Event Details
At a time when women make up roughly 50% of the U.S. population, only about 4% of the top-grossing American films are made by women directors. In 2023, only 14% of movies were directed by women. This panel of women directors from various backgrounds will share their tips and best practices for navigating the film industry. Fielding from their knowledge and experience working in finance, distribution, storytelling and review. This panel will share advice and insights and respond to audience Q&A.
Panelists
Barbara Kopple, Academy Award Winning Director
Barbara Kopple is a two-time Academy Award-winning and ten-time Emmy-nominated filmmaker who received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 44th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards in 2023. She has directed and produced over fifty films throughout her career, including her most recent documentary, Gumbo Coalition, which follows civil rights leaders Marc Morial and Janet Murguía during a pivotal time in American history.
Sarah Pirozek, Award Winning Writer/Director/Producer
Sarah Pirozek is an award-winning Writer/Director/Producer, who relocated from London to NYC to attend the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program and the Actors Studio.
Her shorts, including Confessions of a Girl Who Never Received a Visitation From the Sacred Heart screened at The London International Film Festival. She has directed a number of shorts, music videos, and over 100 commercials, as well as programming for The Sundance Channel, MTV, VH1, PBS, HBO, NAT GEO, AMC, BBC, and Channel Four TV in London, also co-creating “Crafty”, for the Discovery Channel.
Her other projects include Free Tibet, featuring Foo Fighters, Bjork, De La Soul, among many others, winning the “Best of Fest” award at The Edinburgh International Film Festival, and indie feature FLORA, (produced by) which premiered at LA’s “Outfest”, winning Showtime’s “New Talent Award”, distributed by Regent Entertainment.
Pirozek’s original feature, #Like won accolades for “Best Script”, “Best Director”, “Best Producer” and “Best Actor” at multiple film festivals, and was theatrically released in 2021 in the US followed by the release on multiple platforms, and Internationally in 2022. Pirozek’s autobiographical original script, The Squatters Handbook, series Rockaway, and documentary The Coffee and Cream Club are in development.
Amy Adrion, Emmy Nominated Writer/Director
Amy Adrion is an Emmy nominated director and writer whose work has screened at the Sundance, SXSW, and Tribeca Film Festivals, been broadcast on STARZ, PBS, and MTV, and won numerous awards.
Amy’s debut feature, HALF THE PICTURE, which celebrates the groundbreaking work of women and non-binary film directors, had its World Premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018 and won the #WhatNext Award at Sundance Film Festival: London. HALF THE PICTURE is rated 100% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, was released theatrically nationwide and premiered on the STARZ Network. HALF THE PICTURE is currently available on streaming platforms, including Kanopy, and continues to be broadcast internationally.
In 2023, Amy was nominated for a Children’s and Family Emmy Award for her work directing the beloved series Storyline Online which is Executive Produced by the SAG-AFTRA Foundation. The long running series features actors reading children’s books and is screened in classrooms around the country, garnering millions of views. Amy has directed episodes with John Lithgow, Angela Bassett, Seth Meyers, Julianna Margulies, Lea Michelle, Sutton Foster and Tramell Tillman.
Amy’s short films include her UCLA thesis film, SHOEGAZER, which won a Directors Guild of America (DGA) Student Film Award, THE HOME OF SPLIT PEA SOUP (Los Angeles Film Festival) and SURVIVING 7TH GRADE (Tribeca Film Festival).
Amy’s television work includes directing SUCKS LESS WITH KEVIN SMITH for MTV while a graduate student at UCLA.
Amy has a Masters in Fine Arts (MFA) from UCLA, with an undergraduate degree in Literature and Theology from Georgetown University. Amy grew up in Hillsdale, New Jersey playing sports and watching movies and now enjoys coaching sports and making movies in Rochester, New York (Go Bills!) where she currently teaches filmmaking at RIT and lives with her kids and dogs.
Moderated by
Sunny Edelman, Actor, Casting Director, & President of Upstate NY Women in Film and Television (UPWIFT)
As a Classically trained actor, Sunny has directed and performed roles from Shakespeare to Clare Boothe Luce, working in regional, Off Broadway theaters, as well as in an Emmy winning television program and numerous Indie films. She received a B.A. in Theater Arts from S.U.N.Y New Paltz and studied with Iza Itkin, Robert Castle, Bob Luke and Peter Sklar. Sunny also took classes at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-Upon-Avon, England.
Sunny is an Associate Casting Director for Hudson Valley Casting and has worked on such films as The Dead Don’t Die, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, What We Found and Driveways to name a few.
She has worked with a number of film festivals, in a few different roles. She was the events coordinator for The Hudson Valley International Film Festival and The Catskills International Film Festival. Festival Director of the North By Northeast Film Festival and host at The New York State Film Festival. Ms. Edelman is both honored and excited to be working at the Lake Placid Film Festival.
A fierce advocate for women in film, Sunny is currently the President of Upstate NY Women in Film and Television.
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