Reinvention for Disruptive Times Seminar 2

Fundraising Redux

Tue, July 28, 11am PT / 2pm ET

Virtual | 90 Min

Registrants will receive the Zoom link via email before the event.

 
Buy a Session Ticket ($5)
Buy a Series Pass - All Four Sessions ($15)
 

Co-Presented by Filmmakers Collaborative SF and Re-Present Media

This seminar will address current financial challenges, funding opportunities, and creative approaches to retooling your project development and funding. We will highlight creative strategies used by filmmakers to fundraise during these challenging times.

Topics will include:

  • How can filmmakers sustain themselves in this climate?

  • Assessing your film project for viability in the current climate.

  • The role of data and testing in a fundraising strategy.

  • Finding potential funders, aside from traditional film funders.

  • New strategies for crowdfunding, social media, algorithms, and affinity groups to run a successful fundraising campaign.

  • Finding new opportunities and support from target audiences found in professional networks, corporate sponsorships, and nonprofit organizations.

  • Finding opportunities within fellowships and residencies.

Guest Panelists:

Emily Best, Founder/CEO, Seed&Spark

Ginger Yifan Chen, Filmmaker in Residence at SFFILM

Theresa Navarro, Co-Director/COO, Catapult Film Fund

Cost:

Recordings:

  • Registrants will have access to a recording for the purchased session for 7 days. The recording will be sent in a follow-up email, along with slides and downloadable resources, after the event.

  • You will also receive a recording of Session 1 for a limited time.

  • FCSF members will have continuing access to the recordings through their membership. Members can access our recordings library via the member portal on the FCSF website.

Guest Panelists:

Emily Best is the founder and CEO of Seed&Spark, a platform that makes entertainment more diverse, inclusive, connected and essential. Seed&Spark’s platform and national education program have helped thousands of bold storytellers raise millions to bring to life entirely new stories, and Seed&Spark delivers those stories into workplaces for employee training, engagement, and intelligence through an enterprise SaaS platform Film Forward. In 2023, CNBC named Seed&Spark one of the top 200 fintech companies in the world. She serves on the Advisory Board for a variety of early stages startups and the Board of Film Impact Georgia. She has produced films, VR, shorts and series that have premiered at Sundance, SXSW, Slamdance, Tribeca and more.

Ginger Yifan Chen (they/them) is examining structures of power. They create stories of politically-conscious sci-fi, anti-capitalist horror-comedies, immigrant narratives, and liminal spaces. They are a writer, director, and community organizer from San Francisco by way of Shanghai. Currently, they work as a director, photographer, and script reader in the Bay Area. Their films and screenplays have been showcased at SF IndieFest, Beverly Hills Film Festival, Los Angeles CineFest, and many more.

Theresa Navarro is a Pinay cultural worker and working mama whose career in media arts spans two decades. She is the Co-Director and Chief Operations Officer of Catapult Film Fund. Prior to Catapult, she served as vice president of external affairs at American Documentary, the New York-based nonprofit behind Emmy Award-winning series ‘POV’ on PBS. An Independent Spirit Award-nominated producer, her credits include Chinatown sports documentary 9-Man (director Ursula Liang), Peabody Award-winning anthology series ‘America Reframed’ on WORLD Channel (supervising producer Carmen L. Vicencio), and sci-fi feminist feature Advantageous (director Jennifer Phang, producers Robert Chang, Jacqueline Kim, Ken Jeong, Moon Molson), which won the Special Prize for Collaborative Vision at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

Moderators:

Jennifer Crystal Chien is a documentary filmmaker with a focus on personal storytelling from immigrants and people of color. In 2017, she co-founded Re-Present Media, a grassroots nonprofit that advocates for personal storytelling in documentary film and nonfiction media. In addition to presenting films with community dialogues by established filmmakers, Re-Present Media also offers professional development for emerging filmmakers and coordinates field-wide advocacy campaigns to support and elevate voices from communities not often seen in media. Jennifer was named a DOC NYC Documentary New Leader in 2022. Jennifer also serves as the Board President of Filmmakers Collaborative SF.

Kevin White is an award-winning documentary filmmaker with a focus on environmental and social issues. He has more than a dozen films that are in distribution, including his most recent film, Wilder than Wild: Fire, Forests and the Future, which has had 450+ community screenings and more than 850 broadcasts on PBS, plus educational distribution with Video Project. Kevin is the Co-Founder and Executive Director for Filmmakers Collaborative SF, and frequently consults with filmmakers on story approach, fundraising, and distribution. He is also on the Board of several media nonprofits.

For questions and accessibility requests: email info@filmmakerscollaborative.org

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