Nancy Abraham Nancy is Executive Vice President, Documentary Programming, for Home Box Office. She is responsible for the development and production of HBO Documentary Films which have garnered prestigious industry awards including Primetime Emmy® Awards, News and Documentary Emmy® Awards, George Foster Peabody Awards, Alfred I. DuPont Awards and Academy Awards®. She was named to this position in 2018. Read more...
Prior to joining HBO’s documentary division in 1995, and promoted to vice president, HBO Documentary Programming, in 1998, Abraham was director, Film Acquisition, acquiring feature films and other programs for HBO’s international channels. She also spent three years in Budapest as director, Programming, for HBO Hungary.
Anthony Bregman Anthony is president and CEO of the indie film company, Likely Story. His movies have won numerous awards at the Oscars, Golden Globes, BAFTAs, Gothams, Indie Spirits, and Cannes, Berlin and Sundance Film Festivals, among others. In 2010 Roger Ebert named “Synecdoche, New York” the Best Film of the Decade.
Jeb Brody Jeb is Co-President of Production of Amblin Partners. Jeb began his career making indie film as a founding partner at Big Beach, has producer or exec producer credit on films like Little Miss Sunshine, Sherrybaby, and Chop Shop. Brody has worked at Alex Kurtzman’s production company Secret Hideout, where he executive produced “The Mummy,” a reimagining of the classic horror film starring Tom Cruise that stumbled at the box office. Read more...He was previously the president of production at Focus Features, where he scored with the adaptation of E.L. James’ best-seller “Fifty Shades of Grey” and helped acquire and produced “Kill the Messenger,” “The Place Beyond the Pines,” and “Dallas Buyers Club,” which won Oscars for Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto.
Gerry Byrne Gerry is PMC’s Vice Chairman, guiding business initiatives across PMC’s entire portfolio of media brands. Gerry’s decades of accomplishments as a media executive, entrepreneur and community leader are highlighted by his longtime run as publisher of Variety, where he dramatically transformed that business into a powerful, diversified, global media brand. Read more...He was also the launch publisher of Crain’s New York Business, a senior executive at Norman Lear’s ACT III Communications and the Creator/Chairman of the NBC Quill Awards before he led a division of Nielsen that included The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, and AdWeek.
Dan Crown Dan is the founder of Red Crown Productions, a privately financed New York-based production company. He currently serves on the Board of Lenox Hill Hospital, Hamptons International Film Festival, Connecticut Public Broadcasting, The Jerusalem Foundation, The Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation, The Lollipop Theater Network, and Independent Filmmaker Project. A native of Chicago, Dan resides in New York City where he and his wife, Ellen, are the proud parents of four children.
Mark D’Arcy Mark is VP, Chief Creative Officer at Facebook where he leads the company’s creative efforts to make advertising across Facebook and Instagram more relevant for people and more valuable for businesses. Mark joined Facebook in 2011 and today his team, The Creative Shop, operates from more than 40 Facebook offices and last year alone helped produce several thousand projects... Read more...across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Oculus for an extraordinarily diverse client base including 80% of the world’s top 100 advertisers. Mark helped establish the Facebook Awards to celebrate the best creative work on the platform and in 2012, he founded the Facebook Global Creative Council. Mark is proud to serve on the boards of AD and the The Gotham, Independent Filmmaker Project.
Amy Emmerich Amy is the chief content officer at Refinery29, the leading digital lifestyle media company for women. She has more than 20 years of experience developing content and programming for brands including Refinery29, MTV Networks, Travel Channel, and Vice Media. An award-winning producer, she has a full spectrum of production and development experience across platforms,and is committed to creating a dialogue with a powerful generation of women around topics that matter.
Philipp Engelhorn Philipp is the Executive Director of Cinereach, an independent film company dedicated to vital, artful filmmaking. As a philanthropic organization, Cinereach helps expand its films’ creative potential by offering adaptive development, financing, production, and other support models that align with the unique vision of each supported filmmaker. Read more...The company’s original productions include: Eliza Hittman’s sophomore narrative feature, Beach Rats, which won the US Dramatic Directing Award at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival; Matt Wolf’s Teenage, a “living collage” documentary about the birth of youth culture; and Benh Zeitlin’s first narrative feature, Beasts of the Southern Wild, which was nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Picture.
Kai Falkenberg Kai Falkenberg is a media lawyer, law professor and former public official. Currently she serves as the general counsel of G/O Media, a media company whose portfolio of sites reaches the largest Generation Z audience online and includes Gizmodo, Jezebel, Kotaku and the Onion. Falkenberg is also a Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School where she originated and teaches the course on the Law and Regulation of Social Media. Read more...Previously, she served as First Deputy Commissioner/Acting Commissioner of the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment where she launched a number of programs including the Freelancers' Hub and One Book, One New York. Prior to her role with the Mayor's Office, Falkenberg served in a number of senior legal positions at both public and private companies. In addition to her role with The Gotham, she serves as Treasurer of the Jewish Week Media Group and as a board member on the Craig Newmark School of Journalism at CUNY.
James Janowitz Partner James Janowitz is among the country’s most respected entertainment and media lawyers. As chair of Pryor Cashman’s Media + Entertainment group and a senior partner in the Litigation Group, Jim has helped the firm build one of the most comprehensive entertainment practices in the country. He represents some of the industry’s most celebrated artists and performers as well as influential producers, film studios, television studios, networks and investors. Read more...Jim is also co-chair of the firm’s Art Law practice.
Jim belongs to a select group of attorneys in the U.S. who deliver a combination of transactional and complex litigation representation. His cross-disciplinary strength includes litigations such as the landmark copyright infringement action against George Harrison over “My Sweet Lord” as well as numerous complex financings in the film and television area. He counsels film, television, theater, music and digital media producers as well as banks and other lenders investing in entertainment endeavors.
As co-chair of the Art Law practice, Jim successfully tried a highly publicized case involving claims of Nazi theft of an Egon Schiele work and is currently representing a plaintiff asserting claims against the Knoedler Gallery as a result of an historic fraud involving the sale of millions of dollars of fake modern masters. Jim also advises clients in connection with the sale, purchase and lending of art works.
Soledad O’Brien Soledad is an award-winning journalist, speaker, author and philanthropist. She is the CEO of Starfish Media Group, a multi-platform media production company dedicated to telling empowering and authentic stories on range of social issues. Read more...
O’Brien anchors and produces the Hearst Television political magazine program “Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien.” She also reports regularly for HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” and PBS NewsHour. O’Brien, who was anchor of two CNN morning news programs and their documentary unit, created the “In America” documentary series. “Black in America” and “Latino in America” which continue to be produced under SMG and are subjects of an annual speaking tour. She also speaks on a variety of social issues at college campuses and corporate events.
She is also the author of two books, her critically acclaimed memoir “The Next Big Story” and “Latino in America.”
O’Brien was named journalist of the year by the National Association of Black Journalists and one of Newsweek magazine’s “10 People who Make America Great.” In 2013, O’Brien taught at Harvard University as a Distinguished Fellow and was appointed to the board of directors of the Foundation for the National Archives. In 2015, O’Brien joined the RAND Corporation’s Board of Trustees.
John Schmidt John Schmidt is a Founding Partner of October Films. Mr. Schmidt co-founded Content Media Corporation plc (alternative name Content Media Corporation Limited and Contentfilm Plc) in July 2001 and has been its Chief Executive Officer since 2001. Content bought 50% stake of Alex Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions. He has over 30 years of experience building, acquiring and developing successful businesses in the media marketplace. Read more... He managed CMC through its initial stage of film production, acquired the Fireworks library and built its television and digital businesses. He also identified and led the start-up or acquisition of the company’s five production companies.
Sharon Solomon Sharon Solomon is Senior Managing Director, Marketing & Corporate Communications at Jerrick media and its flagship product Vocal media. Sharon is a seasoned corporate executive and she is also an experienced entrepreneur.
Drew Wilson Drew was appointed as the CFO of First Look Media in 2018. Prior, he was the CFO of AwesomenessTV, which is majority owned by Comcast-NBCU and minority investors Verizon and Hearst Corporation. Earlier in his career, he was CFO of RLJ Entertainment. Read more...He also spent over a decade at Discovery Communications, as a divisional CFO, responsible for digital businesses, distribution to OTT (over-the-top) providers, social media, licensing, retail, and direct-to-consumer. He also held previous financial roles at Host Marriott Corporation, Crown Books and Price Waterhouse Cooper LLP.
Public Notice: Creative Materials Submission Policy
The Gotham has a strict policy prohibiting the acceptance of unsolicited literary, dramatic or other materials for consideration. Accordingly, unsolicited materials will remain unread (i.e. not read or copied by anyone at The Gotham nor passed along to anyone outside the company) and will be destroyed unless return postage is sent to The Gotham within 5 days of receipt of this letter. We respectfully must request that you do not send The Gotham any further materials relating to your project unless you do so through formal submission to one of The Gotham’s programs, if appropriate. More information about these programs, their guidelines and deadlines are available at The Gotham’s website thegotham.org. You should also be aware that The Gotham’s programs accept submissions of any kind through official program submissions only and selections to said programs are by curatorial selection only. Submissions of literary, dramatic or other materials are only accepted in this manner.
