2012 June

THE IRAN JOB – Screening at LA Film Fest

The Iran Job

Documentary Competition

In English, Farsi with English subtitles

Directed By: Till Schauder

Project Involve Screening – LUV

LUV
(USA, 2012, 96 mins)
Directed By: Sheldon Candis
Executive Producer: Thomas B. Fore
Producers: Jason Michael Berman, W. Michael Jenson, Gordon Bijelonic, Datari Turner, Joel Newton, James Rosenthal, Common, Derek Dudley
Screenwriters: Sheldon Candis, Justin Wilson
Cinematographer: Gavin Kelly
Editor: Jeff Wishengrad
Music: Nuno Malo, Blaqstarr
Cast: Common, Michael Rainey Jr., Dennis Haysbert, Danny Glover, Charles S. Dutton, Michael Kenneth Williams, Meagan Good

Eleven-year-old Woody is a bright, softspoken boy who lives with his grandmother and uncle Vincent. One day, Vincent, who is trying to launch a legit business venture after a stretch in prison, decides to teach the boy how to be a man. Despite his best efforts, however, Vincent finds it difficult to shed his former life, and soon Woody is learning far more — about his uncle and himself — than he ever expected.

Boasting two remarkable performances by Common and young Michael Rainey, Jr., LUV is a compelling look at two people, one struggling to escape his past and the other looking ahead to an uncertain future.

Hotel Kiss-n-Grind

The Art and Social Responsibility of Festival Programming Panel

The Art of Festival Programming

Programmers imprint their individual frame of reference on festival selections and play integral roles in shaping film culture and communities. The films that are programmed in our nation’s most revered festivals directly affect what is exhibited, distributed and critically acclaimed. Our assembled panel of world class programmers and critics take a look at the intricacies of festival programming – what makes a film bad or good, believable or outlandish, worthy or unworthy of laurels – and what gets into the festivals.

Panelists:

Ava DuVernay – Award Winning Director/Founder, African-American Film Festival

Releasing Movement (AFFRM)

Shari Frilot – Senior Programmer, Sundance Film Festival

Roya Rastegar – Ph.D. in the History of Consciousness, Festival Programmer

Bradford Young – Award-Winning Cinematographer

Moderator: Elvis Mitchell – Film Critic, Host of KCRW’s “The Treatment“

Click below to register for the full day of activities on Saturday, June 16, 2012:

Panelist Bios:

Ava DuVernay made her feature directorial debut with the critically-acclaimed 2008 hip hop documentary, “This is The Life.” Winner of Audience Awards in Toronto, Los Angeles and Seattle, the film was released theatrically and debuted on Showtime in April 2009. The Los Angeles Times raved, “This Is the Life vaults into the upper echelons of must-see hip-hop documentaries”.

In 2010, she wrote, produced and directed the feature, “I Will Follow”, starring Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Omari Hardwick and Beverly Todd. Released theatrically in 2011, the family drama was hailed by critic Roger Ebert as “one of the best films I’ve seen about the loss of a loved one.”

DuVernay directed and produced three network music documentaries in 2010. “My Mic Sounds Nice” is a definitive history of female hip hop artists and holds the distinction of being BET Networks first original music documentary. “Essence Music Festival 2010″ is a two-hour concert film for TV One chronicling the nation’s largest annual African-American entertainment gathering. “Faith Through The Storm” is a documentary for TV One about women in New Orleans who have reclaimed their lives after personal devastation during Hurricane Katrina.

Most recently, DuVernay completed principal photography on her second feature, “Middle of Nowhere.” The film will be released in 2012.

Previously, DuVernay worked in the world of film as a marketer and publicist for more than 14 years, forming DVA Media + Marketing in 1999. Her award-winning firm provided strategy and execution for more than 120 film and television campaigns for acclaimed directors such as Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood, Michael Mann, Robert Rodriguez, Kevin Smith, Bill Condon, Raoul Peck and Gurinder Chadha.

A UCLA graduate, DuVernay is the founder of AFFRM, the African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement and a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. She is based in Los Angeles.

Shari Frilot’’s films have been featured at the Toronto International Film Festival, Cinevegas, the Tribeca Film Festival, Africa in the Picture in Amsterdam, Festival de Films Gays & Lesbiens de Paris, the San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Festival, the International Black Cinema Festival in Berlin and the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festivalwork. Among other awards, she received the Best of Fest at the Inside/Out Lesbian & Gay Toronto Film Festival. Her work has been put in the Permanent Collections of Barnard College, the University of Massachusetts, Amherst College and Bates College. Frilot has been a programmer for the Sundance Film Festival since 1998. Prior to that, she co-founded and programmed Mix Brasil and Mix Mexico, the first gay film festivals in Brazil and Mexico, respectively, and was director of Mix: The New York Lesbian and Gay Experimental Film/Video Festival and Outfest: The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.

Roya Rastegar has a Ph.D. in the History of Consciousness, from the University of California. She was a Programmer at the Tribeca Film Festival, and has been part of programming teams at the Sundance Film Festival, the L.A. Film Festival, and the Arab Film Festival. She was a Curatorial Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art from 2008-9, and a Co-Director of the Santa Cruz Women of Color Film & Video Festival from 2004-5. She is currently writing a book on the history of American film festivals and contemporary film programming practices.

Bradford Young is a native of Louisville, Kentucky Bradford young received his Bachelors of Arts and MFA from Howard University. As a freelance documentary cinematographer Bradfordʼs credits include, Eventual Salvation, directed by Dee Rees, which won the 2007 Sundance Documentary Fund, and the 2007 Tribeca All Access Creative Promise Award. Other docs inlcude Alicia in Africa, directed by Earle Sebastian and The Western Front directed by Zachary Iscol.

Bradford’s feature credits include Black Sheep, White Lies, directed by James Spooner (Afropunk), which made its premiere at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival. Mississippi Damned, directed by Tina Mabry, which made its world premiere at the 2009 Slamdance Film Festival and was developed at Project FIND’s directors and producers lab. And, Entre Nos directed by Paola Mendoza and Gloria La Morte, which made its world premiere at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival. And most recently Andrew Dosunmu’s Restless City and Dee Rees’s Pariah.

Bradford’s narrative shorts credits include, Dee Rees’s, multiple award winning film, Pariah, which showed at over 25 national and international film festivals. Pariah the feature script was developed at the Sundance screenwriters, directors and producers lab. And, Colonial Gods, directed by Dee Rees in Cardiff, Wales.

Most recently, along with Tina Mabry and Paola Mendoza, Bradford was featured as one of the 2009 Filmmaker Magazineʼs 25 New Faces of Independent Film. Outside of his film work, Bradford was also nominated for the 2008 Renew Media Arts Fellowship (Rockefeller Foundation) for his video installation project titled REKOGNIZE!? that combines still photography and documentary footage in a multi-media installation about calculated youth resistance movements in Franceʼs suburbs.

Elvis Mitchell is an American film critic, host of the public radio show The Treatment, and visiting lecturer at Harvard University. He has served as a film critic for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the LA Weekly, The Detroit Free Press, and The New York Times. In the summer of 2011, he was appointed as curator of LACMA’s new film series, Film Independent at LACMA.

Young Hollywood in Conversation

Young Hollywood in Conversation

Featuring Actor, Writer, Producer Datari Turner

Over the past several years, Turner has produced a diverse range of films including LA Film Fest’s Project Involve Screening film LUV, DYSFUNCTIONAL FRIENDS, VIDEO GIRL, the all-white cast films ANOTHER HAPPY DAY (starring Demi Moore), CHERRY (starring James Franco) and IT’S A DISASTER.

Join as LA Film Fest Director Stephanie Allain talks with him about his views on Hollywood in 2012, Artistic Integrity and how he went from in demand fashion model to actor, and then took control behind the camera.

Stephanie Allain is a film producer and former studio executive who has been an advocate for visionary filmmakers for more than two decades. As a Columbia Pictures executive, she was instrumental in the making of John Singleton’s Boyz n The Hood, which garnered him two Academy Award® nominations and set the bar for contemporary urban dramas. She spent a decade at the studio launching the careers of first-time filmmakers including Singleton, Robert Rodriguez and Darnell Martin. Several of the films she supervised, including El Mariachi and I Like It Like That, garnered awards at the Cannes, Telluride and Sundance film festivals. During her tenure at Columbia Pictures, she rose through the ranks to become Senior Vice President of Production–the highest creative production position for an African-American for over a decade.

From 1996-2000, Allain served as President of Jim Henson Pictures, where she produced Muppets From Space, Elmo In Grouchland and Caroline Thompson’s Buddy. In 2000, she headed production at 3 Arts Entertainment, producing Biker Boyz and Good Boy! In 2004, she formed her own production company, Homegrown Pictures, and produced Craig Brewer’s Hustle & Flow, which won the Audience Award at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, an Academy Award® for Best Original Song and earned a Film Independent Spirit Award and Academy Award® Best Actor nomination for Terrence Howard.

In 2005, she produced Sanaa Hamri’s directorial debut, Something New, for Focus Features, with the film earning two nominations for the NAACP Awards. She also produced Brewer’s Black Snake Moan, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci. In 2008, Allain traveled to her native New Orleans to produce Hurricane Season, starring Forest Whitaker and Taraji P. Henson, for The Weinstein Company. Most recently, she produced Tina Gordon Chism’s directorial debut, We The Peeples, starring Craig Robinson and Kerry Washington, which will be released by Lionsgate in 2013.

Allain is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and the Producers Guild of America. She recently sat on the Board of Film Independent and currently serves on the Board of Women In Film. She has chaired the Spirit Awards Nominating Committee, juried numerous festivals and has taught at USC’s Peter Stark Program and the Entertainment Studies Division of UCLA. She lives in Los Angeles with her composer husband, Stephen Bray, and their fast emptying nest.

The Who, What and Why of Representation in Hollywood Panel

The Who, What, and Why of Representation in Hollywood

Hollywood’s black agents and managers are few and far between, but we have gathered this elite group to discuss how, when, and why a filmmaker, writer, or actor becomes the hot ticket in town requiring someone to advocate on their behalf…and what happens on the road to representation.

Panelists:

Billy Hawkins – Agent, CAA

Jelani Johnson – Manager, Generate

Matthew Johnson – Partner, Ziffren Brittenham

Charles King – Agent/Partner, WME

Andrea Nelson Meigs – Agent, ICM

Moderator: Franklin Leonard, Overbrook Entertainment

Sponsored by BET

Click below to register for the full day of activities on Saturday, June 16, 2012:

Panelist Bios:

Billy Hawkins is a Motion Picture Literary agent at Creative Artists Agency (CAA), an entertainment
and sports agency based in Los Angeles with offices in New York, London, Nashville, and Beijing.
Hawkins works in the Los Angeles office and represents many of the world’s leading writers and
directors including Spike Lee, Antoine Fuqua, Tarsem Singh, Rosario Dawson, Doug Liman, Marcum
& Holloway, Geoffrey Fletcher, Eric Singer, and Nick Schenk, among others.

Hawkins began his career at Morgan Stanley as an investment banker. He joined CAA in 2002.

After graduating from the University of Michigan with a degree in Business Administration, Hawkins
graduated from Harvard Law where he was an editor of the Law Review.

Jelani Johnson is a talent manager at the Santa Monica based management company Generate. After entering entertainment as an intern at CAA, Johnson transitioned to management in 2010. His client list includes actors, comedians, writers and directors. Johnson is a graduate of Columbia University where he double-majored in History and Anthropology.

Matthew Johnson is the managing partner of Ziffren Brittenham LLP, considered the country’s premier entertainment law firm. Mr. Johnson has an extensive film and television practice, representing some of the biggest A-list personalities today, as well as many renowned directors and writers for film and television. He is a leader in structuring and negotiating ground-breaking transactions in the media and entertainment industries and has been instrumental in helping his clients develop important revenue sources, such as publishing, endorsements and merchandising opportunities. He is President of the Board of the Challenger’s Boys and Girls Club, a member of the board of the Los Angeles Urban League, the Foreign Policy Roundtable and the Next Generation Council of The Motion Picture and Television Fund. He is also an at-large member of the Democratic National Committee.

Charles King is a Partner/Agent in the Motion Picture department of William Morris Endeavor Entertainment (WME). He joined the storied WIlliam Morris Agency mailroom in 1997 and was promoted two years later to Agent, becoming the first African American to rise from the training program in the Film/Television department in the company’s 101-year history.

Throughout his career, Charles has become known for his eye in discovering emerging talent and creating multi-layered brands that extend over a rapidly changing media landscape. He brings his strategic, long-horizon thinking to bear for his clients and has been involved in some of the most innovative deals in the business.

King represents media mogul Tyler Perry and was one of the first people in Hollywood to recognize his immense talent. He was an instrumental member of the team that helped to transform the multi-faceted actor, director, playwright and producer from the stage to the global brand he is today.

King also represents a select group of culture-impacting actors, actor/musicians and other media figures. Some of his clients include Paula Patton, Kelsey Grammer, Andre Benjamin from Outkast, music icon/actress Janet Jackson, rising music force Janelle Monae, Kevin Clash (Jim Henson protégé and Elmo creator) and the bestselling author/producer TD Jakes. He also works with acclaimed and emerging young filmmakers, some of whom include Craig Brewer (“Hustle and Flow”), Barry Sonnenfeld (“Men in Black”), M Night Shyamalan (“The Sixth Sense”), Kenny Leon (“Fences”), Dee Rees (“Pariah”) and writer/director Rick Famuyiwa (“Brown Sugar”).

King is a graduate of Vanderbilt University with a BA in Political Science, he also holds a J.D. form Howard University School of Law. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California with his wife, Stacey, a fashion designer/executive and their two young sons, Noah and Julian.

Andrea Nelson Meigs is a Talent Agent at International Creative Management (ICM). She represents a wide variety of clients who impact and influence pop culture, from international mega-superstar and Grammy winner / Golden Globe nominee Beyoncé Knowles, to the fifteen time Emmy winner Cristina Saralegui (often referred to as the Latina Oprah), to the multi talented power couple Mara Brock Akil and Salim Akil (producers and creators of the TV hits GIRLFRIENDS, THE GAME, and the upcoming film SPARKLE) to Mark Salling (the star of the Emmy, SAG, Golden Globe winning TV show, “GLEE”).

Andrea received her B.A. from Tufts University, her J.D. from Duke University School of Law and is a member of the California State Bar Association. After working with Congresswoman Maxine Waters and the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office, she decided to change career paths and pursue entertainment.

Andrea started in the mailroom at Creative Artists Agency and, in a relatively short time, she worked her way up the ranks to become a Motion Picture Talent Agent. She has since become a dominant force in the film business, as a trailbrazer — breaking ground for other young women and people of color to follow. Andrea packaged OBSESSED which client Beyonce Knowles starred and produced with then-client, Idris Elba. It was the #1 movie in the country opening weekend – made for just over 20MM and grossing close to 80MM. She also secured a multi-figured deal for Beyonce’s next feature, A STAR IS BORN, which Clint Eastwood is set to direct.

Andrea was featured on the cover of Black Enterprise in their “Hot List: The Best and Brightest Under 40” issue. She was profiled in Essence magazine as a “Woman On Top” in her field and was later featured on the cover of its Hollywood issue. She has also been profiled and interviewed in Billboard magazine and featured in The Hollywood Reporter Oscar 2009 issue. In 2009, Andrea received the P.T BARNUM Award for Excellence in Entertainment from Tufts University.

Andrea studied in Madrid, Spain while at Tufts and is fluent in Spanish. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated (an international community service organization). She regularly attends West Angeles Church with her family and is a member of the American Black Film Festival Steering Committee and the Council of the Motion Picture and Television Fund. Lastly, she is actively involved in the charitable organization FSMA (Families of Spinal Muscular Atrophy), which helps to raise awareness and money for this disease which is the number one genetic cause of death for children under the age of two.

Andrea is married to John V. Meigs, Jr., a partner at the entertainment law firm Hansen, Jacobson, Teller, et al. They have four beautiful daughters, Avery N. Meigs, the late Alexandra N. Meigs and twins / Isabella Alexa and Calla Alexis Meigs.

Franklin Leonard is best known for creating the Black List while a development exec at Appian Way in 2005. The list, which is unveiled every December, ranks the most-liked unproduced scripts Hollywood movers and shakers have read all year and has become an anticipated event among the development community as well as a platform for screenwriters.

Leonard has acted as director of development at Universal, where he worked on “Fast Five” (the fifth installment of “The Fast and the Furious” franchise), the Vince Vaughn comedy “Couples Retreat”, the Meryl Streep romantic comedy “It’s Complicated” and M. Night Shyamalan’s “Devil.”

Franklin is now VP Creative Affairs at Overbrook Productions.