Kathleen McInnis

"Film, CINEMA, breeds understanding, empathy, curiosity. It validates acceptance, experience, identity. It formalizes perspective and inspires action. It shines the light on the underserved while exposing the hypocrisy of the over-served. It demands VOICE. Cinema demands participation in the human condition. Visual storytelling is our modern vehicle for the mythology that helps us make sense of the senseless, every single day."                                                                               – Kathleen McInnis, 2024

Writer / Producer Kathleen McInnis is a Producer & Strategic Publicist for emerging world cinema filmmakers. She believes her filmmakers are “global storytellers for a global audience”: Her Cinematic Trinity philosophy contends that each of these elements is equally important to a filmmaker’s journey: Filmmaker (as artist) + Industry (as conduit) + Audience. 

Kathleen’s extensive background in international festival programming/curation, and marketing/distribution informs her work helping filmmakers merge their creative and business development on the festival circuit. Her films have won major awards at Berlinale, Sundance, Karlovy Vary, Cannes, and Toronto festivals, to name a few.

Kathleen created the successful New Works-in-Progress Forum at Seattle Int’l Film Festival, designed to create a safe intersection for filmmakers to discover how their films engage on the global stage. Her decade-long tenure at the Palm Springs Int’l ShortFest & Market allowed for both discovery of, and support for, hundreds of international filmmakers. Tasked with creating the first international shorts program at Toronto Int’l Film Festival, Kathleen created new platforms to bridge the distance between short filmmakers and industry decision makers.

Kathleen also runs Oscar®-campaigns for International Features and Short Films. She is a member of AMPAS, BAFTA, and IDA. As screenwriter, Kathleen is managed by Amotz Zakai at Echo Lake.  
 

Film Festival Experience: Kathleen previously has been Festival Director at Palm Springs ShortFest; Director of Programming at Aspen Shortsfest, International Programmer for TIFF ShortCuts and International Shorts Programmer for Hot Docs. She has also been Festival Director of Slamdance and both Lead Programmer & Director of Publicity/Promotions at the Seattle Int'l Film Festival. She was the originator and curator of Seattle Int’l Film Festival’s New Works-in-Progress Forum for Documentary and Narrative Features, and has been a program consultant for short films at Tribeca Film Festival. Currently, she consults on Industry programs as the International Industry Liaison for the Norwegian Kortfilmfestivalen in Grimstad, Norway.