Women in Film and TV Panel & Reception
SUN 10/5 // Doors Open 11:30am // Panel Starts @ 12:00pm
The Bushwick Film Festival was founded by a group of female entrepreneurs that were excited about the film and entertainment industry. Each year we present this panel to allow people to hear from women in a position to offer their insight and advice. This panel presents a unique forum for filmmakers and media professionals to ask questions about the current landscape for women in the entertainment field and to learn more about the women in the types of positions they one day hope to hold.
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Featured Panelists Include:
Sarah Hack: Legal & Business Affairs, Magnolia Pictures/Magnet Releasing
Sarah Hack is the Director of Business and Legal Affairs at Magnolia Pictures and is responsible for almost every legal aspect of the company’s business including acquisitions, licensing, marketing and sponsorship, intellectual property and First Amendment issues, compliance and pre-litigation.
A graduate of Williams College, where she studied art and comparative literature, Sarah started her career in production and then transitioned to international and broadcast sales at Magnolia. After earning her law degree at Cornell, she was hired straight out of law school to work again for Magnolia, a growing part of the group of media companies co-owned by Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner.
Outside of her legal career, she is extremely proud of her work as a teacher and volunteer with the Ghetto Film School and as a mentor with Dogfish Accelerator.
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Jessica Vale: Director of the Documentary Film, Small Small Thing
Jessica Vale is a documentary film director and editor, as well as Billboard charting singer. Originally from New Hope, Pennsylvania, Jess graduated from Temple University. Her credits include work for NBC News, CBS News, The Weinstein Co., and more.
Her feature directorial debut was the award winning documentary Small Small Thing about young Liberian rape victim Olivia Zinnah. Small Small Thing won over 10 festival awards and had its worldwide television premiere on Al Jazeera in March 2014. The film received high praise and Jessica received substantial media attention including appearances on MSNBC’s Melissa Harris Perry Show, Huffington Post Live and WABC NY’s Weekend Morning Show.
Jessica's next feature doc focuses on former Weather Underground member Judy Clark and her bid for clemency.
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Leah Meyerhoff: Founder, Film Fatales & Director of the Feature Film, I Believe in Unicorns
Leah Meyerhoff's debut feature film I BELIEVE IN UNICORNS premiered in competition at SXSW 2014 and continues to travel the film festival circuit. Her previous short films have screened in over 200 film festivals, won a dozen awards, and aired on IFC, PBS, LOGO and MTV. She has been shortlisted for the Student Academy Awards and Gotham Awards and received high profile grants from IFP, the Tribeca Film Institute and the Adrienne Shelly Foundation. Leah was one of eight filmmakers chosen to participate in IFP's Emerging Narrative Labs and Narrative Finishing Labs and one of ten filmmakers chosen to participate in the Emerging Visions program at the New York Film Festival. She was also one of eight filmmakers chosen to participate in the Tribeca All Access Labs and was recently honored with the Adrienne Shelly Director's Award. She has been featured in Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and The New York Times and starred on the docudrama Film School on IFC. She holds a BA in Art-Semiotics from Brown University and is a Dean's Fellow in Graduate Film at NYU.
Film Fatales is a collective of female filmmakers based in New York who have written or directed at least one feature narrative or documentary film. Members meet the first week of every month, hosted at the home of a different filmmaker each time. Gatherings consist of a meal, a topical conversation relevant to the creative process, and a sharing of current projects. Film Fatales has quickly become a grassroots community of collaboration and support, with over a dozen films in production by our members this year alone. By offering a space for mentorship, peer networking and direct participation, the Fatales hope to promote the creation of more stories by and about women.
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Maya Jakubowicz - Finance & Administrative Director, Women Make Movies
Maya Jakubowicz is the Finance & Administrative Director at Women Make Movies, where she has worked since 2007. Ms. Jakubowicz is responsible for the Finance, Operations, Human Resources, and IT functions at Women Make Movies. Additionally, she sits on the Acquisitions team at WMM, selecting and acquiring 15-20 documentary films per year for educational, theatrical, and broadcast distribution.
Previously, Ms. Jakubowicz oversaw all day-to-day operations as the Vice President of Finance & Operations at Montana Artists Agency in Los Angeles, where she worked closely with A-list and awarding winning producers, cinematographers, editors, and production/costume designers. Ms. Jakubowicz holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Film Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara, as well as a minor degree in English.