(Long Island, NY) There might be over 5,000 film festivals to choose from and in today’s market, careful planning for the festival life of your film is crucial. Queens World Film Festival Co-Directors Don and Katha Cato will share great tips on how to choose the festival that best suits your work.
The conversation will cover what festival directors are looking for, how to maximize your festival attending experience, and what to do if you don’t get into the festival you really wanted to get into! Attendees will have the chance to ask questions specific to their film projects.
Don and Katha at the podium. Photo Credit: Queens Council on the Arts.
Wednesday, June 17, 2015 6:30-8:00pm
Queens Council on the Arts
37-11 35th Ave, Entrance on 37th Street
Astoria, NY 11101
Admission $10.
ABOUT
Katha Cato is the Executive Director of the Queens World Film Festival. Katha earned a BA from California Polytechnic University in Pomona, an MFA from the University of Oregon and is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Business Executive Education Program. In the 80’s, she moved to New York with her theatre company ‘Forplay Improvised Theatre’ and pioneered the Improvisational Herald format (the long form) into the NY Improv Comedy scene. Katha won a MAC Award (Manhattan Association of Cabarets) for Best Comedy, and two Backstage Magazine Bistro Awards for Best Director and Best Comedy and the NY Post’s Bill Ervolino named her the year’s Most Exciting Improviser. For many years Katha also served as the Director of After-School and Camp Services at the historic Henry Street Settlement and has spent many years developing youth and bringing people together via theatre arts, film and video.
Don Cato is the Artistic Director of the Queens World Film Festival. Don Cato is an experimental and feature film maker with a strong academic background, a BS and BLA in Landscape Architecture from Michigan State and an MLA from the University of Oregon where he also studied extensively in the department of Motion Graphics. His films have screened at an international and eclectic group of venues and festivals: Anthology Film Archives, National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Cannes (Silver Medal for Pipeline Patrol in 1974), Lincoln Center, the Dylan Thomas Center in Wales (Best Feature for Be My Oswald in 2006), RealHeART Toronto Film Festival (Best in Venue for Be My Oswald in 2007) and Everglades Film Festival, South Africa. He was the Director of the Eugene Filmmakers Cinematique for 4 years while he distributed films from China and in 1978 he was one of the first western filmmakers allowed into China to create an immersion documentary: China: Behind Silk Curtains. Dixie Lanes, a feature film starring Karen Black, Hoyt Axton & Moses Gunn released in over 40 countries in 1989, is now a Turner Classic Movie. Most recently, in 2013 the short My Kansas which he co-directed and co-produced won Best Documentary Short, Best Director Doc Short & Best New York filmmaker at the Chain Film Festival. My Day on which he was the Director of Cinematography, Editor, Sound Designer & Co-Producer brought home several Best Actress awards for Judith Roberts & several Best Short awards in both 2013 and 2014. Currently Don teaches at the New York Digital Film Academy, United Neighborhood Middle School, CASTLE Middle School and the Buckley School for Boys and under his guidance, over 20 student driven short films are produced each year.
3rd Space at the Queens Council on the Arts is a series of monthly programs that invites local artists to host events to build strong and vibrant artist networks and to creatively lead the continuing transformation of the borough’s cultural economy.
The mission of the Queens Council on Arts is to foster, and develop the arts in Queens County and to support individual artists and arts organizations in presenting their cultural diversity for the benefit of the community. For more information visit: www.queenscouncilarts.org.
