Film Veterans Tell All

Open to all passholders. Individual tickets are available for non-passholders.

Come hear film industry members give the ins-and-outs of the film business. Get insider stories from industry veterans about the film world!

The panel, moderated by Indiewire Editor at Large Anne Thompson, features some of the most esteemed in the industry in marketing, distribution, publicity, and festivals. The panelists include John Cooper, Laura Kim, Robert Aaronson, Kirsten Schaffer, and Julie Fontaine.

This is a must-attend panel for aspiring filmmakers and film lovers alike. 

Anne Thompson launched her film industry career in the publicity bullpen at United Artists, promoting “Rocky,” “Network,” “Bound for Glory,” “Carrie,” “Annie Hall,” “Manhattan,” and more. She joined editor Richard Corliss at Film Comment before following her future husband, critic David Chute, to Los Angeles. She delivered the LA Weekly syndicated column Risky Business for seven years, supplied regular stories to The New York Times and The London Observer, and took staff jobs at Entertainment Weekly, Premiere, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety before taking her blog Thompson on Hollywood to IndieWire, where she has happily served as Editor at Large since 2016 and cohosts the weekly Screen Talk podcast. In 2014, Harper Collins published “The $11 Billion Year: From Sundance to the Oscars,” an Inside Look at the Changing Hollywood System.

John Cooper is the Artistic Director of True West Film Center and Emeritus Director of the Sundance Film Festival. At Sundance, he oversaw all aspects of the annual festival, launched the Art House Convergence, and expanded the festival with satellite events in New York, Los Angeles, London, and Hong Kong. Prior to that, Cooper led the LGBTQ+ film festival Outfest in Los Angeles. He co-hosts the podcast "The Film That Blew My Mind", which has been recorded at the Sonoma International Film Festival. 

Laura Kim works for MUBI. Previously, she was the Executive Vice President, Co-Head of Campaigns & Engagement for Participant Media. She worked on campaigns for the company's Academy Award-winning films Roma, American Factory, A Fantastic Woman, Spotlight, and CITIZENFOUR, as well as the Academy Award-nominated films All the Beauty and the Bloodshed and historic triple nominee Flee. She also founded Inside Job, a marketing, public relations, and distribution consulting firm whose films include the Academy Award-nominated Restrepo, Winter’s Bone, The Act of Killing, Ida, Stories We Tell, and Gloria. 

Before her time at Participant Media, Kim served as Executive Vice President of Marketing for Warner Independent Pictures, where she was responsible for the marketing of films including Before Sunset, March of the Penguins, Paradise Now, and Good Night, and Good Luck. Kim also serves as a Governor of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, is a member of BAFTA, and co-wrote the book I Wake Up Screening: What to Do Once You’ve Made That Movie with film critic John Anderson.

Robert Aaronson is an established studio and independent film industry executive with expertise in Acquisitions, Production, Distribution, and Sales across all platforms. He is currently the SVP of Cohen Media Group.

Aaronson was the first VP of Acquisitions and Co-Productions for Fine Line Features, a division of New Line Cinema. Among the titles he acquired for Fine Line's theatrical distribution slate were Mike Leigh's Naked, winner of the Cannes Best Director and Best Actor awards, and David O. Russell's Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning Spanking the Monkey. He later joined Searchlight and acquired Star Maps, establishing the directing career of Miguel Arteta, in one of the biggest deals at the time at Sundance. He was also instrumental in the acquisition and development of the script for The Full Monty, which went on to break box office records and win an Oscar.

Eventually, Aaronson joined Netflix to launch their digital division, Red Envelope Entertainment. From 2010 to 2018, he acquired content for worldwide distribution for Universal Studios Home Entertainment. He negotiated and secured long-term domestic home entertainment distribution output deals with such companies as NEON, Film Arcade, Amazon Studios, Aviron, and Great Point Media.

As an independent producer under his Prospect Street Pictures banner, he developed and produced Two of Us, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg and starring Jared Harris and Aiden Quinn as John Lennon and Paul McCartney. His most recent credit as Executive Producer is Tales From the Hood 2, co-EPed by Spike Lee and distributed and financed by Universal Home Entertainment.

Kirsten Schaffer is the Chief Executive Officer of WIF, the preeminent organization that advocates for women in the screen industries—to achieve parity and transform culture. She has been instrumental in launching ReFrame, an industry-wide initiative to advance inclusivity and gender equity, as well as starting a variety of programs at WIF to increase the skill set and opportunity for film and TV makers.

Previously, she was the Director of Programming and then Executive Director of Outfest. She is widely credited as having grown Outfest into the leading LGBT media arts organization that it is. During Schaffer’s tenure at Outfest, she shepherded three new programs for the organization: the Outfest UCLA Legacy Project, the Fusion LGBT People of Color Film Festival, and OutSet, the Young Filmmakers Project.

Kirsten has extensive experience in film programming, small business management, and arts administration. She is a graduate of the National Arts Strategies Chief Executive Program, AIM (Arts Innovation and Management), and the Wells Fargo New Executive Director Institute.

Kirsten was named one of POWER UP’s “Top 10 Women in Show Business,” and was the recipient of a “Women in Business” Award from Senator Liu. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Julie Fontaine is a film marketing executive with over 20 years of experience who runs her own consulting firm, Fontaine Media Consulting, with clients like A24, Paramount, Hulu, National Geographic, and more companies, along with many independent filmmakers. Previously, she was the SVP of Marketing for IMAX, VP of Film Publicity for Netflix, EVP of Worldwide Publicity for Lionsgate, and VP of Film Publicity for Miramax. While at these studios, Fontaine worked on marketing campaigns for films The Irishman, Roma, Marriage Story, La La Land, The Two Popes, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and the Hunger Games franchise, to name a few. Before working in the film industry, Fontaine taught film studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and the University of California, Santa Barbara.