Coffee with Debra Zimmerman and Kristen Fitzpatrick

The Fusion Film Festival’s “Coffee With” Series brings a select group of students to an intimate roundtable breakfast discussion with distinguished women in film and television.

On Friday, Nov 8 at 9AM, we invite you to spend one hour on Friday morning having coffee and bagels with two of the most innovative women in film, Debra Zimmerman and Kristen Fitzpatrick of Women Make Movies. Attendees will have the opportunity to pick the mindof two of the directors of the largest distributor of films by and about women in the world. Don’t miss out on this great first­hand opportunity. Simply apply with the attached form.

Debra Zimmerman has made a career of bringing the voices and stories of women to audiences around the world. Zimmerman has been the Executive Director of Women Make Movies (WMM) since 1983. During her tenure, WMM has grown into the largest distributor in the world of films by and about women. She has moderated panels and given master classes at the Sundance Film Festival, MIPDOC, Reel Screen and festivals in Europe, Africa, Asia and South America. She is the recipient of New York Women in Film and Television’s Loreen Arbus Award and Hot Doc’s 2013 Doc Mogul Award and heads a workshop focused on creating a distribution strategy to better reach the intended audience.

Kristen Fitzpatrick has focused her life through the film lens, and thus has an ongoing love affair with film and New York City, and spends considerable time deliberating about how documentary film really can change the world. Fitzpatrick is the Director of Acquisition an Exhibition at WMM where she programs their global exhibition of over 500 films. She is a member of the board of NewFest, and a long-term member of the selection committee for the New York International Asian American Film Festival. She has served as a judge for the Student Academy Awards (The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences), and was recognized as an Emerging Leader by the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture (NAMAC). Fitzpatrick currently co-­curates the film series, Radical Feminist, at Spectacle Theatre in Brooklyn, NY.

Women Make Movies, Est. 1972, is a multicultural, multiracial, non­profit media arts organization which facilitates the production, promotion, distribution and exhibition of independent films and videotapes by and about women to address gender inequality in film. WMM provides services to users and makers of film and video programs, with an emphasis on supporting work by women of color. WMM productions have been nominated for and won Academy Awards the last eight years and include the works of visionary filmmakers like Jane Campion and Kim Longinotto.

Learn more about the world’s largest independent film distributor for women HERE.