CAFTPro

Small islands, big pictures: reimagining new models of collaboration with the Caribbean film industry

CAFTPro invites you to join us for breakfast, networking and a morning of fireside chats with industry experts as they imagine new models of collaboration to accelerate the growth of the Caribbean film industry.

Friday 16 Feb from 9am
‘Workshops & Think Tanks’ room, Gropius Bau (2nd floor)

Presented by CAFTPro with the support of Flourishing Films

Schedule

9.00am Networking breakfast

9:30am Session 1
A conversation with creative economy expert Renee Robinson, Third Horizon’s Jonathan Ali and Sony Pictures’ Daniel Deboulay

10:30am Session 2
A conversation with Tamara Tatishvili  (Hubert Bals Fund), Chloe Walters-Wallace (Firelight Media) and Nora Philippe (EURODOC)

The sessions will be facilitated by Guetty Felin writer/ director/ producer at BelleMoon Productions and founding member of CAFTPro.

---

Participant bios

Session 1

Jonathan Ali is a London-based film programmer, curator and writer, with over fifteen years of experience in the international film industry. He is he director of programming at Third Horizon Film Festival and programme advisor to Open Doors Programme, Locarno Film Festival. He is also a programmer and programme consultant for several international film festivals.

Daniel Deboulay After studying Screenwriting and Business Administration at Loyola Marymount, Daniel Deboulay landed a job in the Worldwide Acquisitions department of Sony Pictures Entertainment where he combs through film submissions at various stages for the studio. His first acquisition as an executive was DOWN WITH THE KING, starring Freddie Gibbs. Later that year, his team also acquired British-Caribbean comedy, BOXING DAY from Aml Ameen. Outside of Sony Pictures, Daniel composes a lot of music, hosts events, and tries to find as much time to visit his family in the Caribbean as he can.

Renee Robinson is an international creative economy expert and thought-leader, with 20 years of experience in content strategy, public policy, film investment promotion, and international trade. As the second longest serving Film Commissioner in the history of Jamaica, she facilitated major productions such as James Bond’s “No Time To Die”, Idris Elba’s “Yardie”, and the Paramount Pictures Bob Marley film “One Love”. As Commissioner, she prioritized the development of the local screen industry – launching talent discovery programs, leading national delegations at numerous film festivals, negotiating co-production treaties, catalyzing access to finance, and shepherding the approval of the inaugural screen fund.

Through her private consultancy, she advises on film finance, growth strategy, corporate governance, and film ecosystem development – with clients such as the Hyphen Group, BCG, PwC, TIFF, and UNESCO. Previously she held leadership roles at renowned institutions such as the Harbourfront Centre, Women in Film & Television, and the Toronto International Film Festival. She sits on funding advisory committees for Telefilm Canada and the European New Dawn Fund, and formerly on the Board of the Association of Film Commissioners International and C15 Studios.

She is a member of the EU/UNESCO Culture Expert Facility, the International Women’s Forum (IWF) Global Fellows, and is an alum of Harvard Business School, York University, and Williams College.  

Session 2

Nora Philippe is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and the director of EURODOC, a leading international lab for documentary producers founded in 1999. Her latest films are Restitution? Africa’s Fight for its Art (ARTE, Al Jazeera, AfroPop…, premiere at CPH:DOX in 2022), and Like Dolls, I’ll Like Rise (Visions du réel, 2018). She has been an affiliated curator for Columbia University (New York & Paris), and has curated multiple film series and contemporary art shows, with a focus on African-American history, colonial history, migration, and marginalized forms of art. She has taught filmmaking as well as diversity and inclusion in the film industry in various MA programmes in France and has extensively served as an expert on festival juries and fund committees (FIFDH, IDFA, RIDM, CPH:DOX, Unifrance, LaScam, CNC…). At EURODOC, she has launched new programmes such as a Mediterranean lab, a BIPOC programme, and a Caribbean programme. 

Tamara Tatishvili combines solid experience of international funding and promotion strategies with strong passion for talent curation and programming. She worked for several years as director of the Georgian National Film Center (2010-2013) – the public institution that sets Georgian film policy. Prior to that, Tamara co-founded and served as executive director of the “Independent Filmmakers’ Association, South Caucasus” (IFA-SC). She managed three offices of the Association, leading local teams and ensuring multi-stakeholder industry activities.

Tamara has been based in Brussels since 2014 and works as an international industry consultant, combining various projects on leadership, strategy and industry insights. She acted as Strategy and Partnerships manager for European Women’s Audiovisual Network and curated the high-level industry conference CINEMA BACKSTAGE for Odessa International Film Festival in Ukraine. She is a regular consultant at BOZAR’s Bridges East of West Film Days in Belgium and is often invited to moderate high-profile industry events.

Tamara has been head of studies of FOCAL’s programme MEDICI: The Film Funding Journey – an annual vocational training designed for senior public financiers internationally – since 2020. In 2023 she was appointed head of the Hubert Bals Fund. 

Chloe Walters-Wallace is the director of regional initiatives at Firelight Media. She is the creator and executive producer of the award-winning non-fiction anthology series HOMEGROWN currently in season 3; and the Groundwork Regional Lab, supporting emerging filmmakers of colour based outside of New York and L.A. In 2020, she co-created the Caribbean Film Academy 2.0 at Third Horizon along with Themba Bhebe, and has programmed for Blackstar Film Festival’s documentary shorts team for the past four years. Chloe is a 2021 DOC NYC Documentary New Leaders fellow, 2021 Rockwood JustFilms Fellow, a 2015 Ortique Institute Fellow, and a 2007 Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow. She lives between New York, New Orleans and Jamaica, is on the board of Third Horizon and is a former board member of the Color Congress. 

Getty Felin is an award-winning writer/director/producer and film curator. Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and raised in New York, she began her filmmaking career in Paris, France, while in grad school at the Sorbonne. Felin has worked on factual and narrative films for European and American television. Her personal films explore haunting themes such as memory, exile, foreignness, and the unending search for home while interconnecting our common global humanities. In 2007, she founded BelleMoon Productions, a US/ Haiti-based company that has since been the producing entity of all of her works. In 2014, the Women’s Film Institute honored her as one of the most vital figures in film, television, and media. Her 2016 drama Ayiti Mon Amour explores the intertwined lives of three people in Haiti five years after an earthquake. The film premiered at TIFF and won the Best Feature Narrative Award at the 2017 BlackStar Film Festival. The film has traveled to over 50 festivals around the world and was Haiti’s first ever entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Category for the 2018 Academy Awards. Guetty is the producer of the critically acclaimed Sundance 2024 Documentary Seeking Mavis Beacon by Jazmin Jones, in co-production with Neon, the upcoming hybrid documentary Lights of Passage by Yeelen Cohen and Oceania, Journey to the Center by Natalie Zimmerman. Guetty’s upcoming projects as director are the thriller, Inheritance written by Fedna Jacquet and her long-brooded political thriller A Rooster on the Fire Escape. 

She is founder and artistic director of the film encounter Les Lumières du Sud and a founding member of CAFTPro.