Rise, the membership organization for gender diversity within the broadcast technology sector, is expanding from its roots in the U.K. with launches in North America and the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. Additionally Rise has appointed four new board members as it seeks to increase its important work throughout the media and entertainment sectors.
Serena Harris, North American sales director at Annex Pro, will be running Rise North America. Harris, who is based in Vancouver, B.C., has over two decades of experience in the media and entertainment industry and worked with Avid and Marquis.
Nancy Diaz Curiel, managing director of Digigram Asia, will run Rise APAC. Based in Singapore, she has over 10 years of experience in the broadcast industry and will be launching a Rise mentoring initiative in the region shortly.
Rise’s alluded to four new board members are: Andy Beale, chief engineer BT Sport, Lisa Lavender, operations director of The British Arrows, Joanna Cosgrove, director at Moore Kingston Smith LLP, and Tanya Rai, key account manager at Sundog Media Toolkit.
Rise managing director Carrie Wootten stated; “Rise is growing at an astonishing rate, and we are immensely grateful to all of our sponsors and partners who have enabled this to happen. Expanding into the North American and APAC market is very exciting, and we are positive Serena and Nancy will go beyond our expectations in advancing our global efforts in gender equality for the industry.”
Rise is supported by leading industry companies including gold sponsors Avid and Sky, and silver sponsors Clear-Com, Audio-Technica Europe, Ross Video, DPP and Pixelogic.
Rise Up, a new school outreach initiative to inspire and educate children about broadcast technology, is supported by BT Sport and Sky.
Full Lineup Set For AFI Fest; Official Selections Span 44 Countries, Include 9 Best International Feature Oscar Submissions
The American Film Institute (AFI) has unveiled the full lineup for this year’s AFI Fest, taking place in Los Angeles from October 23-27. Rounding out the slate of already announced titles are such highlights as September 5 directed by Tim Fehlbaum, All We Imagine As Light directed by Payal Kapadia, The Luckiest Man in America directed by Samir Oliveros (AFI Class of 2019), Zurawski v. Texas from executive producers Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and Jennifer Lawrence and directors Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault, and Oh, Canada directed by Paul Schrader (AFI Class of 1969). A total of 158 films are set to screen at the 38th edition of AFI Fest.
Of the official selections, 48% are directed by women and non-binary filmmakers and 26% are directed by BIPOC filmmakers.
Additional festival highlights include documentaries Architecton directed by Victor Kossakovsky; Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie directed by David Bushell; Devo directed by Chris Smith about the legendary new wave provocateurs; Gaucho Gaucho directed by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw; Group Therapy directed by Neil Berkeley with Emmy® winner Neil Patrick Harris and Tig Notaro; No Other Land directed by a Palestinian-Israeli team comprised of Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor and Hamdan Ballal; Pavements directed by Alex Ross Perry; and Separated directed by Errol Morris. Notable narrative titles include Black Dog (Gou Zen) directed by Guan Hu; Bonjour Tristesse directed by Durga Chew-Bose with Academy Award® nominee Chloë Sevigny; Caught By The Tides directed by Jia Zhangke; Hard Truths directed by Mike Leigh with... Read More