Amy Dotson – Producer tutor

Amy Dotson is Director of the Northwest Film Center and inaugural curator of film & new media at the Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon. She also works as one of the founding Group Leaders of the prestigious Biennale College-Cinema program, as a story expert at the Biennale College-Cinema VR and is the Head of Studies at Doha Film Institute’s Series Lab. For thirteen years, she was the Deputy Director & Head of Programming for IFP; her responsibilities included the financial and creative oversight of all domestic and international programming, partnerships and memberships for the organization’s signature programs including: IFP Feature Film, Documentary, Series & Audio Labs, IFP Week & Conference, IFP Expanded International Labs, as well as numerous year-round membership and sponsor-drive programs and initiatives. She oversaw the yearly selection of over 150 fiction & non-fiction projects and managed 18 international partners in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa and Canada, creating custom programming for their producers, showrunners and filmmakers throughout the year. She also managed the talent and juries for the IFP’s Gotham Awards, which kicks off US awards season each year and was one of three key staff leaders to help secure and open the Made in NY Media Center by IFP, a 22,000 square foot talent incubator for creators at the intersection of story and tech in DUMBO, Brooklyn.
Before joining IFP, Dotson held the position of Programmer/Special Programs Producer for SILVERDOCS: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, The AFI Silver’s Latin American Film Festival and The AFI Silver’s The European Union Film Showcase in Washington, DC. Prior, Amy worked with producer Fred Berner (Pollock), as well as at Curious Pictures (Pee Wee’s Playhouse) and Miramax Films, where her responsibilities included a wide variety of production, development, administrative and business affairs duties, as well as extensive script and book coverage. Dotson also produced Brad Beesley’s feature documentary, Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo (SXSW 2009; HBO and BBC), was a supervising producer for Matt Porterfield’s feature I Used To Be Darker (Sundance 2013; Strand Releasing) and worked closely with director Tim Sutton as a producing advisor on doc/narrative hybrid, Memphis (Sundance 2014; Kino Lorber). She is currently producing Bo McGuire’s upcoming documentary feature, Socks on Fire. She was the 2019 Keynote Speaker at BAM Cinemafest as well as at the 2015 Seattle Film Festival Catalyst Program. Dotson has served as a juror at a wide variety of festivals such as Atlanta, Ashland, IDFA, IndieMemphis, Istanbul, Karlovy Vary, Slamdance, Sidewalk, SXSW, Woodstock, and World Air Guitar Championships in Oluu, Finland. She has also been a butterfly wrangler, fashion stylist, licensed welder, art director’s assistant and freelance writer for publications such as Maisonneuve and BUST Magazine. She graduated from NYU with a Masters in Media Ecology where she studied the intersection of media, art and technology and holds a duel undergrad degree in communications and fine arts from Wake Forest University.

Michel Kammoun – Script tutor

Michel Kammoun studied filmmaking in Paris after architecture studies in Beirut. His short films have participated in prestigious international festivals and have been widely broadcasted. His debut feature film, Falafel, won top international awards, participated in major film festivals worldwide and earned international acclaim. His upcoming feature film, Beirut Hold’em, will be released in 2022. Michel teaches directing and screenwriting at the Lebanese University, Faculty of Fine Arts and at the Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts, Beirut. He’s a frequent collaborator at the Ecole Superieure d’Etudes Cinematographiques, Paris. Michel is currently working on his third feature film, The Brother.

Mmabatho Kau – Script tutor

In her 20-year strong creative journey, Mmabatho has worked as a producer, broadcaster (SABC, Kwese TV, TopTV), development executive as well as a script consultant. Roles that have harnessed her love for story and helping writers find their voice as storytellers. As development executive and broadcaster she has worked across the African continent from South Africa to Kenya to Ghana; working with producers to help bring their vision to life.
Her catalogue of work, as a script consultant, ranges from novel adaptations to politically potent films brought to life through titles such Kalushi: The Solomon Mahlangu Story and the sequel to Happiness is a Four Letter Word – Happiness Ever After. Mmabatho’s creative flair has also been injected outside South Africa as a consultant on the award-winning Lesotho based film This is not a Burial, it’s a Resurrection (Venice Biennale College Cinema 2019, Visionary Award winner Sundance 2019). In 2017 Mmabatho was invited to co-mentor in REALNESS, a Pan African writing residency. Beyond Realness; she has mentored on the Canal+ Poland Series Lab (2021), The Philippines (Full Circle Lab 2019, 2020, 2022), Maisha Producers Lab (Uganda 2019), Jumpstart PRODUIRE AU SUD (South Africa 2019 and 2020), For Film’s Sake- Attagirl Lab (Australia 2020 and 2022), The Pro Series Lab (Kenya 2020), BoostNL (Netherlands Film Festival/IFFR 2020), Dramatic Producer’s Lab (Ethiopia 2019), EAVE Access Canada (2022). In addition to being a mentor, she has had the honour of being invited to participate in The Torino Script Lab (2018), EAVE (European Audio Visual Entrepreneurs 2020) and The Rotterdam Producer’s Lab. She is currently head of scripted content at Rapid Blue, a Johannesburg based production company.

Gino Ventriglia – Group leader

Story editor and script consultant both for cinema and television; he’s a tutor for TorinoFilmLab as well for other international development programs. He won a Fulbright Fellowship, and got a Master of Fine Arts in Directing and Scriptwriting at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. He teaches drama writing at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, the Italian National School of Cinema. He has written screenplays for cinema and television, like the script for Arrivederci amore, ciao by Michaele Soavi. He lives in Rome.

Flaminio Zadra – Producer tutor

Flaminio has produced and coproduced numerous feature films, documentaries and short films by international authors, including Fatih Akin, Etgar Keret, Pablo Trapero, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Zhangke Jia, Hany Abu-Assad and Jafar Panahi. His films have received awards at major international festivals, including the Golden Palm for the Best Film Script at the Film Festival of Cannes in 2008 for the film The Edge of Heaven, the Special Prize of the Jury of the Film Festival of Venice in 2010 for the film Soul Kitchen and the Golden Globe in 2017 for the film In the Fade. Currently the Flaminio Zadra is coproducing several international projects. Between this, Fortress by Jessica Woodworth and Rheingold by Fatih Akin (both currently in postproduction), Los Impactados by Lucia Puenzo.