2022 Rhode Island Film Forum

Thursday, August 11, 2022 • 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM

Celebrating our 24th Year of the Forum!

Only $50 for the event, brunch included;

Tickets Available on a First-Come, First-served basis

(with special rate available to visiting filmmakers who preregister at RIIFF)

WHAT IS THE RHODE ISLAND FILM FORUM?

Flickers' Rhode Island International Film Festival (RIIFF) will offer members of the local filmmaking community and visiting filmmakers an opportunity to meet and ask questions of some true stars of the Rhode Island film industry at its RI Film Forum, Thursday, Aug. 11, 2022. Aspiring filmmakers and those already in the business can network with the most prolific filmmakers in the State, find out how to be a part of their movie-making magic, and learn about new aspects of the industry.

The Flickers' Rhode Island International Film Festival (RIIFF), in conjunction with the Rhode Island Film & Television Office, IMCS, Providence College and Johnson and Wales University will host this year’s Film Forum ONLINE. Steven Feinberg, Executive Director, RI. Iis the event Host.

The Rhode Island Film Forum is designed to provide a networking platform, spur dialogue and get answers to your questions from those who make decisions.

First held in 1998 at the Aldrich Mansion in Warwick, the 2022 event will be bigger, cover more ground and will be capped by memorable industry interviews.

Seating for this event will be limited to 100.

Apply to the RI Film Forum 2022

Order Your Pass Now:

August 11th 2019 • 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM

The Hotel Providence Ballroom, 139 Mathewson Street, Providence, RI

Questions? Call 401-861-4445 and speak with Shawn Quirk

or email at quirk@film-festival.org

THIS YEAR'S PROGRAM: (TBA)

10:00 AM

ACT ONE:

A CONVERSATION WITH ...

Alumni Journeys & Festival Insights

Hosted by Steven Feinberg, Executive Director, RI Film & Television Office

11:15 AM.

ACT TWO:

MARKETING YOUR FILM ...

IN AN EVOLVING MEDIA CLIMATE

Hosted by Steven Feinberg, Executive Director, RI Film & Television Office

• Katie McCullough, Founder and CEO

Katie graduated from Bournemouth Media School with a degree in Scriptwriting for Film & TV. She is also a graduate of the Royal Court Young Writer’s and Invitation Only groups. While pursuing a career in writing upon graduation, she received funding from Arvon Foundation and support from the ICA Lab, as well as mentoring from the Blaine Brothers, Leo Butler, Polly Clark, Fraser Grace and Simon Stephens. Later, Katie worked with several companies to create one-on-one theatrical experiences and site specific narratives, as well as several commissions for theatre companies. Her work was performed at Arcola, Battersea Arts Centre, ICA, Old Vic Tunnels, Theatre503, Southwark Playhouse and Wales Millennium Centre, to name a few.

Katie created Festival Formula after discovering a gap in filmmakers’ knowledge and realising that she could help to manage their time, expectation, and admin levels. After several years of providing the service on a word-of-mouth basis she decided to put writing aside and focus on festival strategy by launching Festival Formula as a brand in 2014 and building it to become the respected and trusted company it is today. To date in the fifteen years that she has been active, Katie has enabled over 400 films to reach a global festival audience.

• Ian Bignell, Submissions & Strategy Manager

Ian’s academic background is in print where he gained a BTEC in Print & Media Studies before he started a long career working up the ranks in retail management.

Ian joined Festival Formula in 2017 after working many years in the outdoor industry as a buyer which included forecasting for the year to come and predicting trends. This involved purchasing stock, asset logistics, and building relationships with brands to create large forward orders. He views all potential films sent in alongside Katie, and creates strategies as well as offer support to Submission clients and festivals.

ABOUT FESTIVAL FORMULA

Founded by Katie McCullough, Festival Formula is the culmination of over fifteen years (and counting) experience strategising film festival submissions. The team has grown over the years and has gone from being a one-woman band to a merry filmic troupe.

12:15 PM

ACT TWO:

KEYNOTE ADDRESS

TBA

Hosted by Steven Feinberg, Executive Director, RI Film & Television Office

1:00 PM

WRAP

Who's Who Behind the Rhode Island Film Forum:

• Steven Feinberg is the Executive Director of the Rhode Island Film & Television Office. He formerly spent 22 years in Los Angeles and worked with every major Hollywood studio as a writer, director and producer. Since 2004, in his capacity at the Film & TV Office, he shepherded over $300 million of film and television production into the state, creating thousands of jobs for local talent, crew and small businesses.

He received the first Annual Imaginnaire Award from New England’s Imagine Magazine, has been the Honorary Chairman for Rhode Island's official Academy Award Oscar Night in 2009 and 2012, served as the Vice-President on the Board of Directors for “Celebrate Rhode Island” in 2010 to assist families with heating during difficult times, is a member of the Touro Fraternity, was designated the “Rhode Island Hospitality Ambassador of the Year 2010” by the Ocean State’s Convention & Visitor’s Bureau, received the George M. Cohan Ambassador Award from the Rhode Island International Film Festival in 2011 and, most recently in 2012, was nominated by the United States Coast Guard for the Department of Defense Joint Civilian Orientation Conference.

Steven studied cinematography at UCLA and film and television production at the prestigious USC Cinema School.

• Fr. Kenneth Gumbert is a professor at Providence College and director of the film program there. He is also an award winning documentary film maker, having produced three feature length and two short documentaries exploring issues of human rights and spirituality.

Gumbert is a Dominican of the Western Province.

• Andrew Lund, a filmmaker and entertainment lawyer, Andrew is an Associate Professor and Director of the Integrated Media Arts MFA Program in the Film & Media Department at Hunter College of the City University of New York and a Faculty Associate at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute; he is also a faculty member of the Film Studies Department at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and has taught in the Graduate Film Division of Columbia University, where he received J.D., M.F.A. and B.A. degrees. Brief Reunion, a feature film that Andrew produced and co-edited, won the top prize for narrative filmmaking at the 2011 UFVA conference and the Audience Award for Best Film at New York’s 2011 Gotham International Film Festival. My Last Day Without You, on which Andrew served as executive producer, recently won the top producing honors at the 2011 Brooklyn International Film Festival and will be released theatrically in Europe this fall. Andrew is the Executive Producer of nine feature films, including The Hungry Ghosts, written and directed by Michael Imperioli; Vanaja, named by Roger Ebert as one of the top five foreign films of 2007, and Arranged, an international hit that Variety called “a pure pleasure to watch” Andrew has also written and directed five award winning short films. In addition to worldwide festival screenings and television broadcasts, his shorts are included in film textbooks, DVD compilations, and distributed theatrically and non-theatrically. Andrew founded and curates CinemaTalks, the independent film screening and discussion series, and he created the Short Film Repository, which houses educational extras that support short filmmaking. Andrew’s writing on film includes an essay, “What’s a Short Film, Really?” in “Swimming Upstream: A Lifesaving Guide to Short Film Distribution” by Sharon Badal, numerous book reviews for the journal, Film International, and two books on independent filmmaking in the works for Peter Lang Publishers.

You can learn more about Andrew on his website: http://andrewlundfilms.com/

• J. Scott Oberacker

Educational Outreach Director

Scott has recently joined as Flickers' Educational Outreach Director, where he works to develop and maintain the festivals’ educational outreach programs as well as aids in the selection and adjudication of the festival’s films. He holds a Ph.D. in Communication and Media Studies from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and has worked as a film scholar and teacher for many years. His writing on film has appeared in a number of scholarly journals and he is currently co-editing a book on the television series, Friday Night Lights. Most recently, Scott taught film and media courses at Roger Williams University in Bristol, RI, where he also helped to coordinate the Roving Eye Film Festival and the Tournees French Film Festival, in conjunction with RIIFF. Scott is currently an Assistant Professor of Communications at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, RI.

• Shawn Quirk is an independent filmmaker who has directed a number of short films and short documentaries. After receiving his Bachelors of Science in Film Production from Boston University, he worked for two years as an English assistant in France at the Cité Scolaire Vauban in Givet. During his time abroad he became involved with a number of film productions in both Belgium and France, which included camera work for the two time Palme d'or winning Dardennes Brothers on their most recent film "The Kid with the Bike."

In addition to teaching English to both French high school and middle school students, Shawn also worked in collaboration with the regional English inspector, Christine Minetto, of the Champannes-Ardennes Academy to create a pilot cinema education program for high school seniors. As part of this program, Shawn worked with local film producer, Benoit Giorgini, to create a hands on film workshop in which students collaborated amongst each other to create a series of short documentaries that explored the livelihoods of local shopkeepers and café owners in the Ardennes community and their struggle in competing with large chain retailers.

After his time abroad, Shawn then went on to work as a teaching assistant at the New York Film Academy at Harvard University, where he taught both high school and college students the technical and theoretical aspects of 16mm and digital filmmaking. He also worked as a high school French substitute teacher, and freelance newspaper photographer.

Shawn became a part of the Flickers team in the Fall of 2011, and is now the Program Director for the Rhode Island International Film Festival and the Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival. As a filmmaker in his own right, Shawn's goal is to help discover the next generation of auteurs, the new voices of independent cinema.

• Dr. Thomas Zorabedian is the recently retired Assistant Dean of the University of Rhode Island College of Arts and Sciences and a former member of the Film/Media and Communication Studies faculty. He taught critical studies film courses in the University Honors Program.

Before coming to URI, Tom was Assistant Professor of Communication at Rhode Island College, and he has also taught at Salve Regina University and at Boston University. He has given numerous presentations on various film-related topics, worked as a film critic for several publications, was an independent film and video producer, and has “acted” as an extra in about a dozen feature films, from Mystic Pizza to Irrational Man.

Tom has been associated with RIIFF for more 20 years, directing its first master class in 1998, which featured director Robert Downey, Sr.

Tom earned his BA and MA at URI, and his doctorate at Boston University, working with the late renowned British film historian and scholar, Roger Manvell.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

~ Producers

~ Directors

~ Rhode Island Cities & Towns Representatives

~ Film Teacher/Educators
~ Filmmakers
~ Film Production Crews
~ Film Exhibitors

~ Film Students
~ Artistic Directors, Film Vendors
~ Civic Organizations
~ Historic and Preservation Groups
~ Property Managers
~ Recreation Managers
~ Hotel Managers, Rental Agencies

~ Set Designers

~ Casting Directors

~ Writers

~ Talent

Be a part of this multi-million dollar industry here in Rhode Island

Here’s your chance to become involved with Rhode Island’s “stars” of the film community. The one-day forum will bring together leaders of the film industry with the decision-making community leaders and historic, natural and commercial property managers of Rhode Island. New technologies, the impact of tax credits, plus so much more will be addressed.

“How To” Sessions:

• How to work with the film industry
• How to get the film industry to work with you
• How to be prepared and pro-active

• The growth of college film programs
• What are the resources that filmmakers need?
• Understand how to create a partnership so that everyone involved benefits.
• What are the emerging technologies that will be impacting on future film productions?

• Union or non-union?

• Funding

Rhode Island in Film & Television

Here are some of the films made in the Ocean State. To learn more about Rhode Island's film history, click here.

• The Great Gatsby (1974)
• The Scarlet Letter (1975)
• The Betsy (1978)
• Mr. North (1987)
• Mermaids (1990)
• Reversal of Fortune (1990)
• Wind (1992)
• Federal Hill (1993)
• The Buccaneers (1993)
• True Lies (1994)
• Dumb and Dumber (1994)
• Killer ( 1994)
• American Buffalo (1995)
• Code of Ethics (1996)
• Ties to Rachel (1996)
• Strangers in Transit (1996)
• Outside Providence (1997)
• Tax Day (1997)
• Amistad (1997)
• There's Something About Mary (1998)
• Meet Joe Black (1998)
• Me, Myself & Irene (1999)
• NBC 's Providence (1999 -
• The Brotherhood (2005 - )
• Underdog (2007)
• Dan in Real Life (2007)
• 27 Dresses (2008)
• Hachiko: A Dog's Story (2008)
• Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
• Infinitely Polar Bear (2015)
• Irrational Man (2015)
• November Criminals (2016)

Will you film be next? Will your community host the next film or photo shoot?

OUR 2022 SPONSORS: