Yael Melamede
Director (Why We Hate)
Funding Day (Nov. 10)
FUNDING DAY – THURSDAY, NOV. 10
Join us for conversations from noted funders tracking new trends and offering insights into funding your films.
In the NBC News Studios Lounge, the day starts with Breakfast (9-10 AM) and ends with a Happy Hour (4:30-5:30 PM) co-presented by Frankfurt Kurnit.
10am – 11:15am
Fund Yourself: New Models of Revenue Generation
In the ever-challenging funding landscape, alternative models for funding can be as innovative as they are necessary. Join filmmaker Yael Melamede ((Dis)Honesty, The Truth About Lies), distribution and branding consultant Brian Newman of Sub-Genre Media and filmmaker Sian-Pierre Regis (Duty Free) as they share new and expansive practices learned in the process of funding their doc projects with moderator and documentary film funding strategist Tracie Holder.
Yael Melamede
Director (Why We Hate)
Yael Melamede – Filmmaker. Yael Melamede is the co-founder of SALTY Features – an independent production company based in New York City whose goal is to create media that is thought-provoking, vital, and enhances the world. Melamede’s documentary credits include the Jigsaw Productions/Amblin Entertainment six-part series WHY WE HATE (2019), STRAIGHT/CURVE (2017), WHEN I WALK (News & Doc Emmy Award Winner, 2015), (DIS)HONESTY – THE TRUTH ABOUT LIES (2015), DESERT RUNNERS (2015), INOCENTE (Academy Award Winner, Best Doc Short, 2013), and MY ARCHITECT (Academy Award Nominee, 2004). Yael was an architect before becoming a filmmaker and is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.
Sian-Pierre Regis
Director
Sian-Pierre Regis
Director
Sian- Pierre Regis is a filmmaker who directed, produced and self-distributed his debut feature documentary DUTY FREE. Called a “tender love poem from son to mother” by CBS News, the film was released in 30 theaters over Mother’s Day 2021 and fast-became a press magnet garnering coverage from CBS Sunday Morning, NPR, MSNBC, The Tamron Hall Show, AARP; the film was also a #1 Apple News story through the weekend. It will have its debut broadcast on PBS’s Independent Lens on November 22 at 10pET.
Prior to filmmaking, Regis was a journalist and on-camera contributor to CNN, HLN, and MTV and founded Swagger, an online lifestyle magazine for millennials with over 1.5 million fans. He is a Firelight Media fellow and Film Independent Documentary Lab Fellow.
Brian Newman
Principal, Sub-Genre
Brian Newman
Principal, Sub-Genre
Brian Newman, founder of Sub-Genre, consults on content strategy, distribution and marketing for some of the top brands in the world. Current and former clients include: The Climate Pledge (Amazon), GoDaddy, IBM, New York Times, Oatly, Patagonia, Purina, REI, Stripe, Sundance, Unilever, and Yeti Coolers. Brian has served as CEO of the Tribeca Film Institute, and writes a popular weekly newsletter on film.
Tracie Holder
Chief Strategist, Means of Production Consulting
Tracie Holder
Chief Strategist, Means of Production Consulting
Tracie Holder is a filmmaker, consultant, producer and U.S. film funding specialist. A 2016 Sundance Creative Producers Fellow, Holder leads workshops, tutors and serves on juries at international pitching and training sessions. She is widely regarded as a “go-to” person and all-round resource for artists seeking U.S. funding having raised more than $3 million in grant funding for her own projects. Clients include: Documentary Campus, IDFA, EDN, Ramallah Doc, Lisbon Docs, Firelight Media, DOC NYC, Chicken & Egg, Black Public Media, Brown Girls Doc Mafia, Creative Capital, Unions Docs, and Gotham Film & Media (formerly IFP), among others. Holder was a longtime consultant to Women Make Movies and served as the Development & Funding Strategist for Abby Disney’s Fork Films. She is a former board member of NY Women in Film and grant panelist for national and local funders. She co-directed/produced Joe Papp in Five Acts, (Tribeca Film Festival, PBS/ American Masters). Producing credits include Grit, (Hot Docs/POV) and The Quiet Zone, and One Person, One Vote? in production. She is currently developing The People’s Will, for which she was recently awarded a prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities production grant.
11:30am – 12:45pm
The Sales Agent Story: New Trends in the Funding and Acquisitions Landscape
How are projects strategically acquired and sold? And what kinds of deals will trend in 2023? Sales agents have their fingers on the pulse of industry trends and the ever shifting funding and sales terrain. Led by Kevin Iwashina (Fifth Season), Charlotte Lichtman (CAA), Josh Braun (Submarine Entertainment) and Maggie Pisacane (WME Agency), these experts hone in on the direction funding and sales is headed.
Kevin Iwashina
SVP and Head of Documentary at FIFTH SEASON
Kevin Iwashina
SVP and Head of Documentary at FIFTH SEASON
Kevin Iwashina is Head of FIFTH SEASON Documentary, a global leader in the production, distribution, financing and sales of premium film, television, and audio content. In his role, Iwashina identifies financing opportunities, handles sales and provides advisory services for media companies, global corporations and content creators in the premium non-scripted space.
Formerly known as Endeavor Content, FIFTH SEASON finances, packages and sells over 100 feature films and television series a year. In premium non-scripted, recent film and television projects include: Chef’s Table, Won’t You Be My Neighbor, The Elephant Queen, The Apollo, Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez, We Are Freestyle Love Supreme and Hamilton, among others.
Maggie Pisacane
Agent, WME
Maggie Pisacane
Agent, WME
Maggie Pisacane is a partner at WME and runs the agency’s Documentary Group. In her role, she focuses on premium non-fiction and documentary projects, representing renowned filmmakers and some of the most prolific production companies in the non fiction space.
Pisacane began her career as an associate at Sloss Eckhouse LawCo and transitioned to Frankfurt Kurnit where she became a partner, specializing in non-fiction television and documentaries, before joining WME as an agent and partner.
Josh Braun
Co-President of Submarine Entertainment
Josh Braun
Co-President of Submarine Entertainment
Josh Braun is the co-president of Submarine Entertainment, a hybrid sales, production and distribution company. Mr. Braun recently executive produced the Netflix documentary series The Andy Warhol Diaries, the Sundance feature competition documentary Fire of Love, the Netflix untitled Pamela Anderson documentary as well as recent titles Circus of Books, Crip Camp and Apollo 11. Other series titles include Lenox Hill, Sons of Sam, Evil Genius, The Keepers, The Devil Next Door and Wild Wild Country for which Mr. Braun won the Emmy for best documentary series in 2018. Recent sales titles include The Untitled Elton John documentary, Fire of Love, The Return of Tanya Tucker, Untitled Martha Stewart Documentary, Untitled Pam Anderson documentary, Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry, Velvet Underground, Boys State, Social Dilemma.
Charlotte Lichtman
Agent (CAA)
Charlotte Lichtman
Agent (CAA)
Charlotte Lichtman is an agent in the Media Finance Group at CAA, focusing in premium documentary and docuseries. As an agent, Charlotte represents documentary filmmakers and producers, working to package, source financing for, and sell their films and series. Prior to her time at CAA, Charlotte was an agent at ICM Partners in their Independent Film division, working across both narrative and documentary content. Charlotte is from the metro Detroit area and graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in film.
1:45pm – 3pm
International Co-Productions
Curious how to expand your project’s reach and find new collaborators abroad? Our expert panelists will discuss ways to lead an international co-production and the factors that contribute to a successful international collaboration. Klara Nilsson Grunning (Norwegian Film Institute) leads a panel of producers and executives, including producer Cynthia Kane (Dilemma of Desire), Igal Svet (discovery+) and Mandy Chang (Fremantle) to illuminate and educate.
Igal Svet
VP of Documentaries, discovery+
Igal Svet
VP of Documentaries, discovery+
Igal Svet serves as Vice President of Documentaries at discovery+ where he oversees documentaries for the streamer. Svet shaped the programming and overall documentary strategy for the streamer since launch. He is responsible for acquiring, commissioning and EP’ing premium docs with A-list talent behind and in front of the lens. In his tenure so far, discovery+ successfully launched over 50 award-winning and subscriber-driving docs including Unprecedented, A Radical Life, Introducing Selma Blair, Francesco, Lily Topples the World, Dear Mr Brody, Rebel Hearts and many more. Svet most recently commissioned and EP’d January 6th, screening at this year’s DOC NYC. He’s currently EP’ing the highly anticipated Shaun White docuseries, which is set for next year.
Cynthia Kane
Producer (Disappointment Valley: A Modern Day Western)
Cynthia Kane
Producer (Disappointment Valley: A Modern Day Western)
Cynthia Kane co-created Sundance Channel’s DOCday and brought Jean-Xavier de Lestrade and Denis Poncet’s documentary series, The Staircase (2006-Peabody-Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Awards) to U.S. television. At ITVS, she shepherded 150+ international and U.S. co-productions for public media. At Al Jazeera America, she commissioned documentaries and series (Albert Maysles’ final work, In Transit and duPont Award-winning series, Kartemquin Films’ Hard Earned). Recent work includes Raj Patel and Zak Piper’s The Ants and the Grasshopper (2021), Carl Gierstorfer and Antje Boehmert’s The River Between Us (2021), NC Heikin’s Life & Life (2021), Maria Finitzo’s The Dilemma of Desire (2020-Showtime), Kim A Snyder, Maria Cuomo Cole, Lori Cheatle’s Us Kids (2020), and Maia Lekow and Chris King’s The Letter (2019).
Klara Nilsson Grunning
Commissioning Editor/Film Commissioner, Norwegian Film Institute
Klara Nilsson Grunning
Commissioning Editor/Film Commissioner, Norwegian Film Institute
Klara Nilsson Grunning is an Emmy Award winning producer, currently assigned as the film commissioner at the Norwegian Film Institute for documentary features, shorts and digital formats. She has been commissioner at the Danish and Swedish Film Institutes where she has commissioned films like Queen of Versailles, Children of the Enemy, Transnistra, Nelly & Nadine, Hidden Letters, Swedish Theory of Love, and The Raft. She is currently funding Margreth Olin’s next film Songs of the Earth and Victor Kossakovski’s Fish Scale Garden. In the past she was supervising producer at ITVS for nine years, working with projects like Lion in the House, The New Americans and My Country My Country.
Mandy Chang
Global Head of Documentaries, Fremantle
Mandy Chang
Global Head of Documentaries, Fremantle
Mandy Chang is Fremantle’s Global Head of Documentaries, with over 20 years of experience working across multiple genres and platforms as a respected commissioner, Exec producer, writer and filmmaker. She joined Fremantle to create a slate of world class international documentaries and series globally. For 4 years she ran legendary BBC global feature doc strand Storyville, commissioning and overseeing acclaimed international feature docs and series, such as Writing with Fire, Collective, Welcome to Chechnya, The Mole: Infiltrating North Korea, Locked In: Breaking the Silence and The Fourth Estate.
Mandy brought her own vision to the much-loved strand, curating a slate of talked about documentaries, extending Storyville’s breadth and diversity and guiding exciting new talent into the industry.
3:15pm – 4:30pm
Warhol Foundation vs. Goldsmith: A New Test for “Fair Use” by Filmmakers?
Join entertainment lawyers Lisa E. Davis, Caren Decter, Melissa Georges and Andrew Rossi (The Andy Warhol Diaries) for a discussion of this current US Supreme Court court case that threatens to alter the “fair use” landscape. Learn how changes in “fair use” affect selection of footage, your ability to obtain insurance for a project, and so much more.
Lisa E. Davis
Partner, Frankfurt Kurnit
Lisa E. Davis
Partner, Frankfurt Kurnit
Lisa E. Davis is a partner in the Entertainment Group at Frankfurt Kurnit. Lisa represents businesses and celebrities in the film, television, publishing, music, theatre, and sports industries. She advises on a full range of transactional matters – focusing on film (both feature and documentary), television, publishing, live stage and branded entertainment. Lisa has been ranked as a New York-area “Super Lawyer” since 2007 and was featured on the cover of Super Lawyers magazine in a piece on her career and advocacy for racial justice. Best Lawyers in America, Crain’s New York Business, The Hollywood Reporter, The Legal 500, and Variety have all included Lisa on their lists of leading entertainment lawyers.
Caren Decter
Partner, Frankfurt Kurnit
Caren Decter
Partner, Frankfurt Kurnit
Caren Decter is a partner in the Litigation Group at Frankfurt Kurnit, focusing on commercial and intellectual property litigation, and white collar defense. Named to Benchmark Litigation’s 2019 and 2021 40 & Under Hot List and listed as a 2022 Super Lawyer by Super Lawyers magazine, Ms. Decter represents clients in civil and criminal matters pending in state and federal courts around the country. In addition, she advises clients in the finance, legal, consumer goods, advertising, art, and media and entertainment industries — on “business divorces”, contract, fraud, copyright, trademark, false advertising, ADA compliance and other matters.
Melissa Georges
Counsel, Frankfurt Kurnit
Melissa Georges
Counsel, Frankfurt Kurnit
Melissa Georges is counsel to the Entertainment Group and Chair of the Content Review & Clearance Group at Frankfurt Kurnit. For more than 20 years, she has helped award-winning film and television producers, directors, actors, writers, animators, and comedians resolve complex legal issues to get their projects cleared and distributed. Ms. Georges assesses all forms of entertainment content for legal risk. She regularly studies film footage, television shows, podcasts, internet content, webisodes, scripts, screenplays, manuscripts, live performances, animated programs and other executions for potential claims, and suggests revisions and edits with an eye to reducing or eliminating risk.
Andrew Rossi
Director (The Warhol Diaries)
Andrew Rossi
Director (The Warhol Diaries)
Writer, director and executive producer Andrew Rossi was recently nominated for three Emmy awards for his series, The Andy Warhol Diaries. The Netflix series was a hybrid of scripted recreations and non-fiction, penetrating the myth around one of the most influential cultural figures of our time. This is a consistent theme in Andrew’s work, including his award winning documentaries Page One: Inside The New York Times about the NYT’s media desk and Ivory Tower, both of which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival; The First Monday in May following the annual Met Gala, and the short film he produced about the legacy of Sigmund Freud, Hysterical Girl, which was short-listed for the Academy Award.
Co-presented by:
To experience the DOC NYC PRO lineup, purchase an individual PRO Day Pass (via the Buy Ticket button) to hone in on a specific subject, or benefit from discounted pricing when you purchase Multi-Day Pass Packs to an assortment of topic strands.
All guests & staff will be required to comply with our Health & Safety protocols while attending DOC NYC events. For the latest information, please review our policies here.
DOC NYC PRO is co-presented by:
