Panel: Film Strategy, Distribution, Sales & Publicity!

description

If you’re at the great Calgary Underground Film Festival, you either know how to make a movie or how to watch a movie (or maybe both!). But do you know how to distribute a movie? We do and we want to share our knowledge with you. The world’s leading minds will gather in the great state of Alberta to talk about how to distribute a film in 2023. It’s both hard and fun and the panel will be less hard and more fun, we swear!

MODERATOR:

James Emanuel Shapiro - Executive Vice President, US Distribution; XYZ FILMS

PANELISTS:

Hugues Barbier - Co-Founder, Yellow Veil Pictures
Angie Power - Partner, Route 504 PR
Michael Paszt - Managing Partner, Raven Banner
Mitch Davis - Co-Director & Director of International Programming, Fantasia International Film Festival (Montreal)
Liv Nasner - Manager, Partnerships & Marketing, Elevation Pictures

BIOGRAPHIES:

Hugues Barbier
Fed on Giallos, Italian western and American exploitation films, Hugues has been involved for over 15 years in the organization as well as programming of film festivals (Strasbourg European Fantastic Film Festival, Ithaca Fantastic and North Bend Film Festival). He’s been working from 2012 to 2018 for Raven Banner on festival strategies as well as acquisitions and co-founded In 2018 Yellow Veil Pictures, a boutique international sales and distribution company with Joe Yanick and Justin Timms. He’s also producing features and short films for over 7 years including the TriBeCa award winning film Huachicolero.

Mitch Davis
Co-Director & Director of International Programming; Fantasia International Film Festival
Mitch Davis has been a Director of International Programming at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal since 1997, and Co-Festival-Director since 2003. As a filmmaker, he directed the shorts DIVIDED INTO ZERO (1999 - winner, Jury Award for Best Narrative Short at the Chicago Underground Film Festival) and GOD’S LITTLE GIRL (2006). Davis produced Karim Hussain’s transgressive feature debut SUBCONSCIOUS CRUELTY (2000) as well as Rick Trembles’ GOOPY SPASMS (2004) and was an associate producer on the anthology feature ABC’S OF DEATH 2 (2014). Davis is currently an associate producer on Pablo Absento’s BLOAT (2023), produced by Timur Bekmambetov. 

Liv Nasner
Manager, Partnerships & Marketing, Elevation Pictures
Liv Nasner is the Manager of Partnerships & Communications for Canada's leading distributor Elevation Pictures, known for releasing films such as Everything Everywhere All At Once, Paw Patrol: The Movie, The Imitation Game and the upcoming BlackBerry. She specializes in creator marketing and creative partnerships while also jumping into publicity, managing premieres while also reading scripts on the weekend for the acquisitions team. Prior to Elevation she worked in communications at TIFF and she began her career at TARO PR an entertainment promotions and publicity agency. With a deep love of film, her goal is to always help audiences discover their new favourite film.

Michael Paszt
Michael Paszt is one of the most respected names in the arena of independent film. A Managing Partner in Raven Banner Entertainment, Michael has focused on building a brand that represents unique genre driven films including The Autopsy of Jane Doe, Gaspar Noe's Climax, Tigers Are Not Afraid and the Oscar® nominated, Embrace of the Serpent. Michael has also Executive Produced over 30 feature films including Psycho Goreman, the Sundance Film Festival hit, Turbo Kid and Shudder Original, VHS94. Michael originally began his career as a director on music videos working with metal bands such as Sacrifice and Anvil. His feature documentary debut, Nail in the Coffin: The Fall and Rise of Vampiro premiered at Austin, TX’s Fantastic Fest and was Nominated Best Sports Documentary by Film Threat's AwardThis!

Angie Power
Angie Power is a seasoned publicity and promotions professional with 25 years of experience in the film industry. Her career has led her to be one of the leading names in Canadian film publicity. Power began in the industry with Lions Gate Films, which was renamed Maple Pictures in Canada and subsequently acquired by Alliance Films in 2011. It was at this time that Ms Power formed her own communications company which she operated between positions at Allied Integrated Marketing as Director and D Films Corp. as Vice President, Publicity & Promotions. In 2019, she joined forces with publicist Ally LaMere-Shedden by becoming a Partner in Route 504 PR, a full-service boutique agency focusing on entertainment PR.

James Emanuel Shapiro
James Emanuel Shapiro is an entertainment executive veteran for twenty years and has been the COO of both Drafthouse Films and NEON where we helped build both distribution companies from the ground up. He’s worked on several academy award campaigns including BULLHEAD, THE ACT OF KILLING, THE LOOK OF SILENCE, and I, TONYA. He most recently started the analytics department and helped build the booking department at the Alamo Drafthouse. He’s also active in the festival world having worked with both Fantastic Fest and Beyond Fest and he occasionally writes about the entertainment industry for Birth, Movies, Death and The Bulwark. He is an avid fan of sports, rye, New Wave films, Galaxie 500 and lives in Austin, Texas with his partner Deb and their many, many, many, many cats.