Sharon Badal
Assistant Arts Professor
Sharon Badal is an Assistant Arts Professor in the Tisch undergraduate film and television department and holds both a B.F.A. and an M.A. from New York University. She is former vice president of programming for the Tribeca Film Festival and was with the festival from its inception in 2001 to 2023, in addition to producing special projects for Tribeca since 1999. Sharon is now the music video curator and shorts consultant for Tribeca, specializing in music documentaries, both features and shorts. Prior to that, she produced numerous live events and worked in distribution and marketing for three major studios. She is the author of Swimming Upstream – A Lifesaving Guide to Short Film Distribution, published by Focal Press.
In 2022, the BBC invited Sharon to serve as one of six global short film programmers for the BBC Longshots program, judge the Soho House Screenplay competition for several years, and review the Screen Ireland Focus Shorts funding program. She is widely recognized as a short-film expert.
She is the external film festivals advisor for the Undergraduate Film and Television Department and created/teaches the “Producing in London” summer study abroad program for Tisch Special Programs.
She has been a jury member, presenter, or panelist for many film festivals and organizations worldwide including the Regional Student Academy Awards, Alcine Madrid, Annapolis Maryland, Bend Oregon, BFI London, Big Sky Documentary, The British Council, Calgary, Cleveland, DOC NYC, Cordillera, Cork, Dublin and Galway festivals Ireland, Fest Forum New York & Santa Barbara, Hawaii International, Heartland Indy Shorts, Holly Shorts Los Angeles, Hot Springs Documentary, IFP Produced By Conference: Screen Forward NY, Keynote Speaker for Orlando, Louisiana Film Prize, New Hampshire, New Orleans, Nordisk Panorama Iceland, Norway, Finland and Sweden, Palm Springs ShortsFest, Producers Guild of America, Rhode Island, SAG-INDIE, Santa Fe, Savannah, Short Film Pod (podcast), Short Shorts Japan and Asia Tokyo, Sound Unseen Minneapolis, Sundance ShortsLab, Three Rivers Pittsburgh, CFC Worldwide, ImagineNative and TIFF in Toronto, Vienna Shorts Austria and Wavelength Productions (podcast). Badal has guest lectured at Columbia University, Griffith College Dublin, North Carolina School of the Arts, Savannah College of Art & Design, UC Santa Barbara, UCLA, and the University of Hawaii at Manoa School of Cinematic Arts.
During the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic, Sharon curated a daily online short film program called A Short Film a Day Keeps Anxiety Away, and a weekly online music series called Soundtrack Sunday for Tribeca. She also curated short films for the United Airlines “Tribeca Presents” channel from 2014-2018 (700 flights/3 shorts per month).
Sharon worked for actor Denis Leary’s Firefighter Foundation as a development associate and project coordinator, receiving commendations from the New Orleans and Seaside Heights Fire Departments for her recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina and Sandy, respectively. She is the executive producer of the feature documentary Let’s Roll, which follows a group of Los Angeles firefighters as they bicycle across the U.S. to reach New York on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. The film world premiered at the Newport Beach Film Festival and received the Best Documentary Award from the International Association of Firefighters.