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Officers

Patricia White, Chair and President
Professor and Chair of Film and Media Studies,
Swarthmore College

 

Leslie Fields-Cruz, Vice President
Vice President Operations & Programming, Black Public Media

 

Caroline Libresco, Vice President
Senior Programmer, Sundance Film Festival


Kathryn F. Galan, Secretary
Producer/Writer, Wynnpix Productions

 

Tina DiFeliciantonio, Treasurer

Director/Producer, Naked Eye Productions, Ltd.

 


 

Board

Claire Aguilar, Senior Vice President of Programming
Independent Television Service (ITVS)

 

Marian Masone, Managing Director of Festivals and Associate Director of Programming, The Film Society of Lincoln Center

 

Michelle Materre, Professor of Media Studies and Film, The New School for Public Engagement
 

Nicole Page, Partner, Reavis Parent Lehrer LLP

 

Esther Robinson, Filmmaker and Producer

 

Barrie Pribyl, Emerita, Organizational Development Consultant

 

Amy Villarejo,  Professor, Cornell University
Department of Performing and Media Arts

 

Tania Yuki, Founder of wimLink and VP Advertiser Solutions at Visible World

 

Debra Zimmerman, Ex Officio
Executive Director, Women Make Movies

 

WMM Staff Page



Claire Aguilar
Senior Vice President of Programming, Independent Television Service (ITVS)
 
Claire Aguilar is the Senior Vice President of Programming at the Independent Television Service (ITVS), which funds, promotes and distributes independently produced programming to public television. At ITVS, she oversees all aspects of program initiatives, including programming strategy, funding calls, peer panel review and funding recommendations. She co-curates the Independent Lens series, a new series of independent programming on PBS which premiered in February 2003. She came to ITVS from KCET/Hollywood as Manager of Broadcast Programming, where she programmed the station’s schedule and managed programming acquisitions. From 1984 to 1991 she was a film programmer at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, one of the nation’s leading exhibition venues for international, documentary and classic Hollywood films. She has curated for the American Film Institute, the Los Angeles Asian American Film and Video Festival, and the Wexner Center for the Arts in Ohio. She has served as a programming consultant and panelist for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Rockefeller Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, the Pew Fellowships in the Arts and other media and funding organizations. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications Studies and a Master of Arts in Film and Television Studies from UCLA.
 

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Marian Masone
Managing Director of Festivals and Associate Director of Programming, The Film Society of Lincoln Center

Marian Masone is Director, Festivals and Associate Director, Programming for the Film Society of Lincoln Center, producer of the New York Film Festival. A member of the selection committee for New Directors/New Films, which is presented with The Museum of Modern Art in New York, she is also on the programming committee of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival. She organizes new and retrospective series, as well as the on-going programs Independents Night, Green Screens and Image Innovators at the Film Society's Walter Reade Theater and moderates lectures and panel discussions there. She has served on advisory boards for the Boston International Festival of Women's Cinema, the Hamptons International Film Festival and the NY Expo of Short Film & Video, and is a member of the board of directors of Women Make Movies. She has curated the Festival of Independents in Philadelphia, New American Media Makers at Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, and has served on juries and panels at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Black Maria Film Festival, the San Francisco Film Festival, the Nashville Film Festival, the Hamptons Film Festival, New York State Council for the Arts, the Princess Grace Foundation, Creative Capital, the PBS series P.O.V.and others. She is also a member of the Preservation Committee of New York Women in Film and Television and as such serves on the panel that selects films for restoration and also programs the annual Women in Film Preservation Fund program at the Walter Reade Theater. She has been a guest lecturer at Parsons School of Design, Pratt Institute, as well as the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid. She has a B.A. in theater from Marymount Manhattan College and an M.A. in cinema studies from New York University and writes on film and media for various publications.

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Tina DiFeliciantonio, Treasurer
Director/Producer
Naked Eye Productions, Ltd.

From cinema vérité to impressionistic documentaries, Tina DiFeliciantonio’s critically acclaimed work has been screened and broadcast in countries throughout the world. With her partner Jane C. Wagner, she has tackled a wide range of subjects—such as teenage sexuality, child abuse, war time rape, LGBT civil rights, social justice, sustainable energy, art and science—garnering dozens of top honors, including two National Emmy Awards and the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary. Having worked in countries throughout the world, including Abu Dhabi, Bangladesh, India, Japan, Australia, China, England, Mexico and Turkey, DiFeliciantonio will soon be heading off to Bosnia for a PBS/Wide Angle Special. Other works-in-progress include a film on the survivors of foreign torture, and, a documentary on a female indie filmmaker circa 1910. DiFeliciantonio’s films have been seen on PBS’s P.O.V., Sundance Channel, Showtime, TLC, SciFi Channel, USA Networks, HBO and foreign television. Support for her work has come from organizations such as the American Film Institute, National Endowment for the Arts, Independent Television Service, Women In Film Foundation, The California Council for the Humanities and New York State Council for the Arts + The Sundance Documentary Fund. DiFeliciantonio is member of The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and currently serves on the boards of Women Make Movies and Independent Filmworks Inc.

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Leslie Fields-Cruz, Vice President
Vice President Operations & Programming, Black Public Media

Leslie Fields-Cruz is the VP of Operations and Programming at Black Public Media, formerly the National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC). She has been with Black Public Media since 2001 serving in various capacities as a Grants Manager, Program Director, and most recently as the VP of Operations and Programming. She manages the operations of the New York office, oversees the Production Media Fund, and supervises the distribution of NBPC funded programs to PBS. Leslie is also responsible for bringing to public television the series AfroPop: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange, a showcase of independent documentaries about the contemporary experiences of the African American and African Diaspora. Prior to joining Black Public Media, Leslie served as a Program Coordinator at the Creative Capital Foundation and was the Membership Director at the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers (AIVF). Leslie also works in theater as an actor and producer/director. She served as the Artistic Director of the New York City based City Lights Youth Theater and has appeared in several regional and off-off Broadway theater. Leslie live in Westchester, NY with her musician husband and their three daughters.

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Kathryn F. Galan, Secretary
Producer/Writer, Wynnpix Productions

Kathryn is a published writer of fiction and non-fiction, and a feature film producer (French Kiss; Daybreak; Squanto, A Warrior’s Tale). Currently, she is writing a trilogy of Young Adult novels, and editing another author’s historical biography. For 11 years she was the Executive Director of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP), which she built into the preeminent national Latino media organization that provided professional development and advocacy for Latino film, television, documentary and new media makers. She oversaw ten national conferences, and created NALIP’s six other signature programs: the Latino Producers Academy (LPA), Latino Writers Lab (LWL), Latino Media Market, Latino Media Resource Guide, the HBO/NALIP Documentary Filmmaker Award & Estela Award grants, and “Doing your Doc: Diverse Visions, Regional Voices.” She was responsible for all staffing and day-to-day management, millions in corporate and foundation fundraising, publicity strategies and branding, plus regional programs and chapter development. She has also worked as a studio executive. She was head of production for Atlantic Entertainment Group, and a production vice president at Walt Disney Studios’ Hollywood Pictures. Then, she ran Meg Ryan’s Prufrock Pictures, and her own consultancy firm, EKR Strategies. She is a graduate of Amherst College and completed her Master’s Degree in Cinema and Media Studies at UCLA in 2012.

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Caroline Libresco, Vice President
Senior Programmer,
Sundance Film Festival

Since 2001, Caroline Libresco has been Senior Programmer for the Sundance Film Festival, where she selects features in all sections, focusing on documentary and international, and acts as conduit between artists and industry. She serves on the leadership team for Sundance’s new Creative Producing Initiative. Previously, she was an executive at ITVS, the San Francisco Film Festival, and the SF Jewish Film Festival. She produced the award-winning documentary, SUNSET STORY; the featurette BARRIER DEVICE; associate-produced the HBO documentary CAT DANCERS; and was developing producer on THE GRACE LEE PROJECT. She co-wrote and produced FANCI’S PERSUASION, directed by Charles Herman-Wurmfeld. Caroline founded “Planet Cinema,” annually presenting an environmental sidebar at the Seattle Film Festival. She serves as consultant to Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership and U.S. Delegate for the Zurich Film Festival. Caroline holds a B.A. from Oberlin College, an M.A. in History of Religion from Harvard, and an M.F.A. from UCLA Film School.

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Michelle Materre
Professor of Media Studies and Film, The New School for Public Engagement

Ms. Materre’s professional background spans more than 25 years experience as film producer, writer, arts administrator, distribution/marketing specialist, film programmer and college professor. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Media Studies and Film at The New School, and Associate Dean of The New School for Public Engagement School of Undergraduate Studies. Her critically acclaimed film series, Creatively Speaking, featuring work by and about people and women of color, is now in its 17th year. In Fall 2012 the series will premiere at its new location, My Image Studios (MIST) Cinemas in Harlem. Ms. Materre is also an independent media consultant, advising filmmakers and organizations on fundraising, distribution, marketing, and exhibition strategies. Selected client list includes: Julie Dash, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, Channel Thirteen, Stanley Nelson, Thomas Allen Harris, Barbara Rick, Kim Longinotto, and Third World Newsreel, to name a few. Ms. Materre is a former member of the Board of Directors of New York Women in Film and Television, and a recipient of The Pen and Brush Society, Accomplished Women in the Arts Award.

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Nicole Page
Partner, Reavis Parent Lehrer LLP

Nicole is a Partner at Reavis Parent Lehrer LLP where she specializes in entertainment, intellectual property and employment law (www.rpl-law.com). Nicole is also Head of Business Affairs at Engel Entertainment, Inc., a New York City based film and television production company (www.engelentertainment.com).

Nicole counsels filmmakers, producers and feature film and television production companies in connection with issues ranging from film financing, rights acquisition, production agreements, exploitation of ancillary rights, content licensing, clearance, distribution and an array of related matters. Nicole serves as production counsel and negotiates theatrical, broadcast and home video distribution deals for many film and television productions. She also represents commercial photographers as well as directors, performers, writers and others in the arts and entertainment industries.

Nicole regularly lectures and writes on legal issues in the arts and media. She has appeared on panels at SXSW, Slamdance, The Hamptons International Film Festival, The World Congress of Science and Factual Producers, Napa Valley Film Festival, IFP and RealScreen, among other festivals and conferences. Nicole works with WMM and other organizations (like NYWIFT) to provide relevant and topical information to filmmakers and counsels and supports filmmakers in the WMM fiscal sponsorship and distribution programs, and has participated in workshops sponsored by WMM for its filmmakers.
 

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Esther Robinson
Filmmaker and Producer

Esther Robinson is an award winning filmmaker and producer. Her critically acclaimed directorial debut "A Walk into the Sea: Danny Williams and The Warhol Factory" took top prizes at The Berlin, Tribeca and Chicago film festivals and is currently in international theatrical release. Other producing projects include the film Home Page (by acclaimed filmmaker Doug Block), the digital satellite release of The Last Broadcast to 5 cities, the award winning PBS series Alive From Off Center and serving as the Director of Film/Video and Performing Arts for the Creative Capital Foundation (1999-2006). Additionally, Esther has a philanthropy consulting practice (clients include The Ford Foundation, Chicken and Egg Pictures and The Fledgling Fund), is a technical advisor on the "Shifting Sands – Art, Culture and Neighborhood Change" initiative (this initiative recognizes neighborhood-based arts and cultural organizations as unique stakeholders in poor neighborhoods experiencing economic and demographic shifts and is funded by the Ford Foundation and managed by Partners for Livable Communities) and she is the founder of ArtHome a non-profit business that helps artists and their communities build assets and equity through financial literacy and home-ownership. Esther has a film and television degree from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

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Amy Villarejo
Professor, Cornell University
Department of Performing and Media Arts

Amy Villarejo joined the Cornell faculty in 1997, after receiving her AB from Bryn Mawr and Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. During graduate school, she published her first book, a monograph on the 1933 film Queen Christina (British Film Institute Publishing, 1995, co-authored with Marcia Landy). At Cornell, she holds a joint appointment as professor in the Department of Theatre, Film & Dance (of which she is currently chair) and the Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program (which she directed from 2004-2007). She has published widely, including a book on film and cultural studies (Keyframes, Routledge, 2001), on queer documentary (Lesbian Rule, Duke University Press, 2003), and an introduction to the discipline of cinema and media studies, Film Studies: The Basics (Routledge, 2007), currently being revised for its second edition. More recently, she is co-editor of a special issue of GLQ, "Queer Marxism," and author of a forthcoming monograph on television, Ethereal Queer (Duke University Press).
 

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Patricia White, Chair and President
Professor and Chair of Film and Media Studies, Swarthmore College

Patricia White is Professor and Chair of Film and Media Studies at Swarthmore College, where she teaches Feminist Film and Media Studies among other courses. She was an intern and later a staff member at Women Make Movies. She's the author of Uninvited: Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability, and the co-author with Timothy Corrigan of The Film Experience, and she's published many book chapters and essays in such journals as Screen and Cinema Journal. Critical Visions in Film Theory, co-edited with Timothy Corrigan and Meta Mazaj, is forthcoming. She is writing a book on global women's feature filmmaking in the twenty-first century. She is a member of the editorial collective of Camera Obscura, the leading journal of feminism, media, and culture.

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Tania Yuki 
VP of Advertiser Solutions at
Visible World and Founder of wimLink

Tania is a digital media specialist who began her career as a filmmaker and media attorney, and specialized in film finance and development as well as documentary and feature film productions. After working in film for several years however, she was seduced by digital and went on to run an online video content network as head of acquisitions and has also lead product management for comScore's Video Metrix, the world's leading online video ratings service. Currently, she runs the Ad Solutions group with TV ad targeting company Visible World, and advises small to mid sized companies on their social media strategy.


Debra Zimmerman, Ex Officio, Executive Director, Women Make Movies 

Debra Zimmerman has been the Executive Director of Women Make Movies, a non-profit NY based film organization that supports women filmmakers, since 1983. During her tenure it has grown into the largest distributor of films by and about women in the world and our internationally recognized Production Assistance Program has helped hundreds of women get their films made. Films from WMM programs win prizes regularly at the Sundance Film Festivals and been nominated or won Academy Awards for the last eight years in a row.

She is in great demand around the world as a speaker on independent film distribution, marketing and financing as well as on women's film. She has keynoted conferences and spoken on panels, including the Women’s Film History Conference at the University of Sunderland in 2011 and at the 2011 Visible Evidence Conference at NYU and the 2012 Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference at Boston University. She lectures regularly at universities across the United States, including Harvard, Smith College, Bryn Mawr, Vassar, UCLA and others. Zimmerman has moderated panels and given master classes at the Sundance Film Festival, MIPDOC and Reel Screen as well as film festivals in Europe, Africa, Asia and South America. Zimmerman has been closely affiliated with the International Documentary Film Festival (IDFA) as the co-host of the Talk of the Day and as a tutor for their Summer Film Academy. In addition, she has mentored filmmakers at the Ex-Oriente Film Workshop in Vienna and for many years at the National Alliance of Latino Independent Producers’ (NALIP) Academy. She was the co-curator of the 2011 Documentary Fortnight at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC and is the recipient of the 2012 Loren Arbus Award for Those Who Take Action & Effact Change, the IMPACT Award from the Sarasota Film Festival and is the 2103 Doc Mogul from the Hot Docs International Film Festival in Toronto, Canada.

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Equity in Education


The films in this essential collection inspire social change in education. Learn about the role and impact of Title IX, examine gender disparities in math and science, and follow the personal story of an insightful high-school student whose life has been shaped by busing and school integration. See the full collection here.

Behind the Lens:
Women in Cinema

This extraordinary collection features titles that celebrate the lives and achievements of immigrants in the U.S. and explore ongoing struggles of immigrants today.

Shooting Women

As directors, producers, actors, and screenwriters, women have utilized the power of film to create and transform their stories and images. From sexual politics as a cinematic subject in SUFFRAGETTES IN THE SILENT CINEMA and as a cinematographic choice in FILMING DESIRE to interviews with women directors around the globe in SHOOTING WOMEN and SISTERS OF THE SCREEN, this collection presents a look at women’s crucial contributions to cinema’s history and global reach.


© Women Make Movies

Women Make Movies is a multicultural, multiracial, non-profit media arts organization which facilitates the production, promotion, distribution, and exhibition of independent films and videotapes by and about women. contact us