IFP & ACADEMY AWARD WINNERS TALK INDIE AT PANEL

June 28, 2003

CONTACT: Shane Snipes
indieville@indieville.net
O.718-788-8092

Indieville: The NY Voice of Independent Film, a half-hour television show, announces the on-going panel series covering topics related to independent Film. These will be held in different venues through the city. The first panel covers "LIFE AFTER THE AWARDS: Student Academy Award Winners Discuss How Indie Film is Evolving". Winners from 1993 to today talk about the evolution of independent film. The panel will be on Thursday, July 17, 2003 from 6:30PM to 8:30PM at DV DOJO in Manhattan at 310 Bowery and First Street. Moderated by Patricia Finneran, Artistic Director of the Independent Film Project (IFP) / New York. For reservations and tickets go to http://indieville.net or call 646-226-5644.

Student Academy Award winning panelists include Ari Gold, Patricia Riggen, Jessica Sharzer, Soopum Sohn, and Ethan Spigland.

ARI GOLD, 2000 Gold Metal Winner for Alternative, an actor-writer-director was born in San Francisco, and currently lives in New York. He was named one of Filmmaker Magazine's "25 Faces to Watch" in independent film. Ari won a Student Academy Award (Oscar) Gold Medal and a dozen other international best-short-film prizes for "Helicopter," a narrative retelling of the aftermath of his mother's death in a helicopter crash with Bill Graham.

PATRICIA RIGGEN 2003 Gold Metal for Narrative was born in Guadalajara, Mexico. She began her film career as a writer for a documentary television series and later worked as an Executive Producer for the Mexican Film Institute where she produced short films, commercials and documentaries. She was recently granted an MFA in Directing from Columbia University. Her short film LA MILPA has screened in 30 international film festivals and has received 19 awards to date, including the DGA's Best Latino Student Filmmaker and The Ariel at the Mexican Academy Awards.

JESSICA SHARZER, 2002 Gold Metal Winner for Narrative, After winning the NYU first prize and the Student Academy Award, Jessica Sharzer optioned her screenplay PRETTY LIES to Dorothy Berwin of InFilm Productions. The production is slated for 2004. Sharzer is also adapting Turgenev's FIRST LOVE for Universal Studios, also to direct. This summer, Sharzer will shoot her first feature SPEAK based on the award winning book by Laurie Halse Anderson.

ETHAN SPIGLAND, 1993 Gold Metal Winner for Experimental, (M.A., University of Paris; M.F.A., New York University) is a filmmaker and screenwriter. His production, The Strange Case of Balthazar Hyppolite, won a Gold Medal in the Student Academy Awards and was a finalist for the Best Short Subject Oscar. He also has training in contemporary philosophy, having studied the philosophy of art intensively with Derrida and Lyotard.

SOOPUM SOHN 2002 Silver Metal Winner for Alternative, director of "Island to Island", was born in Seoul, Korea and currently lives in New York City. Fish in the Sea Is Not Thirsty, a short film which he directed and shot, was screened at the Cannes Film Festival, 2002. Soopum holds an MFA, major in cinematography, from the American Film Institute. He is now a student at the graduate film program of NYU. He continues to write and works as a director of photography.

DV Dojo is a place to learn how to make films, documentaries or television on your own. Think of this as a kind of karate school for video, filmmaking and television and also a place for experienced filmmakers to have access to cameras and edits. Think of this as a kind of karate school for video, filmmaking and television. It's located at 310 Bowery, and we are sharing the space with Bob Holman, who is opening the Bowery Poerty Club, which adjoins the DV Dojo. We'll have a bar and café and performance space and video screens, but something, we think, much more unique: access to video and filmmaking equipment at low prices. And training in how to use them.

IFP is a not-for-profit service organization dedicated to providing resources, information and avenues of communication for its members: independent filmmakers, industry professionals and independent film enthusiasts. It is committed to the idea that independent film is an important art form and a powerful voice in our society. IFP provides services to independent filmmakers of varying levels of experience, which assist them in expressing their unique points of view. It facilitates a connection between the creative and business communities. Other goals of the organization are to expand and educate the audience for independent film, and to encourage the diversity and quality of independent production.

Indieville airs in Brooklyn every Friday at 2:30PM on cable channels 34/67. For other airtimes in Manhattan and soon to be Jersey City, please check our listings at http://indieville.net. Highlighting the independent world of film and art, Indieville is accepting submissions of film and music. All interested artists should submit films or music to Indieville, 476 6th Avenue #1, Brooklyn NY 11215.

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