Location | Duluth, Minnesota United States |
---|---|
Founded | 2006 |
Founded by | AJ Tesler |
Hosted by | Philip Gilpin, Jr. |
Language | English |
Website | Catalyst Story Institute & Content Festival |
Catalyst Story Institute & Content Festival, formerly the ITVFest (The Independent Television Festival), is an arts organization and an annual festival gathering of fans, artists and executives from around the world to celebrate outstanding independent narrative production.
The festival gives independent television and narrative artists [1] the opportunity to share their work with television professionals and a larger community of independent TV producers.
Catalyst Story Institute & Content Festival is the only independent television festival in the United States. ITVFest is the first festival dedicated to independently produced pilots and webseries, with an emphasis on new media. [2] [3]
Festival support has come from companies and media outlets including Sony, The TV Academy (the Emmys), Fox TV Studios, RDF, Comedy Central, SyFy, FX (TV channel), GSN, HBO, Current TV, The Hollywood Reporter, Tubefilter, Stickam, B-Side and Comcast. [4]
Catalyst Story Institute & Content Festival was founded as The Independent Television Festival in 2006 by producer AJ Tesler, and was originally held in Los Angeles, California. [4]
In 2013, Philip Gilpin, Jr. took over as the festival's Executive Director. [4] [5] ITVFest moved from Los Angeles to Vermont to find a rural setting where industry leaders and creators could escape the big city to build relationships with the goal of creating an industry pipeline for independent television creators to have direct access to industry decision makers. [6] In 2015, on attending ITVFest IndieWire called independent television is "a real, new part of the industry that deserves attention." [7]
In 2017, ITVFest partnered with HBO in a deal that awarded festival winners meetings with top executives. [8] Bob Bakish, CEO of Viacom, keynoted at ITVFest 2017. [9] [10] In 2018, Adaptive Studios bought the rights to Astral, a television drama set to include actors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, from a creator met at ITV Festival. [11] Powderkeg's Laura Fischer and Gary Dourdan were among the judges at ITVFest in 2018. [12] After ITVFest 2018, Vermont officials dropped their support for television and film in the state. [13]
In 2019, ITVFest moved to Duluth, Minnesota, attracting thousands of attendees. [14] [15] Also in 2019, ITVFest contracted a multiyear sponsorship with Abrams Artists Agency, marking the first direct connection between a TV festival and an agency, while simultaneously rebranding to Catalyst Story Investitute & Content Festival. [16]
2019 winners
2019 Documentary Official Selection
2018 winners
2016 winners
2015 winners
2013 winners
2012 winners
2010 winners
2009 winners
2008 winners
2007 Winners
2006 Winners
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