Navigating Virtual Film Festivals

Dami Rock, a British-Nigerian filmmaker who works internationally. Her career in media started over fifteen years ago in broadcast television and music journalism working for LWT/Granada Media and hosting the Lil Miss Chatterbox radio show. She is also an alumni of the BBC/Skillset Millennium Awards, and recipient of the bespoke BBC Directing and journalism training. As part of her fellowship, she produced the film Go to your room: The Bedroom MC Competition, which was selected to tour internationally with the British Council, representing UK arts and culture. Her television directing credits include: “I used to be a Gangsta”, “Finding Inner Peace”, “Jude Law’s Nanny”, “Darklingdami About Town”, “Africans of the Burial Ground” and ground breaking film Bleach My Skin White, the first UK ITV documentary to tackle the issue of skin bleaching on primetime television. Her first feature, Malcolm’s Echo: The Legacy of Malcolm X, won the African Movie Academy Award for Best Documentary, and inspired her move to America, re-launching her film company Darkling Productions, and kicking off with an exclusive piece about Public Enemy. She has a number of projects in development; one of which asks: “Where are the Black Panthers of the 21st century?”

At Cinetic Media, Eric Sloss runs the company’s sales division and spearheads business development for Cinetic’s branded storytelling joint venture with Rough House Pictures, Brand New Story. Eric is responsible for working in tandem with the finance, management and sales arms to devise worldwide distribution strategies for feature narrative and documentary films. Recently he conducted the sale for Knock Down the House, the Sundance Award-winning doc with Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, and Diego Maradona, Asif Kapadia’s new documentary about the infamous Argentinian footballer. Additionally, Eric represents the New York Times and ABC Documentaries, advising on their in-house documentary strategy.

Lela Meadow-Conner serves as the Executive Director of the Film Festival Alliance, a position she has held since April 2017. Before that, she served as the Executive Director of the Tallgrass Film Festival for 15 years and has consulted for the Woods Hole Film Festival and Geena Davis’ Bentonville Film Festival. Before joining the film festival community, Lela spent several years working in various facets of the film industry, including feature film marketing, production, and entertainment publicity. She received “40 Under 40” and “Women in Business” honors from the Wichita Business Journal, has served on many film festival juries, and is a frequent panelist on film festivals and women in business-related topics. Lela has amassed a deep understanding of the cultural significance that cinematic arts organizations bring to a community and is passionate about arts advocacy. She also runs a film series, mamafilm, in a microcinema in Wichita, KS, and virtually. mama.film celebrates the global village of nurturers through the power and accessibility of visual storytelling.

For over 10 years, Tiffany Boyle has leveraged her business-oriented sales and packaging skills to bring hundreds of films and documentaries to fruition. Since 2019 alone, Tiffany has optimized clients’ financial and business positions in more than 35 films and documentaries. Through her critical review of content and strategic use of Ramo Law resources, Tiffany creates successful content packaging that bridges the needs of both client and industry demands. Tiffany connects filmmakers with producers, co-producers, executive producers, co-finance partners, distributors, agencies and other industry representatives. Recently, she served as a Co-Executive Producer and brought in financing for films Something Else (Tribeca 2019) and Arkansas starring Liam Hemsworth and Vince Vaughn. She led the sales and packaging for Dembanger (SXSW 2020) and One of These Days (Berlin 2020); she brought foreign financing to Ashes in the Snow (Los Angeles FF 2018) starring Bel Powley; and she sold an autobiography to Hulu for development into a limited television series. Experienced with project budgets ranging from micro-sized to $30 million, Tiffany has helped to establish and expand these high-value sales and packaging resources, uniquely accessed outside of the traditional management company and agency model, since joining Ramo Law in 2009. With this experience, she has been able to help foreign production companies and investors create a foothold in the US marketplace.