On the afternoon of November 6, 2002, Gotham Chandna, founder, Cloud 21 International (www.cloud21.com) and Nicole Goesseringer Muj, founder, Kultura PR International (www.kulturapr.com) presented the fifth annual Production Without Borders Showcase, a special event held each year during the American Film Market.
The by-invitation-only, hourlong panel, held at Threshold Entertainment Studios in Santa Monica, featured a lively discussion, moderated by Reel360’s West Coast editor Colin Costello, with panelists including top international filmmakers, Eileen Tasca, Golsa Sarabi, Larry Kasanoff and Michel Shane. After the panel, there was an exclusive networking reception, with guests including E! founder Larry Namer, Caroline Lagerfelt, Dustin Quick, and Vincent De Paul, as well as many global entertainment executives and media who were in town for the annual film market.
Nicole Muj, Colin Costello, Golsa Sarabi, Michel Shane, Eileen Tasca, Larry Kasanoff, Gotham Chandna
Larry Namer, Dustin Quick, Vincent De Paul and friend
Panel highlights included:
Golsa Sarabi on the current human rights crisis in Iran:
We all have the responsibility living in this country {USA} and having the freedom to talk about it. It’s a privilege, and we should definitely use it and get help from anywhere and however we can.
Sarabi wore a statement dress, pairing fashion and freedom of speech. The dress was painted by Iranian artist Mohtadi Mirak with the words “Woman, Life, Freedom - Our Iran” written in Farsi on the front and on the back, the name Mahsa Amini, the young woman who was killed by the Islamic government because she wasn't wearing her hijab properly.
Eileen Tasca, producer of Cannes Jury Prize Winner ‘EO’, on her film:
We were very concerned about making a film about a donkey… We were concerned about getting the right visibility. So, one of the things that we came up was having a star like Isabelle Huppert, who would actually give us a little extra visibility. So, that was actually a really good idea with respect to Cannes and with respect to marketing, but it was not such a good idea with respect to the production.
Eileen Tasca, Gotham Chandna, Caroline Lagerfelt
Michel Shane on documentaries:
The thing what documentaries are, they are an opinion, and what you try to do with your opinion is to get people to believe in your vision of what you’re saying. So, in essence, a documentary is propaganda.
Larry Kasanoff on filmmaking for a global audience:
I think the opportunity is to make one version {of a film} that works for everybody. If you create and craft movies that way… think not only about the worldwide cultural impact you can have, but the money you can make… To me, it’s one movie that plays to the entire world… that is what I think the future is.
Event partners included Charles & Company, Rondeno Culinary Designs, and Dr. J's Natural.
Eileen Tasca is managing director of Alien Films and Task Films, a production whose co-shareholder is legendary Polish film director, Jerzy Skolimowski. In 2015, she was executive producer of Skolimowski’s 11 Minutes that premiered at the 2015 Venice Film Festival. The film won top prize at the Lisbon Film Festival and was selected as Poland’s entry for foreign language film for the 2016 Academy Awards. In 2010, she co-financed Essential Killing, also directed by Skolimowski, that garnered numerous awards at the Venice Film Festival.
Working again with Skolimowski, she is the Italian producer of Cannes Jury Prize Winner EO, a parable focused on the life of a simple donkey, set against the backdrop of today’s maddening reality.
Golsa Sarabi is an international star and an action actor, who was born in Tehran, Iran and now resides in Los Angeles. Golsa boasts a diverse experience in performing arts, which includes film, stage, producing and scriptwriting. She was one of the executive producers on the film Dreams I Never Had and was nominated for the Best Actress Award at the Burbank International Film Festival for her lead role opposite Malcolm McDowell and Robin Givens.
Motivated by the desire to empower women, she was the first Persian woman after 35 years since the revolution who represented Iran at the Queen of the Universe Pageant and won the coveted award. Currently, she is in development process on her first feature titled Mia, as one of the main producers and will star in the lead role. The film is based on a true event that happened in Iran about 40 years ago. She is an executive producer of the feature film Back In The No.
Larry Kasanoff is Chairman and CEO of Threshold Entertainment Group. He makes movies (Terminator 2, True Lies, Mortal Kombat); animated movies (Lego Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out) and theme park rides (Star Trek: The Borg Adventure; Marvel Superheroes 4D; The Baywatch Experience).
Previously, as president and co-founder of Lightstorm Entertainment, Larry supervised production, marketing, publicity and merchandising for the four-time Academy Award-winning hit Terminator 2 Judgment Day. He produced two movies with Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow. As a producer or studio head, Larry has made over 250 feature films, including Dirty Dancing, and Academy Award Winning Best Picture Platoon. He has raised well over a billion dollars in the film business.
Canada-native Michel Shane has been a successful entrepreneur for more than 30 years, having achieved great success in the film industry as a movie producer and founder at Shane Gang Pictures. He is best known for his work in developing, creating, and executive producing the blockbusters Catch Me If You Can and I Robot, and financing Northfork, to name a few. Michel has just completed a documentary on the horrors of the Pacific Coast Highway in California titled 21 Miles in Malibu, a passion project created to bring awareness to the dangers of this iconic roadway.
Michel is the Chair of The Emily Shane Foundation. In 2015, he received a Lifelong Achievement Award from President Barack Obama.
The panel was moderated by WGA-East member Colin Costello, a biracial genre, comedy and horror writer and director. The former award-winning advertising creative director has written two family feature films. 2013's, The Stream which stands at 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. His debut short film, that he wrote and directed, 2018’s The After Party has played in 25 festivals and won five. His other short film, 2019’s Dreamwisher has won ten awards in the United States and internationally. His latest short Storage is currently making waves on the festival circuit.
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Colin is currently editor for industry news outlet, Reel 360 News, a screenwriting instructor at UCLA Extension and a volunteer for Young Storytellers.
Cloud 21 PR International and Kultura PR International have produced numerous successful industry special annual events, including “French Riviera Film Festival” and “Global Entertainment Showcase” during the Cannes Film Festival, the “Global Content Creators Showcase” during MIPCOM, “Production Without Borders” event during AFM, “Indie Entertainment Showcase” in Park City, as well as “A Salute to Akira Kurosawa” with China’s Jinke Entertainment in Cannes in 2017, plus many others. The companies have co-produced events and worked with top entertainment and technology brands, including E! Entertainment Television, Eurocinema, Metan Global Entertainment Group, USATV Productions, Maverick Entertainment, Sony Interactive, Oculus, Cinando, Euromed, ECU Film Festival, Creative Coalition, Davines North America, Vesilind, plus many others.
Gotham Chandna, Nicole Muj
Photos: Tshombe Sampson