Join us for the Ex Oriente Film Workshop 2023 Follow-Up Program's Producer's Masterclass featuring Susan Margolin (USA), renowned for her expertise in distribution and sales strategies for creative documentaries.
With an illustrious career in independent home entertainment and digital distribution, Susan's insights have shaped the industry. Don't miss this exclusive Zoom session on August 23, 2023, where she will share invaluable knowledge and experiences. Introduced by Anna Kaslová.
Susan Margolin has built a reputation as a pioneer of home entertainment and digital distribution and a dedicated supporter of the independent filmmaking community. Her company, New Video, launched in 1992 with partner Steve Savage, became a leading global force in independent home entertainment. New Video’s library of films, television and web content, featured programming from leading brands including A+E, History Channel, Monty Python, Thames Television, Sundance Institute, Tribeca films, Major League Baseball and Scholastic. Through Docurama Films, a subsidiary of New Video, Margolin championed more than 400 award-winning non-fiction films, from Academy Award nominees including Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering’s The Invisible War, Joe Berlinger’s Paradise Lost Trilogy, Danfung Dennis’ Hell and Back Again, Nancy Buirski’s The Loving Story to D.A. Pennebaker’s Dont Look Back. In 2006 New Video pivoted to digital distribution becoming the exclusive provider of independent films for the launch of Apples iTunes movie store. After quickly on-boarding other digital platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and others, the company became the largest independent digital aggregation company in North America. Margolin and Savage sold New Video/Docurama Films to Cinedigm in 2012.
In 2012 Margolin and New Video celebrated the tenth anniversary of Docurama and the release of over 250 feature length documentaries. Here is a PDF of a catalog of these great films. As Co-President of Cinedigm Entertainment Group, Margolin released many critically acclaimed independent films including Daniel Destin Crettin’s groundbreaking Short Term 12 starring Brie Larsen, Rami Malek and Lakeith Stanfield. In 2016 Margolin launched St. Marks Productions LLC, a production and distribution services company.
She is currently producing Nancy Buirski’s Desperate Souls, Dark City, and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy. She recently produced Trish Adlesic’s (I Am Evidence, Gasland Trilogy) feature documentary A Tree of Life (HBO) about the 2018 shooting at A Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, as well as Buirski’s 2021 film entitled A Crime on The Bayou (Starz). In 2020 she produced Alexandra Codina’s (Monica and David) feature documentary, Paper Children, for YouTube Originals in 2020, and is also producing as well as award-winning novelist Anne Landsman’s documentary feature debut Daughters of the Wind. Her other recent completed productions include Buirski’s critically acclaimed feature documentary, The Rape of Recy Taylor (Starz), and Cheryl Miller Houser and Cynthia Wade’s documentary feature Generation Startup (Executive Producer). She is also an Executive Producer of Judith Helfand’s upcoming feature documentary Love and Stuff, and of Zeva Oelbaum’s and Sabine Krayenbuhl’s Obsessed With Light. Margolin serves on the Board of Directors of Chicken & Egg Pictures, Manhattan Neighborhood Network, the Hamptons DocFest, the Advisory Board of New York Women in Film and Television, and she served on the board of BAFTA New York for over a decade. She was a co-author on the Documentary Producers Alliance’s Guidelines for the Documentary Waterfall, and was honored by the Producers Guild of America as one of the “Digital 25: Leaders in Emerging Entertainment.” She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the Producers Guild of America (PGA), the British Academy of Film and Television (BAFTA), and the Documentary Producers Alliance (DPA). Margolin lives in NYC with her husband and two children. She is a graduate of Brown University.
DATE: August 23, 2023
15:30 - 17:00 CET
Zoom: https://dokweb-net.zoom.us/j/84802776468...
The masterclasses are organized in cooperation with the American Film Showcase and the U.S. Embassy in the Czech Republic.
The IDF Industry Sessions series is supported by Creative Europe MEDIA, Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, Czech Film Fund.