Welcome to NYWIFT Talks, a weekly series to bring updated news and vital information about the impact of COVID-19 on the media and entertainment industry. Industry professionals will be in conversation discussing what you need to know about theatrical releases, digital advances, virtual tools, festival opportunities, production updates and more.
NYWIFT Talks are free for all to attend.
Exciting news! NYWIFT is thrilled to report that 13 NYWIFT Members were featured at this year’s 2021 Sundance Film Festival.
Spotlighted in this NYWIFT Talks are filmmakers Gina Charbonnet, Michèle Stephenson and Margarethe Baillou discussing their experience participating at this year’s Online Sundance Film Festival, working to complete a film during covid, and how they envision making an impact with their work/creativity during the pandemic.
Moderated by NYWIFT Board Member Gretchen McGowan.
Date: Wednesday, February 3, 2021
Time: 4 PM EST
Filmmaker, artist and author, Michèle Stephenson, pulls from her Panamanian and Haitian roots to think radically about storytelling and disrupt the imaginary in non-fiction spaces. She tells compelling, deeply personal stories that are created by, for and about communities of color that reimagine and provoke. Her feature documentary, American Promise, was nominated for three Emmys and won the Jury Prize at Sundance. She is a Guggenheim Fellow and a Creative Capital artist.
Gina Therése Charbonnet is a POWER-HER-FUL Creator, Producer and Amplifier of Diverse Voices, with a tenure spanning over two decades, working in entertainment and production. Charbonnet is the founder and principal of GeChar, an established agency that is a premier resource in multi-media production specializing in empowering content and talent acquisition. She is the Executive Producer of Ma Belle My Beauty making its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and has an esteemed assembly of credits in feature films and documentaries, including Eve’s Bayou that she credits with kick starting her career. Charbonnet has also served as a longstanding Executive Producer of the ESSENCE Festival, and as a Consulting Producer for Black Girls Rocks!, and BET among many others. In addition to her work, Charbonnet has been featured in a number of interviews and podcasts, discussing her passion for producing conscious content and being a creative entrepreneur.
Margarethe Baillou is the founder and head of independent motion picture and television company M.Y.R.A. Entertainment in New York and London, producing nonviolent features, shorts, documentaries, video art, television series and audio plays. Credits include Drawing Home (2016), the Academy Award winning Call Me By Your Name (2017) and Change In The Air (2018). Upcoming productions include Terence Davies’s British period drama Benediction and several feature films, television series and audio plays set on all continents. A graduate of the American University of Paris and Columbia University, Margarethe is also the founder of the M.Y.R.A. Initiative, a foundation supporting children in crisis and fostering nonviolent cinema. Having lived in many different parts of the world, she primarily resides in London.
Gretchen McGowan is an award-winning producer and the Head of Production for Goldcrest Features in New York City where she oversees titles such as Carol, Mojave, Slumber, Restrepo, Carrie Pilby and Danger, Close. Gretchen has collaborated with Sebastian Junger on five films and she is now working with Junger and Fisher Stevens on a new film about the Mexican cartels and the caravan. Gretchen independently produced Jim Jarmusch’s The Limits of Control, a Focus Features release and Magnolia Pictures’ American Swing. While Head of Production with Mark Cuban’s HDNet Films, Blow Up Pictures and Open City Films she supervised over 25 features including Redacted, Enron, Broken English, Bubble, Lovely and Amazing and Coffee and Cigarettes. She line produced The Dancemaker, Buffalo ’66, Two Girls and a Guy, American Psycho and Heavy.
This program will take place virtually as a webinar via Zoom. Please register in advance, and all registrants will receive a link to attend the webinar the day of the event.
We encourage you to download Zoom in advance.
Free event.
programs@nywift.org
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NYWIFT programs, screenings and events are supported, in part, by grants from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.
