The filmmaker’s “VOICE” – what is it, where is it, and how do you use it to merge your creative and business development? And what does it mean to the audience? To the industry? In this two-part Masterclass, Kathleen McInnis will guide you through the importance of finding your voice and use it to your advantage.
PART I:: We are bringing back ‘home’ two alumni of the Norwegian Short Film Festival, directors Alex Danielson and Maximilien Van Aertryck, who will discuss the process of working with their marketing producer from day one on their debut feature documentary, And The King Said, What a FANTASTIC MACHINE. And the marketing producer in question is none other than Kathleen McInnis herself.
Following the success of their short films (Because the World Never Stops, Ten Meter Tower,
Jobs For All!), the two faced nearly insurmountable challenges for their debut feature before
premiering at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and 2023 Berlinale Generation 14plus. The film immediately won three awards; The Creative Vision Award at Sundance, and at Berlinale The Youth Jury Special Mention, as well as the Cinema Vision 14plus Award.
Part II: Drawing upon her thirty years-experience in festival programming, film publicity and producing, Kathleen McInnis guides you through practical steps to identify your own, unique and authoritative voice as a filmmaker. Learn how to translate your creative language into a marketing language to entice and inspire audiences, and how to use this language to position yourself on the global film stage.
Kathleen McInnis has over 30 years’ experience discovering, introducing and supporting emerging world cinema talent through her work in premiere film festival programming, film producing, and strategic publicity at A-List festivals around the world.
As an International Programmer and Curator, Kathleen’s focus has long been on the Emerging World Cinema Filmmaker: shorts, first and second features (narrative, documentary, and animation).
In 2017, Kathleen created the New Works-in-Progress Forum at the Seattle International Film Festival, designed to bring together filmmaker, industry mentors and audience in a strikingly unique environment at a critical junction for the filmmaker-as-artist. The successful program creates a safe intersection, near the end of the creative journey and the beginning of the road-to-audience, for filmmakers to discover how their films engage on the global stage.
Kathleen’s vast programming experience also speaks to deep, global relationships with filmmakers, film boards, producers, film schools, festival programmers and others in the global film industry. Her decade-long tenure at the Palm Springs International ShortFest’s Short Film Market allowed for both discovery of, and support for, the hundreds of international filmmakers attending the fest each year.
Tasked with creating the first international shorts program at Toronto Int’l Film Festival (TIFF), Kathleen built new platforms to bridge the distance between short filmmakers and industry decision makers.
A chance encounter at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival would be the genesis for Kathleen’s philosophy, The Cinematic Trinity: She continues to strive towards making the perfect match between film, artist and audience.
The Norwegian Short Film Festival / kortfilm@kortfilmfestivalen.no
Kortfilmfestivalen i Grimstad
kortfilm@kortfilmfestivalen.no