Thursday, September 30 @ 2pm PT / 5pm ET
With the new school year underway, Dear Producer and the Documentary Producers Alliance have teamed up to bring together fiction and documentary producers to reveal what they don’t teach you in film school. From the truth about funding and distribution, to how to earn a living while making your films, and taking creative risks, these producers will teach valuable lessons whether you are currently in film school, never attended, or now a notable alumni.
Webinar is free to all.
PANELISTS:
DANIELA ALATORRE is a Mexican producer and filmmaker. She holds an MFA in documentary film from the School of Visual Arts in NY. She has been part of the Sundance Editing, Music and Creative Producing Labs, a Flaherty Film Seminar fellow in 2010, and a participant from 2011 to 2016. She produced the Sundance Award winning documentary El General (2009), directed by Natalia Almada; ¡De Panzazo! (2012), the second most-viewed documentary in Mexico’s history, directed by Juan Carlos Rulfo and Carlos Loret de Mola; El Ingeniero (2012), directed by Alejandro Lubezki; and the NYT OpDocs Unsilenced, directed by Betzabé García. Daniela founded No Ficción along with Elena Fortes and Cinépolis, where her producer credits include a series of documentary shorts for Netflix produced between 2018 and 2019 (A Tale of Two Kitchens, directed by Trisha Ziff; A Three Minute Hug, directed by Everardo González; Birders directed by Otilia Portillo; Lorena, Light Footed Woman, directed by Juan Carlos Rulfo; and After the Raid, directed by Rodrigo Reyes), an op-doc for the New York Times Ruptured City (2018) directed by Diego Rabasa and Santiago Arau, and the feature documentaries Midnight Family (2019) directed by Luke Lorentzen, Vivos (2019, as associate producer) directed by Ai Weiwei, Users (2021, as co-producer) directed by Natalia Almada, and A Cop Movie (2021) directed by Alonso Ruizpalacios. Retreat, her first feature documentary as a director, received a special mention from the jury and the Ambulante Film Festival prize at the XVII Morelia International Film Festival. In 2020, she co-directed Fragments, a short film about and done during the pandemic that had its premiere at the Morelia Film Festival in 2020.
RESITA COX is a North Carolina-born, Chicago-based independent filmmaker and artist. Resita launched her career in journalism at WTVD-TV in Raleigh, NC and WCTI-TV in New Bern, NC as a multimedia journalist and news reporter. Resita transitioned from news media to documentary film in 2018, where she was named a Chicago Filmmakers Digital Media Production Grantee for her film, Regrowth. Resita has also worked with Kartemquin Films as the Impact Producer on their Emmy-nominated docu-series produced with The Marshall Project, We Are Witnesses. She is the director of Freedom Hill, a documentary about the environmental racism that is washing away the first town chartered by Black people in the nation, which is being developed into a series with support from Hulu as 2021 Hulu/Kartemquin Accelerator Fellow. She holds an MFA from Northwestern University in Documentary Film and is a 2021 Sister’s in Cinema Documentary Fellow. Resita was also recently named a North Star fellow with esteemed documentary organization, Points North Institute.
TORY LENOSKY is an Emmy Award nominated producer and an alumna of the Sundance Creative Producing Lab. She produces feature film and short form content. Her work includes the feature film LOST TRANSMISSIONS with Simon Pegg and Juno Temple (2019 Tribeca Film Festival), the short comedy documentary HUMANKINDA (Nominated for 2016 Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Special Class Short Format Program), and the feature film LOITERING WITH INTENT with Academy Award-winners Marisa Tomei and Sam Rockwell (2014 Tribeca Film Festival). Her upcoming feature film projects include THE HATER (2019 Sundance Director Lab Project) from writer/director/star Joey Ally and 2019 Black List script RESURRECTION from writer/director Andrew Semans.
Born in Seoul, but adopted and raised in Baltimore, KIMBERLY PARKER is a producer based in Los Angeles. Parker produced the sophomore feature of Josef Kubota Wladyka (Narcos, Manos Sucias), Catch the Fair One, Winner of the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival Audience Award, executive produced by Darren Aronofsky and Protozoa. Parker is an Executive Producer on A24’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Best Director, Sundance 2019), executive produced by Brad Pitt and Plan B. She produced I Am My Own Mother, one of two American shorts in Cannes Cinéfondation 2018. Parker also produced Katie Says Goodbye (TIFF 2016), starring Olivia Cooke (Sound of Metal) and Christopher Abbott (Catch-22). Parker produced an interactive, gaze-controlled virtual reality film, Broken Night, starring Emily Mortimer (Tribeca, Cannes Next 2017). Her first feature as a producer, Those People, won Audience Awards at Outfest and NewFest. Parker was a 2016 San Francisco Film Society/KRF Producing Fellow and a 2019 Nevada City Film Festival Creative Producing Resident. She participated in EPI’s Trans Atlantic Partners, Berlinale Talents, and the Sundance Women in Film Financing Intensive. Parker is a three time IFP alum, and a member of the Producers Guild of America. She graduated with a Film M.F.A. from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and a B.A. in Writing Seminars and Film and Media Studies from Johns Hopkins University.
NATALIE QASABIAN is an independent film producer based in Los Angeles. In 2018, Natalie produced “Searching,” a thriller starring John Cho and Debra Messing which was acquired by Sony at Sundance and went on to gross $75M at the box office. Prior to “Searching” Natalie produced three feature films for the Duplass Brothers including “Duck Butter” directed by Miguel Arteta. Her films have premiered at Sundance, SXSW and Tribeca. Most recently, Natalie produced “Run” starring Sarah Paulson for Lionsgate, which premiered on Hulu in 2020 and quickly became the most watched original film on the streamer. In 2021, Natalie was awarded the Sundance Institute Amazon Studios Producer’s of the Year Award. Currently, Natalie is producing “Searching 2” for Sony/Screen Gems starring Storm Reid and Nia Long. She studied at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, and recently earned an MBA from Pepperdine University.