Creating Festival Worthy Features on a Micro-Budget

Georgia-based feature filmmakers in the festival share their tips and tricks for crafting festival-worthy films with little to no money. We explore their vastly different filmmaking styles, what inspired them to create these projects, and the challenges their choices helped overcome. They discuss directing and producing with severe budgetary limitations, and how letting go of asking permission has freed them to control their own projects and careers. Moderator: Nina Marinov (Producer, Director, Editor) Panelists: Director Tim Hall and DP / Producer Walker Forshee ( SUMMER LOST ), Director Adam Pinney and Producer Megan Dahl ( Mudville ), Director Costa Karalis, and Producer Evan Barber ( Frogtown ) Nina Marinov is a filmmaker, producer, and educator who has spent years making good work with not enough money — and she's gotten pretty good at it. Over the past decade, she's produced, directed, or edited more than 25 short films in Atlanta — films that have screened at festivals around the globe. Nina believes "low budget" is a creative constraint, not an excuse. ( Pageant Material , Discovering Brooklyn , Broken Branches ) Timothy Hall is a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts School of Filmmaking. A native of Macon, Georgia, Summer Lost is his fifth feature film. Adam Pinney is a writer/director whose 2016 film, The Arbalest , won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2016 SXSW Film Festival, and was previously selected to participate in the 2015 IFP Narrative Labs. He is co-owner of Opalite Pictures , and his second feature Mudville premieres at the Atlanta Film Festival. Adam was the cinematographer for Joe Swanberg’s 24 Exposures , and for Adult Swim’s viral short, Too Many Cooks . In recent years, he co-wrote and co-directed the short Lily’s Mirror as well as producing Megan Dahl’s short documentary, Tessa , both of which garnered awards across the festival circuit. Megan Dahl is a Writer, Director, and Producer from Texas who has recently worked on All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Pastel, A24) premiering at Sundance, as well as the SXSW Grand Jury winning feature The Arbalest , the award-winning shorts Lily’s Mirror and Tessa , and music videos for Skrillex, Galantis, Dangermouse, Run the Jewels, and Big Boi, and Too Many Cooks for Adult Swim. She is a part of Arts Leaders of Metro Atlanta, ArteGA, a panelist for Screencraft Writers Conference, and co-owner of Opalite Pictures . Mudville is the first feature for Opalite Pictures. Costandinos "Costa" Karalis is a first-generation Middle Eastern American filmmaker based out of Atlanta, GA. His work explores the gray area where the worlds of the fantastic and the mundane meet, making for absurd and singular visual experiences that have found him acclaim globally. His films have been recognized by BAFTA-LA, CamerIMAGE, NFFTY, and the Cannes Film Festival.​​​​​​​