GLOBAL USC
Hollywood Global Horizons - 12:30PM
This panel will feature international USC Student Filmmakers, who will share their experiences as producers. Learn about the motivations and practices behind making media in countries around the world, and the effect culture has on content. Featuring short screenings of their work.
Featuring:
Manouchka Kelly Labouba | Gabon
Jean Paulo Lasmer | Brazil
Alberto Marenco Saenz | Colombia.
Moderated by: Alex Ago; Director of Programming and Special Projects at USC School of Cinematic Arts.
PANELISTS
MODERATOR
Manouchka Kelly Labouba - Gabon
Manouchka Kelly Labouba is a USC Provost’s PhD Fellow in the Division of Critical Studies at the School of Cinematic Arts. Her research interests include Sub-Saharan African cinema, African-American cinema, and cultural globalization. Her articles have been published in Spectator and the Journal of African Cinemas. She is also an independent director/screenwriter/producer from Gabon (Central Africa), where she became the first woman to direct a work of fiction with her 40min short Le Divorce (2008). Her films have been selected in official competition at the Fespaco, the Carthage film festival, the Montreal Pan Africa film festival, and the Ecrans Noirs film festival, where she won the award for best Directorial Debut. She pursues a dual career as a scholar, and as a filmmaker.
Jean Paolo Lasmer - Brazil
JEAN PAULO LASMAR is a film director and producer from Brazil, who is currently studying at USC in Los Angeles. In 1997, he graduated in Architecture & Urbanism at Universidade Mackenzie, in São Paulo. In 2010, Lasmar earned his BA in Social Communication with emphasis in Film Studies at Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado, in São Paulo. During the same year, he released “Vida Sobre Rodas” (Life on wheels), a documentary about the history of Brazilian skateboarding, which is his first feature for a major studio (Walt Disney) as a producer. The film was screened in festivals in São Paulo, Los Angeles, and Munich. After travelling around the world filming in locations such as United Kingdom, Eastern Europe, West Sumatra, and United States, Lasmar returned to Brazil. For his next project, he worked as a Director of Photography for Nokia’s viral campaign “Perdi meu amor na balada” (I lost my love at the party), which was seen by over 6 million people this year. His film thesis “O
condomínio” (The condominium) was recently screened at the film festival Mostra Brasil 2012, in Munich. Lasmar is pursuing a MFA in Film & Television Production at USC School of Cinematic Arts. He intends to make films that take the audience to different places, sensorial and emotional, through transformative stories. After graduating with honors in 2015, Lasmar plans to direct a feature film for a major studio in Hollywood.
Alessandro Ago is the Director of Programming and Special Projects at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, where he programs film screenings, festivals, guest speakers and special events. In addition to programming the popular undergraduate courses Theatrical Film Symposium, taught by Leonard Maltin, and Television Symposium, taught by Howard Rosenberg, Ago also curates Outside the Box [Office], a screening series dedicated to bringing new international, documentary and independent cinema to USC.
Ago lectures frequently about Italian cinema at the Italian Cultural Institute in Westwood, California and has taught two undergraduate courses for the SCA Summer Program: Transnational Nightmares and Filmmaking, Italian Style. He co-produced the 2006 & 2007 editions of Los Angeles - Italia: The Film, Fashion and Art Fest at Mann's Chinese 6-plex, as well as the 2006 Capri - Hollywood Film Festival in Capri, Italy. He also recently worked for the Sundance Institute as a judge in the International Narrative department, helping to select films for competition for the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.
Both an Italian and American citizen, he grew up in Washington D.C. and Rome, Italy. He holds a bachelor's and master's degree from the USC School of Cinematic Arts' Critical Studies division.
Alex F. Ago
Alberto Marenco is currently a graduate film student at USC’s prestigious School of Cinematic arts. Alberto started an independent production company called Taken Films with partner Will Goldstein. Under this banner both Marenco and Goldstein are finalizing their first feature film which was shot in the summer of 2012. Before attending USC, Marenco was a known music video director/producer in Colombia. In a span of 2 years he directed and produced videos for well known local acts such as: “Nicolas Mayorca”, “Frankie Jazz” and “Don Tetto”. The latter won a Latin American MTV Award and was nominated for this year’s MTV Europe Music Awards. So far, he has directed three of “Don Tetto’s” music videos for them, and one feature length Documentary/Concert about the band that was released in DVD in Latin America. Alberto was born and raised in the Caribbean coast city of Cartagena in Colombia, directed his first short film at age 13, and made his first animated short at 14. He is an avid sketch artist and photographer as well as a bass player and songwriter. Recently, Alberto is developing two audiovisual projects: A short-film titled “SEROTONIN." The first segment of the video has already been released on MTV Latin America. The second project and main focus for Alberto over the past two years is a feature film called “THE FLIGHT PLAN” which is currently undergoing post-production. After graduating high school he had a brief and invaluable stint at CESA, the number one Business school in Colombia. Marenco then decided to take on a path more suited to his artistic nature. In 2003 Marenco entered the art school of the Pontifical Xavier University in Bogota, Colombia, where he received his BFA in Visual Arts in 2008.
Alberto Marenco Saenz - Colombia