Keynote Presenters

Ted Hope, Producer and Co-Founder of Good Machine, This is that, and Double Hope Films

 ”21 Grams, “American Splendor,” “Happiness,” “The Ice Storm,” “In the Bedroom” —  Ted Hope, co-founder of Good Machine, This is that and, most recently, Double  Hope Films, has produced over sixty films, including three Sundance Grand Prize  winners and the first features of Alan Ball, Michel Gondry, Hal Hartley, Nicole  Holofcener, and Ang Lee,among others.  He co-founded the Indie Film review site  HammerToNail.com, and his blog, Hope For Film, is on IndieWIRE, making Hope  the only working filmmaker with a daily column in one of the “Trades.” The last year  has been busy for Ted: “Super,” starring Rainn Wilson and Ellen Paige, was one of  IFC’s most successful VOD titles ever; “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” written and  directed by Sean Durkin won the Directing Award at the 2011 Sundance Film  Festival and was one of the most successful specialty releases of 2011;  ”Collaborator,” written and directed by Martin Donovan won the FIPRESCI Prize at  the 2011 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival; “Dark Horse,” Ted’s third  collaboration with Todd Solondz, premiered at the Venice & Toronto Film Festivals.  Ted teaches “The Future Of Film” at NYU Graduate Film School, in conjunction with  The Cinema Research Institute, the think tank he helped found there.

Tim League, Founder and CEO, Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas

 Tim League is the founder and CEO of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, Texas, recently  named “the best theater ever” by Time Magazine.  In addition to the theaters, Alamo Drafthouse  is emerging as one of the most exciting and pioneering lifestyle brands in entertainment with  Drafthouse Films, Fantastic Fest, BadassDigest.com, Rolling Roadshow Tour, and their famed  collectible art boutique, Mondo.

He is also a co-founder and creative director of Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas.  Fantastic Fest is  the largest genre film festival in the United States and was recognized as “one of the 10 festivals  we love” by Variety president Charlie Koones, alongside industry heavy-hitters Cannes, Telluride  and Toronto.

In 2010, Mr. League launched Drafthouse Films, a distribution arm dedicated to scouring the  globe in search of visionary, provocative and diverse features.  The company’s first release, the  critically-lauded FOUR LIONS, was directed by British satirist Christopher Morris.  Upcoming  Drafthouse Films releases include Academy Award contender BULLHEAD, the dance-dance-  revolution inspired THE FP and THE ABC’S OF DEATH, a shorts anthology featuring  contributions from 26 of the world’s most renowned up-and-coming genre filmmakers, including Ti West, Nacho Vigalondo, Yoshihiro Nishimura, Jason Eisner and many more.

Mr. League graduated from Houston’s Rice University in 1992 with degrees in Art/Art History and Mechanical Engineering.  He established his first cinema, The Tejon Theater, in Bakersfield, California in 1994.

Mr. League is a member of the Austin Area Research Organization, as well as the acting chair of the 6ixth Street Austin association and serves on the boards of the Heritage Society of Austin, the Coalition to End Community Homelessness (ECHO) and Austin’s Golden Hornet project.

Speakers, Panelists and Moderators

Stephen Apkon, Founder and Executive Director, Jacob Burns Film Center 

Steve is the Founder and Executive Director of The Jacob Burns Film Center and the Media Arts Lab, a non-profit film and education center in Pleasantville, NY, which opened in 2001. He speaks to a wide variety of groups about education, and was a participant in the 21st Century Literacy Summit in and a presenter at the UNESCO World Conference on Arts Education in Lisbon, Portugal. Steve serves on the Board of Directors of the World Cinema Foundation and is also a member of the Creative Coalition’s Entertainment Industry Blue Ribbon Task Force on Education.

Brian Belovarac, Repertory Film Distributor, Janus Films

Brian Belovarac works in theatrical distribution at Janus Films, one of the preeminent distributors of foreign and repertory cinema in the United States. While at Janus, he has taken part in the theatrical re-releases of such films as Amarcord, Close-up, House, Jeanne Dielman, The Rules of the Game, and World on a Wire, all in new and/or restored 35mm prints. Previously, he worked at the Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival, and served as an intern at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York.

Hadrian Belove, Executive Director and Head Programmer, Cinefamily

Hadrian Belove, the Executive Director and head programmer of Cinefamily, has been one of Los Angeles’s key cultural influencers for over a decade.  An autodidact (and high school dropout), Hadrian began working at video stores when he was 17 — and co- founded his own, Cinefile Video, by the time he was 23.  Cinefile quickly established a reputation for finding the rarest, most coveted titles from around the globe, being named among the “Best of L.A.” by local publications such as the LA Weekly and the Los Angeles Times, and even garnered national recognition in Vanity Fair.  Hadrian’s legendary underground screenings of his personal collection of weird and wonderful 35mm prints led to the establishment of the Cinefamily in late 2007.

Russ Collins, Executive Director, Michigan Theatre-Ann Arbor and Chair, Art House Convergence

Russ is Executive Director of the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor, Michigan; a fully-restored 1920s era movie palace that hosts a wide-variety of high quality film and live-on-stage programs. Russ teaches film studies and arts administration at Eastern Michigan University. His professional honors include: Professional Theatre Program Fellow – University of Michigan; Arts Administration Fellow–National Endowment for the Arts; and he was Knighted by Republic of Italy for his promotion of Italian film culture. Russ serves on the Board of the Ann Arbor Film Festival; Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority; is Co-Chair of the Sundance Institute‘s Art House Project and Chair of the Art House Convergence. Russ is an Ann Arbor, Michigan native. He received both a Bachelors and Masters Degree (in arts administration) from the University of Michigan.

The Michigan Theater operates four cinema screens, including two at the Art Deco cinema style State Theater located one-half block from the Michigan. The Michigan Theater was named the Outstanding Historic Theater in North America by the League of Historic American Theaters, is an Art House Project theater of the Sundance Institute and this year a Sundance Film Festival USA site. He will be a juror at this year’s Cleveland International Film Festival.

John Cooper, Director of Sundance Film Festival

John Cooper has been a member of the Sundance Film Festival programming staff since 1989. He has served as the Director of Creative Development for Sundance Institute and as the Director of Programming of the Sundance Film Festival since 2003. Cooper is a native of California. His early work in the arts was in Theater and Dance. In college, he majored in stage design, first at Santa Rosa Junior College and then at San Diego State University. He left college for a performance job and continued performing in summer stock and in semi-professional jobs as an actor, singer and dancer. He moved to New York in 1979 to follow his career, performing in Off-Broadway and in night clubs with his award-winning singing trio. As a trained tap dancer, he taught in NYC as well as branching off into directing and writing. He volunteered at the Sundance Summer Labs in 1989 and fell in love with the process and energy of the place. He relocated back to California to become part of the festival programming team, which then was only two people.

In the early years, he created the festival’s short film program but soon transitioned into programming documentaries & feature films. He has also worked extensively with the Sundance Institute’s online projects, content producing, Sundance Institute at BAM, all the Institute summer workshops, as well as the Sundance Film Festival in Tokyo. Other work includes guest curator or juror at major festivals around the world. From 1995-1998 he served as programming director of Outfest, held annually in Los Angeles in July, and until 2002 served on the Outfest Board of Directors.

C. Chapin Cutler Jr., President and Principal, Boston Light & Sound, Inc.

Even though he was an AV geek in high school, Chapin Cutler thought he wanted to become a research chemist until he discovered movies and movie palaces. He trained as a Union projectionist while first attending college at Worcester Tech in 1963. “I was hooked by the SHOW,” he says. “It cost me a degree, but got me a career. There’s something exhilarating about watching an audience react to a film and know that I made it happen for them.”

After moving to Boston in 1966, Chapin received degrees from both Emerson College and Wentworth Institute in film and related engineering fields. During those years, Chapin worked as a projectionist at the legendary Orson Welles Cinema in Cambridge, MA, and even operated a small art house called the Meeting House Cinema at the Charles Street Meeting House in Boston. “I gained my love for silent movies there; we ran silents with live organ once a month, finding some of the few remaining old time movie organists.” After a stint in film production and technical management experience at Emerson College and the WGBH-TV (Boston’s public television outlet) film department, he started Boston Light & Sound with his business partner, Larry Shaw. The company and its projects have been his passion ever since. “When it became apparent that the industry was multiplexing, we decided to take the craft we had learned and carry it to an extreme.”

Among the projects he has undertaken since forming Boston Light & Sound in 1977: Chapin has been a Technical Director for the International Tour of Napoleon, with live orchestra; Technical Producer of the International Tour of “Alexander Nevsky,” again with live orchestra; Technical Director of the Telluride Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, TCM Classic Film Festival, Hamptons Film Festival, Traverse City Film Festival; consultant to the Museum of Photography, George Eastman House, Rochester NY, Australian National Film and Television Archive, Canberra Australia, Silver Theatre Restoration Project in Silver Spring, MD and the grand State Theatre in Traverse City, MI; and provided technical direction for the Doha Tribeca Film Festival, Dominican Republic International Film Festival and Dubai International Film Festival.

Under his Presidency at BL&S, the company had provided technical assistance and equipment for hundreds of film productions requiring dailies film projection, many silent films with symphony orchestra accompaniment, provided technical assistance for World Premieres from Boston to Hollywood, consulted with movie houses large and small and many other specialty projects including good old fashioned 3D. No stranger to the digital evolution, Chapin has also provided and directed the technical infrastructure for 15 years at ShoWest, doing several digital vs 35 mm shootouts early on.

“No matter what the exhibition delivery system is, it is still about the SHOW, and making the love and the passion for doing it right show as well.”

Ira Deutchman, Managing Partner, Emerging Pictures

Ira Deutchman has been making, marketing and distributing films since 1975, having worked on over 150 films including some of the most successful independent films of all time. He was one of the founders of Cinecom and later created Fine Line Features—two companies that were created from scratch and in their respective times, helped define the independent film business.

Currently Deutchman is Managing Partner of Emerging Pictures, a New York-based  digital exhibition company. He is also a Professor of Professional Practice in the Graduate Film Division of the School of the Arts at Columbia University, where he is the head of the Producing Program.

Among the over 60 films he acquired and released at Fine Line were Jane Campion’s “An Angel at My Table,” Gus van Sant’s “My Own Private Idaho,” Jim Jarmusch’s “Night on Earth,” Robert Altman’s “The Player” and “Short Cuts,” Roman Polanski’s “Bitter Moon” and “Death and the Maiden,” Alan Rudolph’s “Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, ” Mike Leigh’s “Naked,” and the award-winning “Hoop Dreams,” which in its time was the highest grossing non-music documentary in history. Other films Deutchman has worked on were “Sex, Lies, and Videotape,” “To Sleep with Anger,” “Metropolitan,” “A Room with a View,” “Stop Making Sense,” “El Norte,” and “The Brother from Another Planet.”

His screen credits include Associate Producer of John Sayles’ “Matewan;” Executive Producer of Jonathan Demme’s “Swimming to Cambodia,” Gary Sinise’s “Miles From Home,” Paul Bartel’s “Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills,” Matty Rich’s “Straight Out of Brooklyn,” Stephen Gyllenhaal’s “Waterland,” Maggie Greenwald’s “The Ballad of Little Jo,” Alan Rudolph’s “Mrs. Parker & the Vicious Circle,” Paul Auster’s “Lulu On the Bridge,” Wayne Wang’s “Center of the World,” Daniel Noah’s “Twelve,” Anthony Jaswinski’s “Killing Time,” Loren-Paul Caplin’s “The Lucky Ones,” Amy Wadell’s “Brothel” and Georgia Lee’s “Red Doors;” and Co-Producer of David Anspaugh’s “The Game of Their Lives.” Deutchman was the Producer of Tony Vitale’s “Kiss Me, Guido,” Sarah Kernochan’s “All I Wanna Do,” Mark Christopher’s “54,” Adam Davidson’s “Way Past Cool,” Bob Gale’s “Interstate 60,” Tanya Wexler’s “Relative Evil,” Ann Hu’s “Beauty Remains” and Ed Radtke’s “Speed of Life.” He was also Consulting Producer on the CBS sitcom “Some of My Best Friends.” He is a graduate of Northwestern University, with a major in film.

Brittan Dunham, Association of Moving Image Archivists Projection and Presentation Committee

Brittan Dunham is a recent graduate of NYU’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation M.A. program. Her thesis, titled Reclaiming Theatre Row: An Argument for Archival-Friendly Projection in the Cinema, advocates for compromise between art house theaters and archives that will allow for access to films in their intended format while better protecting archives’ valuable prints. She worked as a projectionist at NYU and is a member of the Association of Moving Image Archivists Projection and Presentation Committee. She is currently working to restore a historic movie theater in Denton, Texas.

Juliet Goodfriend, President, Bryn Mawr Film Institute

Juliet created Bryn Mawr Film Institute, a non-profit film education and exhibition center in a once-threatened historic theater in suburban Philadelphia. Since opening in 2005, BMFI has earned record-breaking revenues, signed up 6100 members, implemented a full curriculum of film studies, presented first-run films and developed an award-winning restored building, now on the National Historic Registry.

Juliet is the retired founder/CEO of Strategic Marketing Corporation, a custom marketing research firm servicing the global pharmaceutical industry. She has served on many boards including the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, Bryn Mawr College, The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, The Inglis Foundation and VSA Arts. She has received honors for her achievements in business, higher education, historic preservation, disability awareness and social and commercial entrepreneurship. In 2009, she became a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania.

Jeffrey Jacobs, Owner, Jacobs Entertainment Inc

Jeffrey Jacobs is President of Jacobs Entertainment Inc, a film buying and marketing firm. He is the film buyer for BAM RoseCinemas in Brooklyn and 40 additional screens across in the U.S. He was the first film buyer for the Angelika Film Center from 1989 until 1997 and the managing director and film buyer for the Paris Theatre in New York from 1997 to 2009. As a filmmaker, he produced and directed a feature-length documentary, “A Sidewalk Astronomer,” which has been widely seen on public television.

Denise Kasell, Executive Director, Coolidge Corner Theatre

Denise Kasell is the Executive Director of The Coolidge Corner Theatre, serving distributors, filmmakers worldwide and audiences in the greater Boston area.

Ms. Kasell served for ten years as Executive Director of The Hamptons International Film Festival, directing and overseeing all operations, including liaison with worldwide distribution companies, production companies, filmmakers and corporate sponsors.

As Film Commissioner of The Hudson Valley Film Office and Festival, Ms. Kasell was responsible for furthering the economic development of seven counties by encouraging and assisting film and entertainment companies to work in the region.

As President of Sloane Kasell Productions, she focused the company efforts on working with emerging writers and developing feature films and programming for Network & Cable Television. Ms. Kasell has also served as an Agent, a Tour Manager and an Equity Stage Manager.

Toby Leonard, Programming Director, Belcourt Theatre

Toby Leonard currently serves as the Program Director of the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville. In 1999, he was part of a small group that saved the city’s last historic neighborhood theater from the wrecking ball. Since then, he has dedicated the past 10 years to making the Belcourt a nationally recognized venue for challenging cinema and a model of community pride and involvement. He has also served as a consultant to other film-based organizations including The Documentary Channel, a growing cable channel as well as Chicago’s venerable indie music label Drag City via the theatrical releases of Tristan Patterson’s 2011 SXSW-winning documentary “Dragonslayer” and  Harmony Korine’s 2009 film “Trash Humpers.”

Larry McCourt, National Account Manager, Sony Digital

Larry shares a broad knowledge in aspects of film distribution, exhibition and managing industry sales and account management. He has held executive positions with Neilsen /EDI until they were purchased by competitor, Rentrak.; management positions at AMC Entertainment for 7 years, followed by 10 years in film distribution.

Bob Ottenhoff, President and CEO, GuideStar

Robert G. Ottenhoff was elected president and chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors of GuideStar in September 2002. GuideStar’s mission is to revolutionize philanthropy and nonprofit practice by providing information that advances transparency, enables users to make better decisions, and encourages charitable giving. Through its web site, www.guidestar.org, GuideStar assembles and delivers comprehensive financial and programmatic reports on 1.9 million nonprofit organizations and foundations in the United States. Supported by revenues from a consortium of private foundations and earned revenues from sales of products and services, GuideStar projects nearly 10 million user sessions in 2010 from nonprofit leaders, individual donors, institutional donors, and sector service providers. Mr. Ottenhoff frequently acts as a national spokesman on nonprofit sector issues. Time Magazine called GuideStar “the nation’s premier nonprofit database.”

Mr. Ottenhoff spent several years as president of a high-tech company and operating an international consulting practice.  He worked for more than 25 years in executive positions in the public broadcasting field, including serving as the executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), the executive director of the New Jersey Public Broadcasting Authority, and founder and general manager of WBGO-FM, the New York-area jazz and news station.  Mr. Ottenhoff currently serves on the board of directors for Vision TV, Grameen Foundation USA, and the Giving USA Institute.

Stephanie Silverman, Managing Director, Belcourt Theatre

Stephanie is the Managing Director of the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville, TN. The historic neighborhood theatre, located in the heart of Nashville, opened in 1925 as a film & performance venue and from 1934-36 served as the first stage for the Grand Ole Opry. Now a two-theatre complex, the Belcourt is the city’s home for art, independent, repertory and foreign cinema and is also a popular venue for concerts, theatre and special events. The Belcourt has seen tremendous growth over the past four years including taking ownership of the building and adjoining property and making significant capital improvements all while seeing film audiences grow at a significant rate. The Belcourt has been recognized by the Sundance Institute & Sundance Film Festival for its rich and significant film programming and was a member of the inaugural classes of the Sundance Institute Art House Project, the Sundance Film Festival USA program and most recently the Film Forward Program. Stephanie has served as a panelist at the League of Historic American Theatres national conference, the National Performance Network Conference, and the Art House Convergence. Prior to her tenure with the Belcourt, Silverman worked for several non-profit arts organizations including the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, Chicago, IL and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI, and she founded the Arts on the Green Festival in Omaha, NE. She also worked with RMS Titanic, Inc. (now Premier Exhibitions) and the artist management agency Exceptional Artists. She holds degrees in theater from the University of Nebraska and violin performance from the North Carolina School for the Arts.

Katie Trainor, Film Collections Manager, Museum of Modern Art.

A graduate of the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation at the George Eastman House, she was the Archive Manager of the Harvard Film Archive from 1993-2000, Director of Operations at the Jacob Burns Film Center and is a co-founder of Home Movie Day and the Center for Home Movies. She entered this field as a film projectionist and continues to exercise that trade at various film festivals around the country and currently is the Film Collections Manager at the Museum of Modern Art.

John Vanco, Vice President and General Manager, IFC Center

Through his leadership roles in film distribution and exhibition over the last decade, John has strived to connect great works of cinema with appreciative audiences. He is currently the vice president and general manager of the IFC Center, an art-house cinema in Greenwich Village. The IFC Center is the bricks and mortar home of IFC and serves as a focal point for the independent film community.

As one of the founders and former president of Cowboy Pictures, he led the marketing, publicity and distribution efforts on behalf of dozens of foreign language, documentary and American fiction features, including works by Lynne Ramsay, David Gordon Green, Catherine Breillat and Shohei Imamura. Cowboy also programmed and marketed an innovative film calendar at a Manhattan cinema and managed the theatrical libraries of Janus Films and Pennebaker/Hegedus films. Previously, John served in various capacities at Miramax, New Yorker Films and Fine Line Features. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia.

Doron Weber, Vice President, Programs, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Doron Weber oversees several programs at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, including public understanding of science and technology, which includes support for books, radio, television, film, theater and new media. Sloan’s Film Program, initiated by Mr. Weber in 1996, has developed over 300 screenplays and films with Sundance, Tribeca, Hamptons, Film Independent and six leading film schools. The Sloan Theater program, launched by Mr. Weber a around the same time, has commissioned several hundred new science plays through partnerships with Ensemble Studio Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club and Playwrights Horizons. Mr. Weber was educated at Brown University, the Sorbonne and Oxford and has published three books with a fourth (“Immortal Bird”) forthcoming from Simon and Schuster in February 2012.