Seminars And Workshops
The DC Independent Film Forum is pleased to present professional seminars focusing on the Business of Film, Documentary and Animation at #DCIFF2025, February 12-17, 2025
Thursday, February 13
FILM INDUSTRY HEARING ON THE HILL: INCENTIVIZING FILM PRODUCTION AND EXHIBITION IN THE US
Location: Cannon Building, Conference Room 401 House, 27 Independence Ave SE, Washington, DC 20003.
DATE/TIME: Thursday, February 13th: 8:30 AM – 12.00PM
Please allow 30 minutes to pass through security to enter the building
OVERVIEW: Film production of all budget sizes has been leaving the US because it is either too expensive or too complicated to film in-country. The standard response to this is tax incentives at a state level, but this does not seem to be enough to deal with the current crisis and its impact on the welfare of the media and entertainment industry and the people who work in it. Equally problematic is the toll online streaming has taken on movie theaters across the country that have historically served as economic and community drivers.
At this hearing, industry leaders and those on the ground will discuss tax incentives, new approaches and ways forward to incentivize strengthening film production within the United States and keeping movie theaters open for independent filmmakers, festivals, multimedia activities and as a valued economic and community generator across the US.
FORMAT: Moderated by leaders in WIFV and the Executive Director of DCIFF, we welcome leaders of organizations that serve the US film community and impact filmmakers in a roundtable discussion. Members of Congress and their aides are invited. We are grateful to have the involvement of the Motion Picture Association and thank Congresswoman Judy Chu’s office for making the event possible.
8.30am Tea and Coffee / Meet and Greet
9.10.20am INCENTIVIZING FILM PRODUCTION
Break: !0.20am – 10.40am
10.40am -12 noon INCENTIVIZING EXHIBITION
Using, Creating and Donating Archives for Filmmakers
Location: 401-A Conference Room, Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, MLK Library, 901 G St NW, Washington, DC 20001
Times: Friday, February 14th – 1:00pm – 4:00pm
Tickets: Free Event / Coffee and Tea Provided. Seating Limited SO PLEASE REGISTER HERE
SPEAKERS:
Chris Nicols is an accomplished multimedia archivist and digital asset manager who has spearheaded digitization and preservation projects at a number of institutions, while earning a reputation as a subject matter expert in digital multimedia standards and preservation techniques. He frequently lectures at universities and professional organizations like the Association of Moving Image Archivists, while maintaining a deep commitment to spotlighting underappreciated content and serving as a socially conscious citizen.
Criss Austin is the Supervisor of the Motion Picture Preservation Lab at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). In addition to completing digital preservation of William Wyler’s outtakes from The Memphis Belle: Story of a Flying Fortress she conducted forensic scanning of the Iwo Jima flag raising footage to assist in determining the identity of the Marines, and completed digital restoration of Eva Braun’s home movies. She is an active participant in multiple moving image professional organizations and in creating technical guidelines for archives, libraries, and museums. She holds degrees from Oberlin College, The Nottingham Trent University, and The L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation.
Nick Spark is a Los Angeles based writer, documentary filmmaker, historical researcher and founder of Periscope Film, which maintains one of the largest collections of historic military, aviation and transportation in the USA.
Eric Schwartz has over 35 years of experience as a copyright attorney counseling on U.S. and foreign copyright law matters for emerging technological uses as well as “traditional media”. Eric has served as production counsel for numerous feature and documentary films and television programs and is an expert on film and recorded music archival legal and preservation issues. He is an adjunct professor and frequent guest lecturer on copyright law and related subjects, including serving on the faculty of American University Washington College of Law, and Georgetown University Law Center.
WALA PRESENTS: CONTRACTS AND COPYRIGHT 101 FOR THE FILM INDUSTRY: UNDERSTANDING YOUR RIGHTS AND CREATIVE OWNERSHIP
Location: German-American Heritage Museum of the USA (719 6th St NW, Washington, DC 20001)
Time: Saturday, February 15th – 1.15pm – 2:15pm
Tickets HERE @ $19 (fees included)
Join WALA attorneys for a macro level discussion about contracts, copyright, fair use, work for hire, licensing, registration, releases, trademarks, and other legal topics of importance for creative professionals.
Speaking Attorneys:
Professor Lolita Darden and Samantha Levin, Esq., WALA Education Committee
Loletta (Lolita) Darden: Ms. Darden is a SAG-AFTRA actor, content creator, published author and a registered patent attorney. Ms. Darden’s legal work includes all aspects of IP creation, exploitation, and protection, including patent, trademark, and copyright matters. She has participated in several legal precedent setting patent and trademark cases, as well as copyright cases that have led to positive outcomes from a social justice perspective.
Currently, Ms. Darden is general counsel on the feature film production, Deciding Danny. She is also a founding partner of Darden Betts Strategic Intellectual Property Counselors, a boutique IP law firm focusing on trademark, patent, copyright, and entertainment law. Ms. Darden is also a Visiting Associate Clinical Professor and Director of the IP and Technology Law Clinic at The George Washington University Law School, which provides IP legal services to clients from communities that have been historically and intentionally excluded from access to economic opportunity.
Prior to GW Law, Ms. Darden was a partner at the law firm of Sachnoff & Weaver, where she led the patent prosecution department, assisted with IP litigation, and represented small and emerging businesses in asserting and protecting their IP rights. Prior to joining Sachnoff & Weaver, Ms. Darden was Chief IP Counsel for a small consumer products company, where she managed the company’s IP prosecution and litigation portfolios and pioneered a strategy for strategically using and creating IP assets that enhanced the company’s competitive strength.
Samantha Levin is a corporate associate attorney at Rees Broome, PC, in Tysons Corner, Virginia. Select internship and clerkship experience includes the International Game Developers Association Foundation, the Entertainment Software Association, the National Music Publishers’ Association, the United States Copyright Office, the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property, the Copyright Alliance, and as a video game and entertainment law attorney.
Samantha’s work includes research for a Google v. Oracle Supreme Court amicus brief, editing the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Music Law and Policy, and providing research and editing support for Senate hearing testimony and various law journal articles. Samantha authored a law review article which received Second Prize in the 2020 Berkeley Technology Law Journal Student Writing Competition and was subsequently published by the North Carolina Journal of Law & Technology. In addition to her legal work, Samantha is a streamer, maker, and content creator.
Samantha earned her J.D. from the George Mason University School of Law, and her B.A. in economics and B.A. in biology from Emory University.
ANIMATOR MEET UP
Location: German-American Heritage Museum of the USA (719 6th St NW, Washington, DC 20001)
Time: Saturday, February 15th, 3.30pm – 4:30pm
This is a Free event / Cash bar and snacks- tea, coffee, wine, beer, cocktails
Animators welcome to come and chat about everything that comes to mind and major issues facing animators too.
Page and Stage to Screen: Conversations with Professional Screenwriters
Location: German-American Heritage Museum of the USA (719 6th St NW, Washington, DC 20001)
Time: Saturday, February 15th, 4pm – 5:30pm
Tickets HERE @ $19 (fees included)
Moderator Shoshana Rosenbaum is a filmmaker based in Washington, D.C. Her feature directorial debut, The Other You, will begin its festival run in late 2024. Her work has been recognized by The Bitch List, Stowe Story Labs, Austin Film Festival, Nashville Film Festival, Hollyshorts Film Festival and DC Shorts Film Festival, among others.
Bailey Kobe is an Asian-American Writer/Director who graduated from USC’s prestigious Peter Stark Cinema Program and founded Double Entente Films with French producer Frédéric Imbert, creating content for major brands like Louis Vuitton, Dior, and BMW. Under the mentorship of industry veterans including Gareth Wigan and the Russo Brothers, Kobe has developed a unique style blending emotion and comedy, earning numerous awards. His diverse body of work includes collaborations with celebrities like Isabella Rossellini, Lupita Nyong’o, and Orlando Bloom.
Alex Goldberg is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and director. He wrote and directed the indie feature Closure which won seven festival awards including two Best Feature awards (including D.C.I.F.F. in 2018) and two Audience Choice Awards. His one-act plays ANNEXING THE PALISADES and THE SIX PIANOS OF MIRADERO were commissioned by Antaeus Theater Company and available as radio plays. His play IT IS DONE has been published and produced multiple times, most recently at Theatre40 in Beverly Hills. 17 of his plays have been produced across the country and on three continents. He is a two time O’Neill semifinalist and a one time finalist. Memberships and residencies include The Dramatists Guild, Inc, ASCAP, Playwrights Union, playwright in residence at Railroad Playhouse in Newburgh, NY, the Playwright/Director Unit at The Actors Studio West and the Playwrights Lab at Antaeus Theatre Company. He lives with his wife, actress Catia Ojeda, and their sons, in Burbank, California.
Terrell Tannen is a film producer, director, screenwriter and author. He has written and directed the feature films A Minor Miracle and Shadows on the Storm. He has also written screenplays for Honor Bound, Gospel Hill, Dalton: Code of Vengeance and Returning to Earth, winner of Best Short Film at the Oakland, Florence, Rome and Istanbul International Film Festivals. He is the author of two memoirs; When Blood is Gone: A Memoir of Time, Place and Family, and Tell the Story: A Hollywood Odyssey, available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Working with Investors: A FILM FINANCING WORKSHOP
Location: German-American Heritage Museum of the USA (719 6th St NW, Washington, DC 20001)
Time: Sunday, February 16th – Noon – 1:30pm
Tickets HERE @ $19 (fees included)
As an independent filmmaker, attracting people to “invest” in your film, other than friends and family, is always a challenge, especially in these times in which our industry is in a flux. Two financiers will discuss how to approach financiers, what they are looking for, and what realistic financing expectations are.
Carol Bidault de l’Isle is an award-winning producer who has specialized international motion picture/television financing, distribution, media asset acquisitions, and management. She brings with her over 30 years of industry experience in the United States, Europe and Latin America. She currently is producing a series of films for the NATIONAL LAMPOON COMPANY. Carol is the founder of the DC Independent Film Festival.
Alex Stickle, CEO, CIO and Founder of Poiesis Capital Management, a hedge fund operating out of Manhattan and Washington, D.C. Before founding PCM, Alex had already founded a tech consulting company and completed his first distressed debt deal by the age of 13, foreshadowing his future as a transformative leader in finance and technology. He worked as a proprietary equity trader at a Nasdaq-member firm in Chicago after taking his undergraduate degree, using techniques from the lab and his background in distressed debt to produce outsized risk adjusted returns. Transitioning into investment management from proprietary trading, Alex joined a Chicago-based investment advisory firm and played a pivotal role in its successful acquisition by a Nevada-based hedge fund. Following this, he relocated to Manhattan with his clients, before partnering with a quant systematic macro hedge fund managing ~$1 billion in assets. He left this fund in early 2024 to found PCM.
At PCM, Alex integrates discretionary macro, systematic macro, and special situations trading with unique litigation finance working with anti-terrorism specialists, blending these approaches into a new type of multi-strat quant hedge fund.
Understanding the Grants Landscape For Documentaries: FILM FINANCING
Location: German-American Heritage Museum of the USA (719 6th St NW, Washington, DC 20001)
Time: Sunday, February 16th – 1:30pm – 3pm
Tickets HERE @ $19 (fees included)
Deirdre Evans-Pritchard is a professional grant writer working specializing in social justice, social services, environmental, arts and humanities fundraising who has raised over $ 2 million in the last two years. She has experience writing NEA, NEH and other arts and social grants. She has a PhD from UCLA and M.Phil from the University of Cambridge (UK). She publishes on cultural heritage and researches the social understanding of the screen. She is also the Executive Director of the DC Independent Film Festival.
Film Distribution: Strategies and Advice from Industry Insiders
Location: German-American Heritage Museum of the USA (719 6th St NW, Washington, DC 20001)
Time: Sunday, February 16th – 3pm – 4:30pm
Tickets: HERE @ $19 (fees included)
Sana Soni Sana Soni is the Director of Sales & Distribution at Giant Pictures/Drafthouse Films/Tribeca Films, specializing in independent film distribution. With years of experience working with various studios and independent companies, including Warner Bros., Discovery, and Signature Entertainment, she brings a wealth of knowledge to content sales and distribution. Her expertise extends to navigating the complexities of digital platforms, including AVOD (Advertising Video on Demand) services, which she has championed as a viable option for filmmakers.
Lisa Y. Allen is a creative distribution strategist and impact producer based in Washington, DC, specializing in partnerships for documentary films that address social impact issues such as press freedom, criminal justice reform, and sexual consent on college campuses. Films include BAD PRESS (2023 Sundance), ROLEPLAY (2024 SXSW), HOME IS A HOTEL (2023 SFFILM), NO MATTER WHAT (2023 ReelRecovery), FIRST VOTE (2020 America ReFramed), and MAMA HAS A MUSTACHE (2021 MountainFilm).
Living in Hollywood: Conversation with author and screenwriter Terrell Tannen
Location: German-American Heritage Museum of the USA (719 6th St NW, Washington, DC 20001)
Time: Sunday, February 16th: 4.30pm – 5.30pm.
Tickets:This is a Free Event / Cash Bar – or buy drinks tickets / register HERE
Terrell Tannen reads from and shares his new memoir: Tell the Story: A Hollywood Odyssey (2024). As a highly paid screenwriter, Terrell Tannen lived the classic Hollywood lifestyle: the Porsche, oversized house, dinners, and parties. By most measures, he could be called wildly successful. Yet . . . script after script, written for the bona fide elites of the movie business, floundered for all the usual and unusual Hollywood reasons.
Tell the Story: A Hollywood Odyssey offers a window into what it feels like to constantly flirt with fame. At times resembling a darkly comic film, it’s a very American tale, illustrative of the driving forces of hope and ambition in a place-Hollywood-where these desires burn like an inextinguishable neon sign, imploring and taunting at the same time. It also reminds us that, for all our dreams and ambitions, life has a way of writing its own script.
Tannen has written and directed the feature films A Minor Miracle and Shadows on the Storm. He has also written screenplays for Honor Bound, Gospel Hill, Dalton: Code of Vengeance and Returning to Earth, winner of Best Short Film at the Oakland, Florence, Rome and Istanbul International Film Festivals.
