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Michael Byers is Managing Director of Showbrands. An expert in cross platform media, Michael draws on over two decades of professional industry experience with blue chip clients including: McDonalds, Optus, Caltex and Nokia. His knowledge brings a unique approach and unrivalled insight to branded content and product placement.

His skills and position as an industry leader have been recognised internationally, with affiliations in the US and UK.  A regular contributor and blogger for the Marketing Magazine, Michael is also author of the ‘Australian Product Placement Handbook.’

David is the CEO of the Adcorp communications group which includes Showrunner Productions. He is the Executive Producer of the format program Wimp 2 Warrior which is currently in production.

Ray is currently Executive Producer at Showrunner productions one of Australia's most exciting production companies. Current projects include the format 'Wimp 2 Warrior', the factual series '72 Dangerous Animals Australia', 'GT Hunters' and '72 Dangerous Places to Live'. Previous credits as EP include the serie 'Can We help' (ABCTV), Aristos (Nine), 'Just Add Water (Nine) and 'Lily's View' (GZTV China). Ray has produced hundreds of hours of broadcast TV. Please see us in the P2P lounge.

Roger is a Development Producer at Showrunner Productions and has 15 years television production experience. Previous positions have included Commercial Production Manager and Producer/Director at Channel Nine. Projects completed include Just Add Water, Tom Hoad Cup International Water Polo program for International broadcast & Bon Scott documentary for Channel Nine.

Sarah’s role at the SAFC is to deliver the Seed and Production Attraction Grant programs for IDP.  

Previously Sarah spent several years at the Sydney Film Festival covering countless miles as the Travelling Film Festival Manager.  In 2013 she was Conference Manager for AIDC’s inaugural DocWeek and in 2012 produced the Industry Conference at Hot Docs in Toronto. In other lives she has worked at TIFF, the Adelaide Film Festival, Worldwide Short Film Festival and the Abu Dhabi Film Festival.

Sandy’s role is to deliver the SAFC's development investment programs and programs delivered through Screen Culture organisations. Sandy Lepore is a passionate industry professional with over twenty years’ experience in screen content creation. Seven of those years have been with the SAFC where she has worked across many programs including Drama Development, Documentary Development and Production, the Short Film Fund, the IDEA fund and the Attachment Scheme.  Previous to the SAFC Sandy worked as a freelance writer and director whose award winning films screened at international film festivals including Berlin, Aspen, Palm Springs and Sydney.  Her projects have been broadcast on SBS and ABC as well internationally in the USA, Italy, Israel and the Czech Republic.  She also worked as a university lecturer teaching screen writing, directing and acting for screen.  She is a Directing graduate of the AFTRS and has an honours degree from Flinders University

As Special Projects Executive, Andrada delivers special projects for the SAFC including all Special Initiatives, the Indigenous Initiative, Short Film Fund, FilmLab, Digital360Lab and projects focused on the continual systems improvement of IDP. 

After completing a Bachelor of Creative Arts at Flinders University she worked at the Australian International Documentary Conference, in freelance video production work, and on a number of emerging short film productions and a low budget feature. Following that, within the SAFC Andrada has mostly worked within IDP as a project officer, managing professional development, travel and attendance grants and workshops. She has also worked in Communications and Marketing, and with IT as the Information Systems Analyst, and has been involved in two program reviews, the relocation to the Adelaide Studios, two FilmLab workshops, and many funding initiatives, giving her a strong knowledge of the organisation, local industry activity, and stakeholders.

Melissa’s role is to deliver the SAFC production investment programs across what was previously divided amongst documentary, digital media and drama projects. 

Melissa is an award winning filmmaker who has worked in the film and arts industries for over twenty years.  Melissa has managed various SAFC programs and overseen SAFC investment interests in hundreds of Documentary, Drama & Digital Media projects as well as numerous special development and production initiatives. Prior to working at the SAFC Melissa’s work as a filmmaker includes award winning short films and broadcast documentaries as producer, director and editor. Melissa is a graduate of Swinburne film school in Melbourne (now VCA) and her films have screened at  film festivals internationally including Venice, Oberhausen, Cork, Melbourne, Sydney, Clermont-Ferrand International and Edinburgh. She has taught film production and theory at the University of Melbourne and Bachelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education.

CONTENT SEEKER

Jenny Neighbour studied arts in London, working in the arts sector before relocating to Australia. She worked on a variety of Bicentennial art exhibitions, before joining the Sydney Film Festival in 1989. Since then has viewed, programmed, negotiated, judged many hundreds of films, with a particular emphasis on documentary and short films, and curated a number of retrospective programs.

Julie Byrne has worked in the film and television industry for 20 years in a variety of roles, predominantly as Production Manager. Since 2010 she has co-produced the SAFC FilmLab features Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure (dir. Matt Bate) which premiered at Sundance 2011 and released theatrically in the USA and Ursula Dabrowsky's horror film Inner Demon. Julie is producer of the mystery thriller Touch and the bold surrealist mystery The Dead Speak Back. She is also producing, with Jennifer Jones, the short film Injury Time, directed by Jack Sheridan and starring David Field.

Following an early career in orchestral management in the UK, Jennifer Jones returned to Adelaide in 1999 and completed a BCA(Screen) at Flinders University. Jennifer has worked extensively in the film industry, from Locations Scout to Line Producer, from the Bollywood extravaganza Love Story 2050 to Scott Hick's The Lucky One, as well as television work on McLeod's Daughters and The Fairies. In recent years Jennifer has concentrated on producing and has recently completed co-producing a low budget feature film, One Eyed Girl, through the SA Film Corporation's FilmLab program, and producing a 6 x 1/2 hour factual series, Jillaroo School, for ABC1. Work is currently in progress on Stasis, a multi-platform/multi-media science fiction project.

In 2007, Kristian produced the feature film, Boxing Day, with writer/director, Kriv Stenders. The film was screened at over 20 international festivals and won the 2007 ADG Finders Award. Kristian reunited with Kriv for Lucky Country (2009) and produced the feature film The Babadook (2013). Kristian has produced an AFC short feature, The 13th House (2003) and award winning short films The Bully (2009) and The Moment (2011). For television, Kristian was a series producer on mY Generation (2008) and was executive producer of two 6 part factual entertainment series for ABC1; Croc College (2012) and Jillaroo School (2013).

Gemma studied an Advanced Diploma of Screen and Media at M.A.P.S Film School in Adelaide, graduating in 2012. Her first year at M.A.P.S was both rewarding and successful with her film A Dance in the Garden Reminds Me winning a Silver ACS (Australian Cinematography Society) Award in the Student category, as well as winning the MRC SASA Award for Best Non Narrative Film in 2012. In 2013, Gemma worked both on and off set on various high profile projects including Rolf De Heer's Charlie's Country and Channel 9 TV Movie Schapelle. Her strong focus on art and design and her passion for documentaries informs her practices and collaboration with other filmmakers and artists, who share a similar vision. Finding new ways to express ideas in film and above all being an innovative storyteller with honesty and integrity are core to Gemma's development as an emerging filmmaker.

Julian works across Programming, Acquisitions and Sales at TVF International, covering Australia, New Zealand and Asia on the producer side, and China on the broadcaster side of the business. During his time at TVF, Julian has guided the development and production of a number of high profile programmes from across the world and sealed numerous deals with top Chinese broadcasters. He speaks French and Mandarin, and is at AIDC looking for - high quality factual programming and formats of all genres for worldwide distribution rights, with some territory exclusions allowed.

Theatrical Distribution Manager of Umbrella Entertainment

YES - Umbrella Entertainment has a theatrical deaprtment and we are always searching for new Australian titles . Currently we have a diverse selection of films on our 2014 slate including BABADOOK - recently at Sundance , WORDS AND PICTURES - Fred Schepisi's new film , THE LAST IMPRESARIO , the opening night film here in Adelaide, and the new Jim Mickle film called COLD IN JULY.

Umbrella invests at concept and script stage and is keen to talk if you believe you have a suitable project .

Richard Moore , ex Melbourne and Brisbane film festival director,ex producer and director of various documentaries is now running the Umbrella Theatrical department    

Wild Fury Pty Ltd is one of Australia's newest factual and factual entertainment production companies. Wild Fury represents the combined forces of respected producers, Tina Dalton of Absolutely Wild Visuals and Content Mint, and Veronica Fury of Fury Productions. Former Nine Network and Southern Star CEO Hugh Marks has come on board as Executive Director.

Tina Dalton is a Sydney-based producer and managing director of Wild Fury and stock footage company Absolutely Wild Visuals, in partnership with Veronica Fury (formerly Fury Productions) and Hugh Marks (formerly Network Nine/Southern Star). Bettina has made award-winning content for Australian and International audiences via major TV broadcasters, including ABC, SBS, Nine Network, National Geographic, Discovery, PBS Nature, ZDF, NHK and ARTE.