Shifting the Paradigm: Social Entrepreneurs and the Art of Fiction Film
Speakers
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President and Producer, Truth Aid
Mehret is an award-winning producer/writer/director whose credits include the Sundance and Berlinale Audience Award winner Difret, the New York Times Critic’s Pick Little White Lie, the American Masters documentary How it Feels to Be Free executive produced by Alicia Keys, and showrunner of the teen drama Yegna. She co-founded the independent media production company Truth Aid Media and is currently based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where she is Executive Producer of Kana TV. Mehret is also the private sector liaison for Ethiopia Creates, a public private partnership that aims to jumpstart the creative economy in Ethiopia and co-founder of Realness Institute which aims to build the film industry across Africa. She has an AB in Anthropology from Harvard University, an MD from Harvard Medical School, a Masters in Global Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine as a Fulbright Scholar, and a PhD in Anthropology from Temple University. She is an alumnus of Sundance Institute’s New Voices Lab, American Film Showcase, and Film Forward.
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John Marks is the founder and Managing Director of Confluence International, an Amsterdam-based NGO that specializes in Track II diplomacy and TV production to promote social change. Until 2014, he was President of Search for Common Ground (SFCG), the world’s largest peacebuilding NGO, which he founded in 1982. SFCG was nominated for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize. John also founded Common Ground Productions (CGP) and has produced or executive-produced TV series in more than 20 countries. He is a Visiting Scholar in Peacebuilding and Social Entrepreneurship at Leiden University in the Netherlands. With his wife, Susan Collin Marks, he is a Skoll Awardee in Social Entrepreneurship, and, additionally, he is an Ashoka Senior Fellow. A best-selling, award-winning author, he graduated from Cornell University and was a Fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics and a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School. He has an honorary PhD from the UN’s University of Peace in Costa Rica.
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Founding Director, International Resource for Impact and Storytelling
Cara Mertes champions cinematic artists as leaders in society. Harnessing the power of cultural expression to support communities, policies and priorities rooted in dignity and justice, she is currently founder of the International Resource for Impact and Storytelling (IRIS), a new donor collaborative working internationally at the intersection of civic innovation, creative storytelling and narrative strategies. As Director at Ford Foundation (JustFilms), Sundance Institute (DFP) and as EP of P.O.V. on PBS, Mertes oversaw funding for hundreds of documentaries and envisioned a global network of independent film hubs. At Sundance, she co-created Stories of Change (Skoll Foundation) and co-founded Good Pitch (DocSociety). At POV, she received Emmy, duPont Columbia 's and a Webby Award for her original web series, POV’s Borders. Awarded Doc NYC Career, Doc Mogul and IDA Pioneer Award among others, degrees are from Vassar College, Hunter College and Harvard Business School’s OPM.
