Independent Film Financing: Past, Present, Future with Mynette Louie (SWALLOW), Ina Finchman (STRAY), & Nikkia Moulterie (NANNY)
About this Event Recording
Join Sundance Institute and Women In Film (WIF) for a session on the evolution of film financing with experienced independent producers of both fiction and documentary features. These producers have sold films in multiple years of the Sundance Film Festival, giving them a distinct perspective on the shifting terrain. We'll learn how the funding landscape has changed, and continues to change from development to distribution, theatrical to streaming, in-person to virtual, and more.
Panelists for this session include Ina Finchman, Mynette Louie, and Nikkia Moulterie, moderated by Carrie Lozano, Director of the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film and Artist Programs.
About the Sundance Institute’s Women at Sundance Program
The Women at Sundance Program began as a partnership with WIF Los Angeles in 2012. Together, we commissioned groundbreaking research with Dr. Stacy Smith and her team at USC’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative to better understand the key barriers and opportunities for women filmmakers. Guided by these findings, Women at Sundance supports filmmakers from historically underrepresented communities — through yearlong Fellowships and shorter intensives — to cultivate career sustainability, build community, and strengthen the artist pipeline. The program has catalyzed the growth of women-dominated networks and established a firm awareness among decision-makers and gatekeepers in the industry about the deficit of women behind the camera in independent film and beyond. Women at Sundance continues to discover, spotlight, and forge ways for women to succeed as storytellers who shape our cultural landscape.
About Women In Film (WIF)
Founded in 1973 as Women In Film Los Angeles, WIF advocates for and advances the careers of women working in the screen industries—in front of and behind the camera, across all levels of experience—to achieve parity and transform culture.
Event RecordingTeam
Carrie Lozano
Moderator
Carrie Lozano is the Director of the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film and Artist Programs, and is an award winning documentary filmmaker and journalist. Prior to Sundance, she was director of the International Documentary Association's Enterprise Documentary and Pare Lorentz funds, where she supported more than 60 diverse films and filmmakers at the intersection of documentary and journalism. She is on the advisory board of U.C. Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, where she is an alumnus and has been a lecturer and editor in its documentary film and investigative reporting programs. Lozano was previously an executive at Al Jazeera America and a senior producer of the network’s investigative series FAULT LINES. Her recent film credits include THE BALLAD OF FRED HERSCH and PROGNOSIS: NOTES ON LIVING.
Mynette Louie
Panelist
Mynette Louie is a Spirit Award-winning, Emmy and Critics Choice-nominated producer. Her credits include Heidi Ewing’s Sundance-winning, Spirit Award-nominated I CARRY YOU WITH ME (Sony Pictures Classics), Carlo Mirabella-Davis’ Gotham-nominated SWALLOW (IFC Films), Jennifer Fox’s Emmy, Golden Globe, Critics Choice and Spirit Award-nominated THE TALE (HBO), Karyn Kusama’s THE INVITATION (Drafthouse/Netflix), and Martha Stephens & Aaron Katz's Spirit Award-winning LAND HO! (Sony Pictures Classics). Mynette won the 2013 Independent Spirit Producers Award, is on Film Independent’s Board of Directors, and serves on the executive and diversity committees in the Producers branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She was named one of Business Insider’s “12 Movie Producers at the Top of Their Game to Watch in 2020 and Beyond” and Indiewire’s “100 Filmmakers to Follow on Twitter.” She is also an Assistant Professor of Professional Practice in the graduate film program at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. A native New Yorker, Mynette graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard.
Ina Finchman
Panelist
Ina Fichman is the owner of Intuitive Pictures which has been producing award-winning documentary and fiction films, and interactive projects for more than twenty-five years. Many of her creative documentaries have been released in theatres in Canada and abroad and have played at festivals including Sundance, Berlin, Hot Docs, RIDM, CPHDOX, Venice, SXSW, Tribeca, TIFF and others. Award-winning productions include Amer Shomali’s THE WANTED 18, MONSOON (Canada’s Top 10) and VITA ACTIVA: THE SPIRIT OF HANNAH ARENDT. Recent productions include STRAY, THE GIG IS UP, ONCE UPON A SEA, BLUE BOX, THE OSLO DIARIES, INSIDE LEHMAN BROTHERS, GIFT and LAILA AT THE BRIDGE. In 2018, Ina was the recipient of the Don Haig Award from Hot Docs which recognizes the work of a Canadian independent producer. She is currently chair of the national board of the Documentary Association of Canada, is one of the chairs of the Documentary Producers Alliance (DPA). Ina is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Nikkia Moulterie
Panelist
Nikkia Moulterie is a creative producer born and raised in New York City. She produced NANNY, the 2022 Sundance Dramatic Grand Jury Prize 2022 and is a Gotham/Rotterdam Lab 2022 Producer Fellow. She is a 2019 Sundance Institute Creative Producing Fellow and Silverman Honoree. She co-produced the premiere season of the Peabody Award-winning RANDOM ACTS OF FLYNESS for MVMT / HBO. In 2019, she produced SUICIDE BY SUNLIGHT with writer/director Nikyatu Jusu, which premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and continued a successful run at BAMcinemaFEST, BFI London Film Fest, MoMA’s Black Women Film Conference, AFI and more. Jusu and Moulterie more recently collaborated on the feature film NANNY – a 2020 Sundance Screenwriting / Directors / Catalyst Lab project premiering at Sundance 2022. In addition, her work as a producer also includes projects at ABC News, MTV, T Magazine, Nike, Louis Vuitton, as well as numerous works in the commercial and branded content world. She is currently an executive producer at creative agency The Kitchen Table in New York City.