Publisher & Business Team - The Film Verdict

Ben Nicholson

Ben Nicholson, CONTRIBUTING CRITIC, is a writer and curator based in London. His words have been published in Sight & Sound, MUBI Notebook, Little White Lies and Hyperallergic, amongst others. He has been involved in programming for Sheffield Doc/Fest and the London Short Film Festival and in 2019 founded ALT/KINO which screens, and publishes writing about, experimental film and artists’ moving image.

114 Posts

Boyd van Hoeij

Boyd van Hoeij, SENIOR CRITIC, is a film writer based in Luxembourg and Paris. He started as a trade critic for Variety and moved to The Hollywood Reporter in 2013, where he worked until he joined The Film Verdict in 2021. Boyd also regularly writes for De Filmkrant (Netherlands) and has contributed to Indiewire and The Atlantic. He was awarded the 2020 Plume d'Or for his work as a critic by the French Union des journalistes de cinéma. Van Hoeij is also the Curator at Large of the Luxembourg City Film Festival, President of the Selection Committee of the Luxembourg Film Fund and has been part of juries and panels at festivals including Cannes, Venice, Hong Kong, Jerusalem, Sydney, Palm Springs and Mar del Plata. He has taught film criticism workshops and conducted shot-by-shot analyses of film classics around the world and moderated masterclasses with talents including Quentin Tarantino and Todd Haynes.

86 Posts

Carmen Gray

Carmen Gray, CONTRIBUTING CRITIC, is a New Zealander who lives in Berlin. A film critic and journalist, she has contributed to Sight & Sound, The Guardian, The Observer, Screen International, and more. She has written liner essays for several Criterion releases, and was previously Film Editor of Dazed & Confused magazine in London. She contributes regularly to The New York Times with investigative journalism on culture and politics in Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Caucasus, and has written chapters for books on Portuguese cinema and Peter Watkins. As a film programmer, she is on the selection committees of the Generation section of the Berlin International Film Festival and the Winterthur International Short Film Festival in Switzerland, and is a programme adviser for Open City Docs in London. She also consults on projects, and is a regular industry adviser on films at the editing stage for First Cut Lab. She frequently serves on festival juries, and has taught writing workshops in Poland, Serbia, Estonia and the Czech Republic.

26 Posts

Clarence Tsui

Clarence Tsui, CONTRIBUTING CRITIC, is a Hong Kong-based film critic, programmer and part-time lecturer. He has written for The Hollywood Reporter, South China Morning Post, Cineaste and Film Quarterly, and has served on juries at Cannes, Berlin, Rotterdam and Tokyo. He is currently the director of the Broadway Cinematheque and the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival. He teaches at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

28 Posts

danielsissa

0 Posts

Deborah Young

Deborah Young, EDITOR & SENIOR CRITIC, is an American writer, film critic and festival director based in Rome. In 2008 she became The Hollywood Reporter’s international film editor; formerly, she served as Variety's bureau chief in Rome. She directed the Taormina Film Festival for five years and has been a programming consultant for the Tribeca Film Festival and the Venice Film Festival, among others. As a screenwriter and adapter, Deborah has contributed to key Italian films including Ermanno Olmi’s The Legend of the Holy Drinker, the Taviani brothers’ Good Morning, Babylon and Valerio Zurlini’s Across the River and Into the Trees. Her first novel, Pirates in Black Tie, is published by Europe Books.

141 Posts

Eric Mika

President & Publisher eric@thefimverdict.com Eric Mika, Publisher, Launching his career in Rome as an advertising sales executive for Variety magazine, Eric has dedicated himself to the international film & amp; TV business. He has launched products, events, and a daily TV festival news program with RAI International. As Publisher of The Hollywood Reporter and Vice President of Nielsen’s Entertainment Group, he led these companies through transformational expansion, redesign and globalization and launched multiple digital products. Tasked with developing all commercial aspects of the Hollywood Reporter brand, he led it successfully through the challenging economic environment of 2008 to increase its value when it was sold to Guggenheim Partners in 2009. He also launched a daily THR New York edition of the national daily print magazine. Eric joined Nielsen Business Media in London as Senior Vice President, Managing Director, International, heading all its global entertainment brands including The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard. Prior to Nielsen, Eric served as Vice President and Managing Director for Reed Elsevier’s entertainment business magazine group, overseeing Variety magazine’s European, Middle East and Asian operations. He published the Variety Cannes dailies and several other festival dailies. He was Publisher of Variety China and its Beijing- based domestic market strategy. Eric’s “start-up” entrepreneurial life began when he was brought on board Vivendi Universal in Paris to develop a European, multi-access, direct marketing, advertising sales and content company. He launched five Vivendi Universal digital companies throughout Europe, integrating content and distribution technologies. This was followed by a line of successful start-up companies. Eric was born in Orléans, France, and grew up in Europe. He has worked professionally in Rome, Paris, London, New York and Los Angeles.

0 Posts

Ernesto Marquez

0 Posts

Ernesto Marquez

0 Posts

iEatCacti

0 Posts

Jay Weissberg

Jay Weissberg, SENIOR CRITIC, is a native New Yorker who lives in Rome. A film historian and critic, he began writing for Variety in 2003. His work on contemporary cinema has appeared in international publications and he’s contributed essays in numerous festival and retrospective catalogues, with a particular focus on Arab and Romanian film. He was appointed director of the Giornate del Cinema Muto/Pordenone Silent Film Festival in 2015, writes widely about silent film, and is a co-curator of the Ottoman Film Project. A frequent participant of festival juries, he often takes part in panel discussions on the current state of cinema and film criticism, regularly moderates Masterclasses with filmmakers, and has mentored programs for young film critics worldwide. His discussion on Romanian cinema appears as an extra on Criterion’s Blu-ray/DVD release of Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. He also has a blog, “The Silent Cat,” which delves into forgotten stories of the silent film era.

97 Posts

Jordan Mintzer

Jordan Mintzer, CONTRIBUTING CRITIC, is a writer, producer and film critic born in Queens, New York. He produced Matt Porterfield’s feature films Hamilton, Putty Hill and Sollers Point, and is co-writing and producing his upcoming hip-hop movie Check Me in Another Place. Based in Paris, he works as a film critic for The Hollywood Reporter, covering French and international cinema, as well as festivals like Cannes, Berlin and Toronto. His writings have also been published in Le Monde, Cahiers du Cinéma, Libération, So Film and Variety, and he appears regularly on the French radio show On Aura Tout Vu. He is the author of the books Conversations with James Gray (2011) and Conversations with Darius Khondji (2018).

34 Posts

Kelly Jones

Int’l Business Relations & Operations Director kelly@thefilmverdict.com Kelly Jones, former Vice President of Production and Distribution at The Hollywood Reporter and veteran of entertainment magazines Variety, Billboard & Backstage. Kelly was entrusted with the launch and daily operations at all the festival Dailies around the globe. She also was a major player in the redesign of the The Hollywood Reporter, its global re-launch, digital news-room and business development strategist. Operationally. Kelly managed the global relationship with international and domestic printers and distributors, providing effective cost analysis to ensure daily profitability. As VP of Production and Distribution, Kelly managed festival dailies, weekly & daily magazines, including special editions and features. Kelly led teams up to thirty individuals. She effectively increased distribution, streamed line production, decreased costs, and worked with both clients and sales agents to increase overall efficiency and profitability. Kelly has a unique understanding of the overall importance of business relationships and effectively responds with genuine enthusiasm to create new platforms for the clients. She created the first 3-D Hollywood Reporter front cover for Sony Animation, introduced QR codes & developed cross platform strategies. Kelly was involved overseeing multiple launches and special projects, Award Season Partnerships, Awards Ceremony programs, catalogs, specialty publishing and conferences. Energetic, creative, entrepreneurial, strategist, analytical and fun are among Kelly professional attributes.

1 Post

Kevin Jagernauth

Kevin Jagernauth, CONTRIBUTING CRITIC, is a Montreal-based film critic and writer. Kevin has written professionally about music and film for over 15 years, most prominently as Managing Editor of The Playlist, where he continues to contribute reviews, and has covered a wide range of festivals including Cannes, TIFF, Fantasia, Savannah, and more. On a consultative basis, Kevin provides script coverage for feature-length independent and international films. He is also the co-founder and co-programmer of Kopfkino, a monthly screening series of cult classics and contemporary favorites that ran from 2017-2020 in Montreal.

14 Posts

Lorena Cofradia

Based in Mexico City, Lorena is a proven communication professional who has put her skills to work in the creative and multimedia industry, as well as into social issues that have a direct effect on the lives of women. Her career has extended into audiovisual production, photography, advertising and as an art director – from Conde Nast to GQ, but Lorena continues to work in projects that promote art, design and cultural issues that have a direct impact on society. Lorena is the best of communication marketers, one who understands both the commercial aspect of art and the need for all artforms to find their home and develop. She has developed several projects in the multimedia arena, as well as developing different BTL advertising campaigns for such major global brands as Sephora, Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma, Danone, Bridgestone and many more. Lorena has worked as a photographer in Donde Ir, as well as in different international festivals such as Madrid Fusión, Digital Media LATAM for WAN-IFRA and as a stage producer in Pickathon, Portland. As an art director she has worked at Victor Trani Studio for Glamour, Vanity Fair, Marie Claire, among others. With a unique understanding of media and culture, Lorena also created a film club in Mexico city. Lorena’s passion and love for art, social justice, media, film, advertising creates a deep understanding on how to best position her clients, while not ignoring the importance of the artists point of view.

0 Posts

Lucy Virgen

16 Posts

Matías Rodríguez

0 Posts

Oris Aigbokhaevbolo

Oris Aigbokhaevbolo, CONTRIBUTING CRITIC, is an award-winning writer and critic. He won the 2015 AFRIMA award for Entertainment Journalist of the Year and has led a team of writers across Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and the Gambia as West Africa editor for a digital publication supported by the German Cultural Centre. Well-respected as a leading critic of Nollywood and African cinema, Aigbokhaevbolo has covered Sundance, the African International Film Festival, and Africa’s oldest film festival, FESPACO. His writing has appeared in the New York Review of Books, the Guardian UK, the Africa Report, and the London Review of Books. He lives in Lagos, Nigeria.

68 Posts

Patricia Boero

Patricia Boero, CONTRIBUTING CRITIC, is an international film consultant based in Punta del Este, Uruguay. Boero studied cinema at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and worked at SBS TV and Film Australia. In Havana, Cuba, she worked for TV Latina, BBC radio and CNN. In the U.S., Boero was Director of the Sundance Institute's International Program, holding screenwriters’ labs in ten countries, including Brazil, Mexico, Cuba, and Spain. She worked for the Rockefeller and MacArthur foundations, supporting films. From Uruguay she produced documentary series for Al Jazeera English and was a jury for the Havana and Guadalajara film festivals.

45 Posts

Rashid Bahati

Business Development Director rashid@thefilmverdict.com Rashid has an extensive career focused on producing film, television, and new media projects for domestic and international distribution. As founder and managing partner of boutique distribution company LEAD DOG ENTERTAINMENT, Rashid has delivered distribution deals at major film markets, including; Cannes, Berlin, Burkina Faso, Los Angeles, Cape Town, and Toronto. Rashid’s producing credits include; “Charleston-A Cradle of Jazz Music” a documentary film on the evolution of Jazz Music in Charleston, South Carolina., served as producer of syndicated television series “Global Cinema TV” for the Black Family Channel, “Silent Warrior” biographic film African-American soldier James T. Jones WWII hero and Los Angeles Entrepreneur, Noah’s Art, a Biopic-documentary, which captures the life story of Noah Purifoy, founder of the Watts Towers Art Center in Los Angeles, the film received special recognition by the American Film Institute (AFI),;Reach For The Skies”, a sports biographical and motivational film that looks at the career of the shortest player in the NBA Anthony “Spud” Webb, released and distributed by Sony Home Video; and; The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute; the DVD accompanying the award-winning HBO film by Spike Lee; The 4 Little Girls; and “The Black Cyclone: An Forgotten American Hero Major Taylor” a feature-length documentary (development phase). As a founding partner of STEAMCASTERS, LLC, a streaming media start-up co-owned by former Microsoft engineers based in the Los Angeles, Rashid has produced several new-media for such companies as; Sony Pictures Entertainment, Home Box Office, California African American Museum, Association of African American Museums, and Black College Satellite Network, to name a few. Rashid produced a live streaming – media project for HBO/Spike Lee's Academy Award nominee film documentary; 4 Little Girls; and the HBO movie; Soul of the Game; multi-media component outreached to high school students nationally. Rashid served as a founding board member of the DOWNTOWN FILM FESTIVAL LOS ANGELES. He is also a co-founder of the GLOBAL CINEMA AND URBAN MUSIC INITIATIVE that produces symposiums and knowledge exchange platforms for African Diaspora festival markets globally. Currently, Rashid is principal and curator of the AFRIQUE360 – REEL TALK FILM SERIES, an annual event showcasing films and panel discussions that speak to the legacy of Martin L. King, Jr.

0 Posts

Stephen Dalton

Stephen Dalton, SENIOR CRITIC, has been writing professionally about cinema and music for over 30 years, including for The Hollywood Reporter as a regular film/theater reviewer and occasional columnist. He has written extensively for The Times of London, where he was a daily TV film columnist for 12 years, Sight and Sound, the BFI (British Film Institute), and the UK film and music monthly Uncut. His work has also appeared in The Guardian, Rolling Stone, the Evening Standard (London), Wallpaper, New Musical Express, The Quietus, Electronic Sound, Classic Rock, The National (UAE) and other publications. He is based in London.

185 Posts

TheFilmVerdict

48 Posts