We live in an age of infinite content and radical disconnection. But in cities and towns from Los Angeles to Nairobi to Prague, filmmakers, festivals, and exhibition spaces are building rooms and pathways for publics to gather around documentary, cross-pollinate audiences, and create the kind of local trust that no algorithm can manufacture. This conversation brings together organizations doing exactly that: from a festival that has expanded human rights documentary into dozens of cities and with multiple offshoots around the world, to a Pan-African distribution company bringing African cinema back to the continent, to the largest community media center in the U.S., to a scrappy worker-owned LA arthouse that survived an eviction and kept its doors open. The question isn't whether local community-building works. It's how to make it last.
Supported by Eventive
Moderator: Amy Hobby (Distribution Advocates)
Panelists: Ondrej Kamenicky (One World Festival), Peter Ambrosio (Lumiere Cinema), Chloe Genga (Bigger Motion)
Biographies:
Ondřej Kamenický is Festival Director of the One World International Human Rights Film Festival and co-founder of Wilde Production. His work focuses on documentary film, human rights, social impact, and the international development of film projects. He is a member of both the European Film Academy and the Czech Film and Television Academy.
One World Festival is the largest human rights film festival globally, held in Prague and other 60 cities and towns in the Czech Republic, shows documentaries and fiction films on human rights, social, political, environmental and media issues and includes Q&As, panel debates, virtual reality events, screenings for schools, East Doc Platform for film industry. One World distributes films, assists to new festivals (e.g. in Nicaragua, Hong Kong, Costa Rica etc.), focuses on people with disabilities, is an active member of Human Rights Film Network, Green Film Network, International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk and organizes also One World in Brussels and Chicago.
Amy Hobby is an Oscar-nominated, Emmy, and Peabody Award-winning producer with credits on 30+ films in distribution including scripted, documentary, and documentary limited series. Hobby is the former Executive Director of the Tribeca Film Institute, the current co-founder of Distribution Advocates, the co-host of the podcast Films Not Made and has a merch-for-films company called Cutaway.
Chloe Genga is the Head of Distribution and Impact at Bigger Motion, LBX Africa’s distribution arm based in Nairobi, Kenya. She began her career in production before moving into distribution, driven by a passion for amplifying African stories and ensuring local audiences have access to them. At Bigger Motion, she has led rollouts and impact campaigns for acclaimed titles such as Softie, No Simple Way Home, What’s Eating My Mind, Battle for Laikipia, and Matabeleland. Chloe has also contributed to the African filmmaking community as a juror for festivals, including The Annual Film Mischief and Kitale Film Week. She is the recipient of the MOFILM Academy scholarship award for African filmmakers, a Some Fine Day Screenwriter Fellow, and an alum of the EFM Toolbox Distribution Academy.
Peter Ambrosio is one of three owners of Lumiere Cinema, which operates out of the Music Hall in Beverly Hills. The company started in 2019.
We live in an age of infinite content and radical disconnection. But in cities and towns from Los Angeles to Nairobi to Prague, filmmakers, festivals, and exhibition spaces are building rooms and pathways for publics to gather around documentary, cross-pollinate audiences, and create the kind of local trust that no algorithm can manufacture. This conversation brings together organizations doing exactly that: from a festival that has expanded human rights documentary into dozens of cities and with multiple offshoots around the world, to a Pan-African distribution company bringing African cinema back to the continent, to the largest community media center in the U.S., to a scrappy worker-owned LA arthouse that survived an eviction and kept its doors open. The question isn't whether local community-building works. It's how to make it last.
Supported by Eventive
Moderator: Amy Hobby (Distribution Advocates)
Panelists: Ondrej Kamenicky (One World Festival), Peter Ambrosio (Lumiere Cinema), Chloe Genga (Bigger Motion)
Biographies:
Ondřej Kamenický is Festival Director of the One World International Human Rights Film Festival and co-founder of Wilde Production. His work focuses on documentary film, human rights, social impact, and the international development of film projects. He is a member of both the European Film Academy and the Czech Film and Television Academy.
One World Festival is the largest human rights film festival globally, held in Prague and other 60 cities and towns in the Czech Republic, shows documentaries and fiction films on human rights, social, political, environmental and media issues and includes Q&As, panel debates, virtual reality events, screenings for schools, East Doc Platform for film industry. One World distributes films, assists to new festivals (e.g. in Nicaragua, Hong Kong, Costa Rica etc.), focuses on people with disabilities, is an active member of Human Rights Film Network, Green Film Network, International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk and organizes also One World in Brussels and Chicago.
Amy Hobby is an Oscar-nominated, Emmy, and Peabody Award-winning producer with credits on 30+ films in distribution including scripted, documentary, and documentary limited series. Hobby is the former Executive Director of the Tribeca Film Institute, the current co-founder of Distribution Advocates, the co-host of the podcast Films Not Made and has a merch-for-films company called Cutaway.
Chloe Genga is the Head of Distribution and Impact at Bigger Motion, LBX Africa’s distribution arm based in Nairobi, Kenya. She began her career in production before moving into distribution, driven by a passion for amplifying African stories and ensuring local audiences have access to them. At Bigger Motion, she has led rollouts and impact campaigns for acclaimed titles such as Softie, No Simple Way Home, What’s Eating My Mind, Battle for Laikipia, and Matabeleland. Chloe has also contributed to the African filmmaking community as a juror for festivals, including The Annual Film Mischief and Kitale Film Week. She is the recipient of the MOFILM Academy scholarship award for African filmmakers, a Some Fine Day Screenwriter Fellow, and an alum of the EFM Toolbox Distribution Academy.
Peter Ambrosio is one of three owners of Lumiere Cinema, which operates out of the Music Hall in Beverly Hills. The company started in 2019.
