Finding Funding

Apoorva Guru Charan is an LA-based producer born in India, raised in Northern California, and started her career as a digital producer in Singapore. An alumnus of Columbia University’s MFA Film program, Charan‘s short films include Lonely Blue Night, which won the Audience Award for Best Short Film at AFI Fest 2020 and is available to stream on HBO Max, 空间 Distance which won Film Pipeline’s Best Film Award in 2020, and Interiors which premiered at TIFF in September 2018. Charan was a 2022 Sundance Producing Lab Fellow, a 2021 Women in Film Emerging Producers fellow, a 2020 Film Independent Creative Producing Lab fellow, a 2019 Project Involve Creative Producing fellow, and has worked in development at Big Beach, Walt Disney Studios‘ live-action department, and Blue Harp. Her producorial feature debut, Joyland, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022 and won the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize and the Queer Palm.

Mollye Asher is an Academy Award-winning producer based in NYC. She produced Chloé Zhao‘s Nomadland, which won Best Picture at the Oscars, Spirit Awards, BAFTAs, Golden Globes, Critics Choice, and Gotham Awards. This was Mollye‘s third collaboration with writer-director Zhao. Other credits include the Spirit Award-nominated and Tribeca Audience Award winner, Catch the Fair One, the Gotham-nominated Swallow, Zhao‘s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight top prize winner The Rider, SXSW Grand Jury Prize winner Fort Tilden, Spirit Award-nominated She’s Lost Control, as well as Zhao‘s debut feature Songs My Brothers Taught Me. She is currently in post-production on the film On Swift Horses, starring Daisy Edgar Jones and Jacob Elordi. Asher won the Producers Award at the 2020 Film Independent Spirit Awards and was included in Variety‘s 2021 NY Women’s Impact Report. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures, an alumna of NYU’s graduate film program, and currently is the Head of Production at the finance and production company, FirstGen Content.

For over ten years, Tiffany Boyle has leveraged her business-oriented sales and packaging skills to bring hundreds of films and documentaries to fruition. 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. She has brought in financing or leading sales on films such as Paul Schrader‘s The Card Counter, and Executive Produced Joyland, the 2023 Spirit Award Best International Film, Cannes 2022 Un Certain Regard Jury Prize Winner, and was shortlisted for the 2023 Academy Award Best International Feature category; serviced financing and sales on romantic crime film Die in a Gunfight; led the sales and packaging for Initiation (SXSW 2020) and One of These Days (Berlin 2020); and served as Executive Producer on films including, Line of Duty starring Aaron Eckhart, bringing in financing in the post, Chick Fight, which she developed from the script stage, brought in the producer, director and half of the financing, Mama Bears, where she brought in financial donations to the film as well as WME to represent and find distribution for the film, and Borderland starring Felicity Jones, currently in post-production. Experienced with project budgets ranging from micro-sized to $30 million, Tiffany has helped to establish and expand 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.

Ruth Du is a director and producer originally from Portland, Oregon. She received a B.F.A. at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Du produced the indie feature The Archer starring Bailey Noble (True Blood), Jeanine Mason (CW‘s Roswell), and Bill Sage (Power, Orange is the New Black), which premiered at SXSW in 2017. Her directorial credits include the digital series Seeking with Jay A. Johnson (Quantico) and the TV movie Your Baby Is Mine with Linsey Godfrey (Days of Our Lives). Most recently, Du was the Executive Director of the AT&T Hello Lab Mentorship Program, working closely with Lena Waithe and Rishi Rajani and producing five short films that included the talents of Dascha Polanco (Orange is the New Black), Loretta Devine (Crash, Grey’s Anatomy), and Rob Morgan (Mudbound, Just Mercy). She is a 2020 Film Independent Project Involve Directing Fellow and currently resides in Los Angeles.