Becoming... Festival Director and Senior VP of Programming at Tribeca Festival Cara Cusumano

Cara Cusumano has been with Tribeca since 2008, during which time the festival has become a globally respected showcase for film and TV premieres, live music, talks, interdisciplinary events, and talent discovery. During her tenure as Festival Director, Tribeca has been called “an annual powerhouse” (Time Out), “reliably and inarguably excellent” (Village Voice), and “one of the most prestigious festivals of the new millennium” (Playlist). She has served on nominating committees for the Cinema Eye Honors, the International Documentary Association Awards, the Gotham Awards, and the Irish Film and Television Academy Awards, and festival juries including CPH:DOX, Los Cabos Film Festival, DOC NYC, Nordisk Panorama, Bogota Audiovisual Market (BAM), and the Nantucket Film Festival. She holds a degree in Film from Columbia University’s Barnard College, and an MA in Cinema Studies from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Internships and her first job as short film programmer at Brooklyn Film Festival

• The different programming teams involved in Tribeca and how she oversees them all

• Choosing films to be featured at Tribeca

• Typical day-to-day routine

• Networking at film festival and how do you get a seasonal job there

• Famous filmmakers/cast vs unknown first time filmmakers and films coming with distribution and film coming in without distribution

• Want a job at Tribeca or any festival? Cara’s recommendation for a starting position in the screening committee

• Advice for filmmakers who are hoping to get their film into a festival including in the pre-production and post-production stages of their films

• How to identify what films are “right” for Tribeca Festival

• Collaborations and partnerships with brands like Chanel, Mazda, Indeed, AT&T, and Canva

Guest:

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