So You Wanna Make A Movie?...How to get your film funded, in festivals, and in front of the right people!
Dreaming of making your next Indie but wanna level up?
Join award-winning filmmakers in an in-depth conversation (+ networking!) about what it REALLY takes to make a film from raising $$ to distribution in 2026.
Topics include:
**How the F can I ask for $$$ in this climate?
**Which festivals do I submit to without breaking the bank?
**What are programmers actually looking for?
**Ok I had my festival run. Now what?
Panelists include:
MELISSA CENTER
Melissa Center is an actress, award-winning filmmaker known for visceral women’s stories, and crowdfunding expert who has helped fellow creatives raise over $1.8M for their independent films, plays & albums.
As an actor, her most notable credits include roles on Chicago Fire (NBC), FBI (CBS), This is Us (NBC), Grey's Anatomy (ABC), and more. Favorite roles onstage include “Maggie” in A Chorus Line (Dir. Mitzi Hamilton), “Olivia” in Sex with Strangers (Hollywood Fringe), and “Jan” in 50 Words (The Lab Creative, LA). She also originated the stage adaptation of Lois Lowry’s The Giver, directed by the late Wynn Handman of The American Place Theater.
She is the Executive Producer of Liner Notes, currently in development. She is the producer, co-writer and star of feature film, All I Want (Prime, AppleTv, Vudu, TubiTV, itunes) and the co-director, writer and star of award-winning viral short film R.V, a narrative that anticipated the overturn of Roe vs Wade. Her short film His Name is Niv, which she wrote and directed, is inspired by her own experience with sexual assault.
Her solo show Marrying Jake Gyllenhaal, that she wrote, starred in and produced, debuted The Pico, LA followed by Edinburgh Fringe Digital and Caveat, NYC, with global coverage in Ms. Magazine & Psychology Today. melissacenter.com
ADAM ELLIOTT
Adam Elliott is a New York City–based filmmaker and actor whose work has screened across the U.S. and internationally. His short documentary and directorial debut, David Again, made its New York premiere at the Tribeca Festival 2024 and international premiere at Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia (Special Jury Mention).
Adam’s credits include the comedy web series The Age of Insecurity and Little Italy, Los Angeles (Winner for Best Web Series at both HollyShorts Film Festival and LA Comedy Fest 2018), Adam Adamson: Licensed Realtor (Winner, Best Actor – NYC Short Comedy Film Festival 2020), and the narrative short A Best Man, a grant recipient of the inaugural Inwood Art Works Filmmaker Fund Award (Winner, Best Actor – New York CineFest 2022 and Midwest WeirdFest 2023). He has produced multiple narrative shorts, documentaries, and music videos with online premieres on platforms such as NOWNESS, Omeleto, and Switchboard Magazine.
Adam has also served on screening committees for ReelAbilities Film Festival NY and Salute Your Shorts Film Festival LA. With first-hand experience raising money, producing on tight budgets and shaping festival strategy, he brings a collaborative and pragmatic filmmaker-to-filmmaker lens to today’s indie ecosystem. adamelliott.me
JAYSON SIMBA
Jayson Simba is a Cuban-American actor, director, writer, and producer and founder of Festival of Cinema NYC.
As an actor, Jayson has starred in over 40 films and television roles. In 2002, Jayson founded One Man Show Productions to help produce the work of independent filmmakers and writers. In 2007, he was hired to write and direct his first feature film, What Matters Most.
As an independent filmmaker with 15 films under his belt, Jayson founded Festival of Cinema NYC with the aim of giving emerging filmmakers a platform to showcase their work to further their careers.
SANJAY SINGH
Sanjay Singh is a Guyanese-American filmmaker, entrepreneur, and social-impact advocate from Long Island, now based in Chinatown, New York City. After earning a BFA in Film & Television from NYU Tisch in 2012, he built a career producing and directing commercial and original work across short-form spots, music videos, documentaries, narrative shorts, and unscripted series.
He founded Nukhu as a film studio in 2010, evolved it into nukhu.com—a community-driven streaming platform for marketing and distribution where filmmakers set their own prices and keep a meaningful share of revenue—in 2014, and launched the first annual Nukhufest in 2016. Nukhu has produced and curated original projects including OTIS (an official selection of the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival) and Living Room Comics, an unscripted comedy series where rising comedians develop one joke from idea to living-room performance.
Sanjay’s commercial producing experience spans healthcare, finance, quick-service restaurants, fashion, tech, nonprofits, and small businesses. Selected collaborators include Alibaba, Bank of America, Comedy Central, Hasbro, Mastercard, Northwell Health, Refinery29, Subway, Truist, Viacom, Vitamix, and more.