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FESTIVAL ADVISOR

Betsy A. McLane, PH.D | Festival Advisor

With a strong background in the nonprofit media arts organizations and

events, Betsy A. McLane knows and is known by the film world in its many

forms; independent, Hollywood, domestic, international, fiction,

documentary, feature and short.

 

Betsy held the position of Executive Director of the International

Documentary Association (IDA) for eight years as it grew from a regional

media arts organization, to become a key part of the world film scene.

At IDA she founded and ran the DOCtober Film Festival, qualifying

documentary films for Academy Award consideration.  She was most

recently the Executive Director of the Backyard National Children Film

Festival (BNCFF), the only festival in North America dedicated

exclusively to showing media work made by people age 18 and under. Betsy

has also been the Public Affairs Liaison for the Hollywood Film Festival

and retains the honorary title of Director Emeritus of IDA.

 

Dr. McLane is honored to have served continuously on the Advisory Board

of the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress since its

founding.  She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Hot Springs

Documentary Film Festival, and has also been a member of the

International Advisory Committee for the Hot Docs Toronto Documentary

Film Festival.  She has been a juror at the Woodstock International

Documentary Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, the Hawaii

International Film Festival, the AFI Sony Video Awards, the IDA Awards

and DocuDays of Beirut, Lebanon.  She has served as a review panelist

for the National Endowment for the Arts Media Arts Grants and its

Preservation Grants programs.

 

As a teacher and scholar, Dr. McLane has been a member of the faculties

of Loyola Marymount University, Emerson College LA, The University of

Vermont, Art Center College of Design, and the University of Southern

California.  She has taught courses in documentary history, the history

of film, media literacy, the history of television, and other related

media topics. She is a Past President of the University Film and Video

Association, the first woman to be elected to that office.  For the

UFVA, she has also served as Executive Vice President, Director of the

Eastman Scholars Competition, and as a juror for Next Frame Student Film

Festival. From 1994 through early 2000, Dr. McLane was the publisher of

International Documentary magazine, which she edited for several issues.

She was a founding member of the Advisory Board of Film History: An

International Quarterly and for over a decade served as an Associate

Editor of the Journal of the University Film and Video Association.

 

Prior to leading IDA, Dr. McLane was Vice President at Direct Cinema

Limited, a specialized film and video distribution company where she was

involved in all aspects of acquisition, marketing, advertising and

promotions. Dr. McLane has also worked on a variety of documentary

productions in capacities such as researcher and grant writer and is

presently an advisor to an NEH funded series on documentary history. She

lives in Indian Wells, California where she is working on a book on

documentary film history 1970-2002.  She speaks and writes regularly on

film topics.


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