"What impact do you hope to make with your film?" is now a standard question on grant applications—and an increasingly anxious one. Further, impact campaigns are often used to justify or replace distribution strategies, muddying the pressure on filmmakers to articulate community, financial, social change, political action, or movement-building aims.
The Global Impact Producers Alliance (GIPA) believes the question should be grounded in a reminder of the purpose and possibilities of impact work. In this session, GIPA has invited impact practitioners to pose a provocation designed to expand, complicate, or reframe how we approach audience engagement. The conversation then moves into small virtual breakout groups, before reconvening to share what surfaced.
Moderator: Michelle Plascencia (GIPA)
Impact practitioners: Prince O. Nyambok II, Farah Fayed and Marianna Olinger
Biographies (submitted by the speakers):
Michelle is an impact producer, cultural organizer based in Mexico City. She directed the Good Pitch program in México 2020 & 2022, as the Partnerships Coordinator at DocsMX, a documentary film platform in Mexico City. She co-founded Impacta Cine, the first film and social impact collective in Mexico focused on promoting human rights through documentary film impact campaigns and has worked with films such as Now that we are together, Toshkua and The Silence of my Hands. She is currently the Partnerships and Programs Director of GIPA, Global Impact Producers Alliance, a community led network to connect, support and uplift impact practitioners around the globe.
After graduating from the Audiovisual Department at Saint Joseph University in Lebanon, Farah Fayed spent eight years in Television, where she last served as a creative manager. In 2012, Farah joined the Dubai International Film Festival, managing the sales and acquisitions library for the last six editions. In 2019, she joined the team of AFLAMUNA, previously Beirut DC, where she is currently the director of programs. With her colleagues, Farah has organized regional and local impact and storytelling for climate labs within the Arab region and developed an Arabic curriculum for an impact producers’ fellowship program. She also oversees AFLAMUNA’s impact fund among the other programs and open resources.
Marianna Olinger: Impact strategist and producer working at the intersection of culture and community to harness the power of art and storytelling for social change, with over 20 years of experience working with non-profit and cultural organizations. Lead impact producer for the Peabody, Sundance, Emmy winner, and Oscar-shortlisted, documentary The Territory (2022), and for the fiction feature How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2023). Currently director of Earth Alliance, a platform that produces, co-produces and amplifies impact campaigns for nature and biodiversity. She is impact strategist for the documentaries Yanuni, Climate in Therapy, Daughters of the Forest, and the series Vs. Goliath.
"What impact do you hope to make with your film?" is now a standard question on grant applications—and an increasingly anxious one. Further, impact campaigns are often used to justify or replace distribution strategies, muddying the pressure on filmmakers to articulate community, financial, social change, political action, or movement-building aims.
The Global Impact Producers Alliance (GIPA) believes the question should be grounded in a reminder of the purpose and possibilities of impact work. In this session, GIPA has invited impact practitioners to pose a provocation designed to expand, complicate, or reframe how we approach audience engagement. The conversation then moves into small virtual breakout groups, before reconvening to share what surfaced.
Moderator: Michelle Plascencia (GIPA)
Impact practitioners: Prince O. Nyambok II, Farah Fayed and Marianna Olinger
Biographies (submitted by the speakers):
Michelle is an impact producer, cultural organizer based in Mexico City. She directed the Good Pitch program in México 2020 & 2022, as the Partnerships Coordinator at DocsMX, a documentary film platform in Mexico City. She co-founded Impacta Cine, the first film and social impact collective in Mexico focused on promoting human rights through documentary film impact campaigns and has worked with films such as Now that we are together, Toshkua and The Silence of my Hands. She is currently the Partnerships and Programs Director of GIPA, Global Impact Producers Alliance, a community led network to connect, support and uplift impact practitioners around the globe.
After graduating from the Audiovisual Department at Saint Joseph University in Lebanon, Farah Fayed spent eight years in Television, where she last served as a creative manager. In 2012, Farah joined the Dubai International Film Festival, managing the sales and acquisitions library for the last six editions. In 2019, she joined the team of AFLAMUNA, previously Beirut DC, where she is currently the director of programs. With her colleagues, Farah has organized regional and local impact and storytelling for climate labs within the Arab region and developed an Arabic curriculum for an impact producers’ fellowship program. She also oversees AFLAMUNA’s impact fund among the other programs and open resources.
Marianna Olinger: Impact strategist and producer working at the intersection of culture and community to harness the power of art and storytelling for social change, with over 20 years of experience working with non-profit and cultural organizations. Lead impact producer for the Peabody, Sundance, Emmy winner, and Oscar-shortlisted, documentary The Territory (2022), and for the fiction feature How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2023). Currently director of Earth Alliance, a platform that produces, co-produces and amplifies impact campaigns for nature and biodiversity. She is impact strategist for the documentaries Yanuni, Climate in Therapy, Daughters of the Forest, and the series Vs. Goliath.
