2015 NY Lounge – Crowdfunding panelists
Sara Keiner:
Sara Kiener co-founded Film Presence in 2009 to help filmmakers connect with their core
audience through strategic partnerships and grassroots outreach. Film Presence has overseen
over 50 theatrical outreach campaigns including 20 FEET FROM STARDOM, THE OVERNIGHTERS
and OBVIOUS CHILD. At Film Presence, Sara has managed multiple crowdfunding campaigns
including MILES AHEAD, THE WAITING ROOM and DO I SOUND GAY?
Dan Schoenbrun:
Dan Schoenbrun currently resides in Brooklyn, NY, where he works as the Film Outreach Lead at
Kickstarter. Prior to joining the Kickstarter team, Dan was the Associate Director of
Programming at the Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) and the Associate Editor of
FILMMAKER Magazine. Dan has served on programming committees and juries for festivals
including the Hamptons, Nantucket, and Slamdance, and has spoken at festivals such as
Toronto, SXSW, and the New York Film Festival. In 2014, Dan created collective:unconscious, a
new collaborative web series where five of NYC's most visionary filmmakers - Josephine Decker,
Frances Bodomo, Daniel Carbone, Lily Baldwin, and Lauren Wolkstein - will literally adapt each
other's dreams.
Michael Nichols:
Michael Beach Nichols (Director/Producer/Cinematographer) is a Brooklyn-based documentary
filmmaker. “Welcome to Leith” is his second feature film. His 2013 feature debut “Flex is Kings”
premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and was hailed as an “awesome documentary” by rapper
Pusha T. Previously, he directed the viral short documentary “Delivery,” as well as directed the
web series “BKLYN FLEX” for Ashton Kutcher’s Thrash Lab and was part of the Peabody awardwinning producing team behind Sundance Channel’s 11-hour docuseries “Brick City.”
Christopher Walker:
Before directing “Welcome to Leith” and “Delivery” Christopher K.
Walker (Director/Producer/Editor) edited and produced “Flex is Kings,” edited the Columbia
duPont award-winning film “Triangle: Remembering the Fire,” and edited the Emmy-nominated
“Hard Times: Lost on Long Island” for HBO. He recently edited and co-produced “Freeway: Crack
in the System” for acclaimed filmmaker Marc Levin, which will air on Al-Jazeera America in 2015.
Emily Best:
Emily founded Seed&Spark to make a contribution to the truly independent community in which
she would like to make moving pictures. In 2011, she had the great fortune of producing her
first feature with a remarkable group of women. The spirit, the community and the challenges
of that project, Like the Water, inspired Seed&Spark. Before producing Like the Water, Emily
produced theater, worked as a vision and values strategy consultant for Best Partners, ran
restaurants, studied jazz singing at the Taller de Musics, tour guided and cooked in Barcelona,
and before that, was a student of Cultural Anthropology and American Studies at Haverford
College. Emily was named one of the 2013 Indiewire Influencers, dedicated to 40 people and
companies who are asking the big questions about what the independent film industry is today
(and why) and, more importantly, what it will become. Emily is touring film and tech festivals
around the world, Sundance and SXSWV2V to Sheffield and Galway, to educate filmmakers and
learn their best practices in connecting with their audiences to build a sustainable career.
Kristen Konvitz:
KRISTEN KONVITZ is the New York-based Manager of Film for global crowdfunding platform,
Indiegogo. Her role includes acquiring projects in varying stages for crowdfunding and
overseeing them through their campaigns. She also performs community outreach for the
filmmaking community and is instrumental in building relationships between Indiegogo and the
film industry at large. Prior to joining Indiegogo, she spent 7 years in acquisitions and production
at Wild Bunch, one of the leading independent film sales, financing & distribution companies.
She began working in acquisitions at The Weinstein Company and made the transition to Wild
Bunch to assist in opening its first U.S. office. Kristen holds a B.S. in media studies from New
York University and a M.F.A. in film producing from Columbia University.