New York, NY – Award winning and Oscar nominated filmmaker Samuel Pollard, will join Danielle Lurie, Parris Moore and Ritika Hiranandani as speakers at the Metropolitan College of New York’s 3rd Annual Short Film Festival on April 12 and 13 from 6-9pm in the school’s Conference Center at 431 Canal Street, New York, NY.

This year’s festival, with a theme of New Faces in Film, continues to grow and gain the support of established entertainment industry leaders and corporate and community sponsors.  MCNY is proud to welcome Essence, Tourism Malaysia, Subway, Little Kingdom, Cinematiq, Lords Bakery, Soi66 and Yamerra as they join returning sponsors Kraft, and the Crosby Collective to support the efforts of our Media Management MBA students in organizing this year’s festival.

About the Panelists:

Sam Pollard is an accomplished film and video editor and a documentary producer/director whose work spans almost 30 years. He began his career in 1989 with Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads and received an Emmy for an episode he produced. Between 1990 and 2000, Pollard edited a number of Spike Lee’s films: Mo’ Better Blues, Jungle Fever, Girl 6, Clockers, Bamboozled and their Oscar® nominated 4 Little Girls. He recently won his sixth Emmy for best editing on the HBO documentary By the People: The Election of Barack Obama. His most recent film, Slavery By Another Name, premiered on PBS in February of this year.

Parris Moore, who holds an MBA in Media Management from MCNY, produced the film Black Ninja, and is a Producer of the film Kinyarwanda, which debuted at Sundance in 2011 and was released in theaters by the AFFRM in December 2012.  The film won the World Cinema Audience Award in the Dramatic Category in Sundance and was nominated for 3 NAACP awards. Kinyarwanda is based on true accounts from survivors who took refuge at the Grand Mosque of Kigali and the madrassa of Nyanza during the Rwandan genocide. It recounts how the Imams opened the doors of the mosques to give refuge to the Tutsi and those Hutu who refused to participate in the killing.

Danielle Lurie has been named as one of Filmmaker Magazine’s ’25 New Faces of Independent Film,’ and a fellow of IFP’s 2011 Emerging Visions symposium. Her debut short film, In the Morning, premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, and has won nine film festivals to date, including ‘Best Narrative Short’ at the Oscar® qualifying Nashville Film Festival.  On the narrative side, Danielle has written screenplay adaptations of Jamaica Kincaid’s novel, Lucy, to star Zoe Saldana (Avatar, Star Trek) as well as an excerpt of Nicholas Kristof’s best selling book, Half the Sky, directed by Marisa Tomei and Lisa Leone, for a PBS series. Danielle is also adapting another Nicholas Kristof NY Times article into a full-length screenplay that she will direct titled Usha, set in the slums of India.  She is also attached to direct the film adaptation of Marina Budhos’s book Ask Me No Questions, produced by Jane Startz.

Ritika Hiranandani is an independent filmmaker and distributor serving US and Bollywood markets.  She is President and CEO of Atlantic-Crossing LLC, a technical services company that offers software-consulting services to corporate clients including Western Union, Godrej, National Stock Exchange of India, Tata, and Videocon. Through her most recent company, Atlantic Crossing Productions, she partners with leading international television and film production and distribution companies and broadcasters who have been involved in producing motion pictures, soap operas, reality television, game shows, tele-films, title animations and related software for companies ranging from NBC to Turner Broadcasting as well as numerous production, advertising, public relations and media companies in both the US and India.  Her recently distributed films include Lava-kusa, Bruce, and Sharukh Told Me ‘I am Beautiful’.

The festival, which is organized and planned by students in the Media Management MBA program, provides opportunities for experiential learning where students can engage in practical applications of theoretical topics learned in class. “We are honored to host these accomplished film professionals to speak with our students and guests at the Festival and provide a forum for them to share their insights and wisdom on becoming future business leaders and navigating this rapidly changing time of convergence, globalization and digitization in the film industry,” says Kristie Velasco, Adjunct Professor & Coordinator, Media Management MBA Programs for MCNY.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information please contact Sophia Atwell at 718-913-7297, satwell@iqmail.mcny.edu or Prof. Kristie Velasco at kvelasco@metropolitan.edu, (347) 455-9502.  Information is also available on our school Facebook page at www.facebook.com/mcnyedu.

CONTACT: Sophia Atwell  (718) 913-7297, satwell@iqmail.mcny.edu or Prof. Kristie Velasco (347) 445-9502, kvelasco@metropolitan.edu