SHOUT! (feature)

Lizzy Bryce, HAGS (Have A Great Summer) (series)

Jessica W. Chen, Exes at a Wedding (short)

Roberto Drilea, Fidelity (feature)

Jake Hart, Black Ice Cometh (feature)

Eevin Hartsough & Sarah Gurfield, Adult Orphan Club (series)

Linus Ignatius, Marque and Hector Turn Trash into Treasure (series)

Mary McGloin, Bright Blue (series)

Lizbett Perez, Poor Relations (series)

Traven Rice, Lay Lefty Down (short)

Narrative/fiction block moderated by Hope Olaidé Wilson

NARRATIVE Panelists

EMILY ROLLER (FOUNDER AND COO OF MIDNIGHT OIL COLLECTIVE)

Emily Roller is a founder and COO of Midnight Oil Collective, an arts and entertainment investment and development company. She has a breadth of experience across the arts, education, nonprofit administration, and technology start-ups. Most recently, she curated an educational series that helped artists develop entrepreneurial mindsets and skills at the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale and at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater, and Dance. Her work for the stage has been performed at venues including Washington National Opera and Opera America. She holds a BA in English from Yale, an MA in Writing from Johns Hopkins, and an MFA in Musical Theatre Writing from NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

RAchel Watanabe-batton (PRODUCER, FOUNDER OF CONTRADICTION AND STRUGGLE)

Rachel Watanabe-Batton is an award-winning producer of film, TV and popular culture. She founded NY-based production company Contradiction and Struggle to tell stories that reframe history and culture and connect cinema, causes and capital. Watanabe-Batton executive produced the musical Sneakerella for Disney Plus which was nominated for eleven Emmy Awards and won four 2022 CAFÉ Emmys including Outstanding Fiction Special.

Watanabe-Batton creates stories and branding that cultivate empathy and human connection rather than bias and fear. Her interest in visual iconography has led to her to work on museum exhibitions including Seeking by writer-director Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust), which will be the centering film for the International African American Museum in Charleston when it opens in June 2023; Dash’s installations for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s In America Spring 2022 Costume Institute exhibition; and Out/Side of Time by artist Jenn Nkiru for The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Afrofuturist Period Room Before Yesterday We Could Fly.  

Watanabe-Batton is a member of Gold House, Brown Girls Doc Mafia, Black TV and Film Collective, Women Make Movies, New York Women in Film and Television, and Producers Guild of America.

DOCUMENTARY PANELISTS

DOMINIC DAVIS (MANAGER, SUNDANCE DOCUMENTARY FUND)

Dominic Davis returned to the Sundance Institute in 2022 as Manager of the Documentary Film Fund. In 2011, Dominic worked as a coordinator in the Artist Relations of the Sundance Film Festival, where he discovered and then pursued film programming as a profession. While programming for the Margaret Mead Film Festival at the American Museum of Natural History, Tribeca Film Festival, and Rooftop Films, he reviewed applications for Catapult Film Fund and Creative Capital and managed the Rooftop Films Filmmakers Fund. Dominic has a degree in mass media studies and political science from the University of Kentucky.

LIVIA HUANG (ASSOCIATE PROGRAMMER, AMERICA REFRAMED)

Livia Huang is an associate programmer at America ReFramed, a public media documentary series co-produced by American Documentary and WORLD Channel. She is also a filmmaker whose shorts have screened at Berlinale, IFFR, New Directors/New Films, and more.

RANELL SHUBERT (NONFICTION ACCESS INITIATIVE FUNDS PROGRAM MANAGER, INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY ASSOCIATION)

Ranell Shubert is the Nonfiction Access Initiative Funds Program Manager at the International Documentary Association (IDA), a movement aimed at narrative change through building power, community, and increasing opportunities for nonfiction media-makers who identify as disabled. She also teaches Podcast Production at the University of Southern California. Prior to joining IDA and NAI, she produced the What’s Up With Docs podcast and also worked with the 1IN4 Coalition creating artist development programs for creatives with disabilities. Ranell has 10 years of experience in artist support programs and education, film festivals and industry programming, production, pitching, funding, advocacy, and distribution, and provides creative and professional consultation to nonfiction storytellers of various forms from film to series, podcasts, and immersive content.