We sat down with Zip Creative clients SHARI BERMAN, NAOMI MCDOUGALL JONES, KERSTIN KARLHUBER and ARTHUR VINCIE and asked them what was their proudest accomplishment of 2016 and what were they looking forward to in the year ahead. We hope you enjoy and find inspiration from their responses.
Q: What was your proudest accomplishment in 2016?
– Shari Berman That’s a tough question as 2016 was a crazy ride. I’m proud of helping to get a high school musical up and running and having an impact on the lives of younger people. I’m 
proud to have edited a few projects pro bono to help artists without funds and a non-profit trying to do something good in the world. I’m proud to have been an active member of both Film Fatales and the FilmmakeHers – groups where women support each other as we all attempt to navigate the industry and life as an artist. As a filmmaker, I am proud that my second feature film Sugar! won so many festival awards – including directing awards and best narrative feature awards. I’m also proud to have finished my Super 8 film (Woman), the screenplay of my science fiction film Numbers and the first draft of what will possibly be my next feature – Pink Mist . Yay for a year of creating, screening and giving back!
– Naomi McDougall Jones I’m going to have to give a double answer for 2016 because I can’t choose. In November, I had the great privilege of getting to give a TEDxTalk, The Women in Film Revolution Begins With You. I’m pretty sure that stepping onto that stage was the single most terrifying moment of my life (and I once chased a mountain lion away from my cat with a garden hose), but I am so grateful and proud to have done it. If you fancy having a watch, it’s on YouTube My second, equally proudest thing from last year was that I had the significantly great good fortune to team up with heavy-weight finance women Lois Scott and Sona Wang and my former producing partner, Caitlin Gold, to begin The 51 Fund, a venture capital fund that will finance films written, directed and produced by women. It turns out that putting together a many-million dollar venture capital fund is a heck of a lot of work, but I could not be more pleased to be doing my part to turn the tide on women in film. You can find more information about the fund and sign up to receive a notice when submissions open on our website
and highly successful French and German releases (hitting the #1 bestseller spot on Amazon in each territory in the LGBT category). But the most recent accomplishment that I am extremely proud of was finding out that Fair Haven would have a limited theatrical release in the US. That didn’t seem like a reality for us, and in November, when the release was secured, I couldn’t have been prouder! Fair Haven will officially release in North America in March of this year.
– Arthur Vincie By far the best thing I did in 2016 (professionally) was write, direct, and distribute the first season of Three Trembling Cities. It’s a fictional, intimate portrait of the inner lives and daily struggles of the immigrants trying to make it in NYC. The cast and crew did a magnificent job, and I’m very proud of our work together.
Q: What are you looking forward to in 2017?
– Shari Berman I’m looking forward to working my way towards the final version of Pink Mist (on draft two now so only 10 or so more to go), finishing pitch materials for both Pink Mist and Numbers (I think I can, I think I can…) and meeting producers interested in working on films that focus on women’s issues (and want to drink coffee together). I’m hoping it will be a year of collaborating with other artists that I’ve gotten to know over the last few years (who are as insanely driven as I am). I’m also looking forward to continuing to give back, spending time with friends and family and getting some sleep…(maybe).
– Naomi McDougall Jones I am certainly looking forward to continuing the work of pulling The 51 Fund into existence. My second feature film, Bite Me, will (god-willing, cough-cough, knock-on-wood) be going into production in April. Films take such a very long time to wrench into existence that finally getting to go to set feels like an especially fantastic Christmas morning. The film (which I wrote, am a producer on and will act in) is a subversive romantic comedy about the real-life subculture of people who believe that they are vampires (yes, real, real) and the IRS agent who audits them. You can find out more on our website, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter to follow the project. I am also insanely excited and petrified to be branching out into a new medium with the launch this month of my podcast on iTunes, Fear(ful)less: Filmmaking from the Edge, which will be a weekly window into the success, failures and adventures of an independent filmmaker. I will bust the myth of the “overnight success” by pulling back the curtain on my real struggles, real wins and real panic attacks as I make my movies, attempt to crack the nuts and bolts of breaking through, and, ideally, take down the patriarchy in the process. Finally, I’m very much looking forward to trying to bring greater balance into my life and find space for a little more down time, which, reading the above, does seem like possibly a fool’s errand. Happy New Year!
public, I am ready to dedicated myself to what’s next. Jack Bryant (Fair Haven’s screenwriter) and I are developing two features and a limited series. The series is called Our Texas and it deals with the subject of immigration in this country. It is a modern and fresh take on the issue, taking place in a small, Texas border town. The series explores many sides of this hot-button topic through a diverse set of characters, all of whom are
Arthur Vincie 2017 is looking to be a busy year: We’re in the early stages of planning season two of Three Trembling Cities now. There’s a bigger, full-sized television show that we’re hoping to get on the rails, The Spectral City. It’s a supernatural/war show about a small band of refugees who are desperately trying to flee a decades-long civil war, but can only go deeper in, leading them to the Haunted City. And I co-wrote a drama/thriller, Die Hunter, about a South African poacher-turned-ranger, and the teenage daughter he’s trying to keep from following in his path. we think has a good chance of getting optioned. 