NYWIFT Talks: 2024 Tribeca Festival

Welcome to NYWIFT Talks, a series that brings updated news and vital information on current events in media and entertainment. Industry professionals will be in conversation discussing what you need to know about theatrical releases, digital advances, virtual tools, festival opportunities, production updates and more. 

NYWIFT Talks are free for all to attend.

On this week’s NYWIFT Talks, we’re headed to the 2024 Tribeca Festival, highlighting our very own NYWIFT Members with projects at this year’s festival. See the full list of NYWIFT members at the festival here. 

We’ll be in conversation with Geneva Peschka (Director / Producer / Screenwriter, The Solace of Sisterhood), Lauren Wimbush (Archival Producer, The Debutantes), and Kristi Zea (Production Designer, Daddio). Moderated by NYWIFT Board Member Okema T. Moore.

Date: Tuesday, June 4, 2024
Time: 4:00 pm ET
Cost: Free

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Panelists

Geneva Peschka is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and commercial director. Growing up with a single mom taught Geneva the value of perseverance and triumph, which she now captures in others through her films.  As a Black woman in the film and commercial space, Geneva focuses on changing the narrative in front and behind the camera, greatly knowing the importance and need of visibility and autonomy in telling our own stories. With a focus on collaborative storytelling and amplifying the voices of marginalized communities, Geneva aims to work with others to share their stories in a true and authentic celebratory light to change narratives. She has directed groundbreaking films such as UNSPOKEN and the WOMXN Series. Most recently she co-directed / co-produced THE SOLACE OF SISTERHOOD (TRIBECA Film Festival 2024 World Premiere), a Short Documentary executive produced by Fujifilm. As a director, Geneva has collaborated with influential agencies such as Complex, BBDO, BLKSHP, SidLee, Forsman & Bodenfors, The Meteor and iconic brands like Netflix, Audible, Google, Adobe, ROGERS, HBO and more.

Lauren Wimbush is a producer and archival researcher dedicated to telling compelling and thought provoking non-fiction stories featuring underrepresented characters, communities, and experiences. Lauren has contributed to a range of feature documentaries and long form television projects for networks such as Hulu, PBS, and HBO. Lauren received her B.A. degree in English from Amherst College, and an M.S. degree in Media Management from The New School, specializing in producing and media business and leadership. Lauren served as the Associate Producer on the Emmy Award winning feature Miles Davis: Birth of The Cool, produced by Firelight Films. Most recently, she served as the Producer of Birthing a Nation: The Resistance of Mary Gaffney, a documentary short for MTV Documentary Films. She is currently producing an American Experience documentary for PBS, as well as working on her own directorial debut.

Photo credit: Lisa Levart @ Lush Designs

Kristi Zea is an acclaimed Production Designer, Costume Designer & Producer for dozens of feature films for over thirty years. Kristi production designed Martin Scorsese’s films New York Stories (1989), Goodfellas (Academy Award Winner 1990), and The Departed (Academy Award Winner 2006); Jonathan Demme’s films Married to the Mob (1988), Beloved (1998), The Silence of the Lambs (Academy Award Winner 1991), Philadelphia (Academy Award Winner 1993), Manchurian Candidate (2004), and Barry Levinson’s Sleepers (1996). Over the next four years, she was production designer for Kasi Lemmons’ Black Nativity (2013), as well as Nancy Meyers’ The Intern (2015) and independent film The Comedian (2016) both starring Robert DeNiro. Zea produced James L. Brooks’ Broadcast News (1987) and produced As Good As It Gets (1997) which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. Zea produced and directed the documentary Everybody Knows…Elizabeth Murray which had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2016. She then produced and directed the short feature Talking Pictures, ekphrastic poet Bob Holman’s tribute to his wife Elizabeth Murray. Zea directed HBO’s Critic’s Choice-nominated Notes from the Field (2018) starring Anna Deavere Smith which is available on HBO Max.

Okema T. Moore (Moderator) is an Emmy Nominated, PGA producer and rising director. She has created unscripted and branded content for Lifetime, Netflix, Nickelodeon, DreamWorks, FOX, and Disney/Marvel. Some of that content includes Kenya Barris’ Klutch Academy, for BET, Beat Bobby Flay and The Kitchen on Food Network, Oprah’s The Color of Care, Founding In Color Season 2 on Peacock and Nomad with Carlton McCoy on CNN. Most recently, she developed and produced a new docuseries for STARZ, and she was the lead producer for a short in this year’s AFI DWW 50th Anniversary Fellowship. She is a finalist presently for the PANO production microgrant, and has a host of indie shorts and a few features on deck to produce and direct. Her scripted work has premiered at a host of festivals, including TRIBECA, Outfest, ABFF, and the Oscar Qualifying Reel Sisters of the Diaspora. Okema has been a semi-finalist for The Blackhouse Producer’s Lab and Sundance’s Producer’s Track in 2022, and in 2023 was a fellow for both the Stowe Story and the Black Magic Creative Producers Labs. She also proudly serves on the board of NY Women in Film & TV and the Black TV & Film Collective, where she led their inaugural Producer’s Fellowship in 2021. Okema is committed to continuing to lift while she climbs, to build up womxn, queer, Indigenous, POC, Caribbean and Black creatives, as she simultaneously strives continued success in her own creative career.