GreenLight Women Members Only – Filmmakers Panel – The YouTube Effect

PANELIST: ALEX WINTER
Alex Winter entered show business as a child actor with co-starring roles on Broadway in The King & I and Peter Pan and came to prominence in movies such as Warner Bros’ hit The Lost Boys and the wildly popular Bill & Ted franchise. As a filmmaker, Winter’s narrative features include the cult classic FREAKED, for 20th Century Fox and the critically acclaimed FEVER, for Lionsgate, which screened in the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes.

Winter is the founder of Trouper Productions, which services his documentary work. In 2020, Winter released two new documentary feature films, SHOWBIZ KIDS, premiered on HBO to widespread critical acclaim, garnering a Critics Choice nomination for Best Score. Followed by ZAPPA, the first all-access documentary on the life and times of Frank Zappa. The Kickstarter campaign for this project was the highest funded documentary in crowdfunding history. Magnolia Pictures released ZAPPA to widespread critical acclaim. A Critics Pick in the New York Times, ZAPPA was nominated for Best Music Documentary by the Critics Choice Awards.

The highly anticipated third installment in the Bill & Ted franchise, BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC, opened in August 2020 as the number one movie in the U.S. and the U.K.

Previous documentary work includes THE PANAMA PAPERS, about the most significant global corruption scandal in history, and the journalists who worked in secret and were at considerable risk to break the story. A multiple award-winner, THE PANAMA PAPERS, executive produced by Laura Poitras, opened to a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Also in release worldwide is TRUST MACHINE, about the rise of bitcoin and the blockchain, from Breaker Studios.

DEEP WEB is about the online black market Silk Road and the trial of its creator Ross Ulbricht. The film premiered on the Epix network, opening as the #1 documentary on iTunes and earning a Cinema Eye nomination among several award wins. DOWNLOADED is a VH1 RockDoc about Napster and the digital revolution. The film premiered at SXSW, garnering worldwide critical acclaim at theatrical and festival screenings.

Recently completed is Winter’s next feature documentary, THE YOUTUBE EFFECT. Produced by Winter & Trouper Productions in partnership with Gale Anne Hurd & Valhalla Entertainment & Glen Zipper.

PANELIST: GALE ANNE HURD
Gale Anne Hurd, an award-winning producer and founder of Valhalla Entertainment, is most recently known for the global cultural phenomenon, Emmy-winning and record shattering TV series,The Walking Dead, and its multiple spin-offs, including Fear The Walking Dead, Dead City, Daryl Dixon and the upcomingThe Ones Who Live, among others.  Hurd’s feature, The YouTube Effect, is an eye-opening documentary, directed by Alex Winter, which presents a thoughtful, troubling look at YouTube, a site with humble origins that has gone on to change how we experience the world. The film premiered at the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival and was released in the US theatrically by Alamo Drafthouse Films. Her additional producing credits includeMankiller, the award-winning documentary on the late Wilma Mankiller, the first woman to be elected Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, as well as Sundance Audience Award winner The Waterdance, and such iconic classic feature films asAliens, The Abyss, Armageddon, Tremors, Alien Nation, The Ghost and the Darkness, The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which was recently added to the National Film Registry by the US Library of Congress.

Additionally, Hurd is a highly sought-after speaker on such topics as the status of the entertainment industry and gender equality. She has spoken at the Berlin, Deauville, Locarno and Toronto Film Festivals, the Milken Global Summit Conference and countless other programs worldwide. She has been featured on numerous podcasts, including Marc Maron’s WTF and Deadline Hollywood’s Strike Talk.  Hurd’s prestigious honors include the 2022 Locarno Film Festival’s Best Independent Producer Award, the Cartier Award from the Deauville American Film Festival, Women In Film’s Crystal Award, the Producer’s Guild’s David O. Selznick Best Feature Film Producer Award, and most recently, the Visual Effects Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

PANELIST: CARRIE GOLDBERG, ESQ.
Carrie Goldberg is a victims’ rights attorney who has built a team that provides cutting edge legal help for clients under attack. She is the author of Nobody’s Victim: Fighting Psychos, Stalkers, Perv, and Trolls.

MODERATOR: MONIKA BAUERLEIN
Monika Bauerlein has been CEO of Mother Jones since 2015 and has focused on expanding MoJo’s journalistic and revenue capacity, deepen its impact, and broaden its audience. Most recently, she led the organization’s merger with the Center for Investigative Reporting, which added the award-winning weekly radio show and podcast Reveal to the combined organization’s reach. Previously, Bauerlein served as co-editor with Clara Jeffery, who is now editor-in-chief. Together, they have been honored with the I.F Stone Medal for Journalistic Excellence, the Pen/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing, and multiple National Magazine Awards including the 2017 honor for Magazine of the Year. Under their leadership, Mother Jones grew from, as the PEN judges wrote, “a respected, if under the radar indie publication to an internationally recognized powerhouse.” Bauerlein has also worked as Mother Jones’ investigative editor, focusing on longform projects marrying in-depth reportage, document sleuthing, and narrative appeal, and as an alternative-weekly editor, a correspondent for US and European publications in Washington, D.C. and at the United Nations, an AP stringer, corporate trainer, translator, sausage slinger and fishing-line packager. She lives in Oakland.