Alternative Avenues to Distribution

Saturday, September 17
12:00pm-2:00pm

513 Dodge Hall
2960 Broadway @117th street

Claire Aguilar is the Director of Programming at the Independent Television Service (ITVS), which funds, promotes, and distributes independently produced programming to public television. Aguilar oversees all aspects of program initiatives, including programming strategy, funding calls, peer panel review, and funding recommendations. She co-curates the Independent Lens series, a new series of independent programming on PBS that premiered in February 2003. Aguilar came to ITVS from KCET/Hollywood as Manager of Broadcast Programming, where she programmed the station’s schedule and managed programming acquisitions.   From 1984 to 1991 she was a film programmer at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, one of the nation’s leading exhibition venues for international, documentary and classic Hollywood films. Aguilar has curated for the American Film Institute, the Los Angeles Asian American Film and Video Festival, and the Wexner Center for the Arts in Ohio. She has served as a programming consultant and panelist for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council and other media and funding organizations. Currently, Aguilar serves as Vice President of the board of NAATA (National Asian American Telecommunications Association).

Moikgantsi Kgama is the founder of Imagenation and a former audience development specialist for independent films targeting communities of color. She has been credited with the successful launch of Raoul Peck’s independent epic Lumumba that appeared on HBO and was accepted for an Academy Award nomination. Kgama served as publicist for the groundbreaking documentary Life & Debt, which appeared on PBS in August 2001, and was the New York City promotions coordinator for the independent film Follow Me Home starring Alfre Woodard and Benjamin Bratt. Kgama also served as a filmmaker coordinator for The Sundance Film Festival 1998.

Kgama currently serves as the Director of Communications and Development at Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement, a community development organization founded by Black clergy in Harlem to revitalize the once blighted Bradhurst community where Imagenation is based.

Gregory Gates was invited to join Imagenation in October 2001 as Executive Producer. His expertise in management, grassroots promotions and event production make him a crucial addition. Gates has coordinated and managed production teams for The Tony Awards, The Essence Awards, Michael Jackson’s 30th Anniversary Celebration at Madison Square Garden, and The Urbanworld Film Festival to name a few. For 10 years, Gates’ Eucalyptus Entertainment has produced cultural events in the New York City area including Poetic Battles a six-month poetry series at Harlem’s World Famous Apollo Theater; Coffee, Tea or Poetry in collaboration with Starbuck’s Cafes; and The Eucalyptus Entertainment Dinner Theater Series held at The Public Theater’s Joe’s Pub in Manhattan and at the Brooklyn Moon Café in Forte Green, Brooklyn.

Moikgantsi Kgama and Gregory Gates are set to open the first independent film theater in Central Harlem.

Sridhar Reddy Director, Producer, Executive Producer Born and raised in Denver, Colorado, 28-year old Sridhar Reddy’s fascination with filmmaking began at a very early age. A second-generation South Asian, his home was always ringing with the sounds of masala films that his parents used to laboriously import to Colorado from India.  Sridhar studied genetics and anthropology at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and while there took a basic filmmaking course under the late Stan Brakhage. The course embedded a deep fascination for the craft and the versatile nature of film, a fascination that would not be formally realized until many years later when Sridhar directed a 16mm short film entitled Abstract Origins in New York City. After a three-year hiatus from filmmaking and after completing his MBA at the Kellstatdt Graduate School of Business in Chicago, Sridhar picked up where he left off with Abstract Origins and proceeded to write feature scripts under his own production banner, Imac Arts LLC. 19 Revolutions is the feature debut for both Sridhar and Imac Arts and screens at The Harlem International Film Festival 2005 (see program listing for show times).