About the Film Program Cannes

FPC is a Professional Education
Program in its 6th year.
with all facutly members as working filmmakers
with professional educational experience
each staff member teaches.

The Program was founded in early 2002 by Ralph Ackerman a working film professional since 1963, in response to his understanding of the growing need to arm emerging filmmakers, film professionals, film students and migrating professionals from other fields such as law and finance with the essential skills to fund, acquire worldwide distribution and the marketing of independent films. Ackerman located a venue for attendees to lodge and attend the Master Intensive course in complete comfort just minutes from the center of Cannes right of the beach in a beautiful French campus of the College International de Cannes.

An International Program
Ackerman organized the Program to promote international cooperation. This is accomplished in the ways attendees are selected to attend and
in the ways the Program collaborates with other programs having similar goals.

The Film Program Cannes is a private professional training program for filmmakers by filmmakers and is not part of the
Official Cannes Film Festival or Film Market

Course and Market/Festival activities:
Central to the Program’s success and uniqueness is it provides its attendees the opportunity to experience a one-of-a-kind program of study, tailored to meet their individual professional or academic goals.
The courses facilitate "intensive" attendee participation, discussion and networking. The "Intensive" is a unique course directed at the use of film markets coupled with the learning of standard producing skills. The intensive course covers the fundamentals of film producing in addition there is useful insider information and assessment of current film market and technology trends in the production and distribution of films.

Master Course Modules include:
1) Understanding the Film Industry and Film Markets
2) Finding, Developing and Packaging for the Investment Market
3) Preparing the Financial of the Package, Contracts, Legal
4) The Producer's Functions During the Making of the Film
5) Completion & Delivery, Festivals and Marketing the Film

Working the Market
Attendees bring their film projects, scripts and funding needs and seek help from the Market and fellow attendees. Attendees are taught the most efficient manner to navigate this massive gathering (s.g. Cannes Film Market) to accomplish their personal and professional goals. The attendees also gain very important insights from fellow professional attendees through classroom discussions and Market assignments. This includes but is not limited to: co-production opportunities, distribution opportunities, and funding opportunities. Attendees also gain life long professional partnerships and friendships with fellow attendees and others attending the Market and Festival.
During this FPC 5th Anniversary year additional film markets/festivals are being added.

The Film Market places the attendee into the daily working of the world's largest and most important professional market/festivals. The Market's hugeness can be a very overwhelming experience with as many as9,476 accredited film professionals from 83 countries, 3,404 registered companies with 1,520 screenings in the 30 theatres of the Marché du Film and over 3,000 professional entertainment journalists attending from the Cannes Market.

Film Program Cannes Faculty:
The Film Program's faculty is renowned for their extraordinary teaching and film industry experience and shares that first hand knowledge with the students on a 24/7 basis during the attendees enrollment.

Ralph Ackerman, Founder &
Director Film Program Cannes (right called a filmmaker's filmmaker on camera on location 1969)
Ralph Ackerman is a champion of alternative-independent filmmaking. He teaches, holds workshops, writes on the subject, and develops new methods to gain its acceptance.
Prior to International Short Film Association the Film Program Cannes was his first film organization effort which marked his entry into the international film arena.

Ackerman made his first film in 1963 which was picked as a highlight of the Ann Arbor Film Festival and on the following year sent on a national tour with the other festival winners.
Recently he has added the new Short Film Corner of the Cannes Market with his latest two short films, Woodstock Festival Artist and A Loaded Gun. Upon his return from the 2nd Short Film Corner he founded the International Short Film Association to address the growing importance of the short film in the many new markets including portable viewing devices. During this 5th anniversity year the FPC and ISFA will be managed under a new dba as the International Film Association (IFA)with it's main office in Paris open early in 2007.
He has been a film judge at many film festivals, has won several awards, and has been involved in film conferences and workshops through out his career. (Ackerman bio continued on the right>>)

(Ackerman bio continued from right)
Ackerman produced Rock-it Box, the first feature in Super8 film to be transferred to "broadcast video" using the new digital transfer method in 1980. His multi-format experimental feature film, Zoo Liquid Prototype, 16mm Black & White, was premiered in New York in 1997. Recently Ackerman made a 16:9 - digital feature film, Hold True. He was President and then on the Board of Directors of the indepentent film distributor, the New American Cinema: "Film-Makers' Cooperative" of New York. He has worked with the Museum of Modern Art's (MoMA New York) Film Department (Film Study Center) archiving the New York Film-Makers' Coop's extensive Ackerman has been a senior consultant to the Digital Hollywood Conference for the past 16 years.
Ackerman has several productions in progress including a documentary about the Hip Hop world of the DJ called, From Waxx to Digital. He writes about film/video/digital/internet technology for Release Print magazine of the Film Arts Foundation, San Francisco, California. His professional film production studio is in the Chelsea art district of New York City. Ackerman will launch his Ackerman Image Archive (AIA) web site featuring his 40 + years of still and motion images that will give access to his archive to other filmmakers for use in their films.

Robert F. Nickson, was the Director of the Film Program Cannes "Intensive" Session during the 2006 session.
Robert Nickson is a producer of independent feature films and a founding partner of Orenda Films, an independent feature film production company engaged in production and global distribution of independent feature films. He has been credited as a producer or production controller on fourteen major theatrically released features in the last sixteen years. He has intimate knowledge of the legal and financial issues that are involved in feature film production, having produced and delivered films to the international marketplace. He has also served as a consultant on production issues, budgets, financing, guilds and unions, and legal affairs on projects ranging from low budget independents to studio level pictures. He has been a regular participant in international festivals and attended the Cannes Festival and market for over ten years. He has had films both in competition and selling in the market.

Nickson's credits include the films: Do the Right Thing, No Way Home, Curtain Call, Auf Weidersehen Amerika, Mo Better Blues, Search for One-eye Jimmy, Streetsmart, and eight other theatrical features. He has worked with many of the film industry's noted personalities including directors: Spike Lee and Peter Yates; actors: Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, Maggie Smith, Halle Barry and John Turturro; and the distinguished cinematographer Sven Nykvist.

Robert Nickson is currently teaching film production management and producing at the Graduate Film Program at New York University. Professor Nickson also frequently teaches international workshops on Independent Feature Production and the Global Marketplace that have been conducted at The National Film School of Italy at Cinecitta, Rome; The Eastern European Film Academy, Grozhjan, Croatia; the National Film School of Finland in Helsinki, and at Graduate Film Program of Ohio University. He has been an advisor to the development of producing curricula to the Groupment of European Film Schools as he brings considerable real world experience to his teaching activities. He was educated at Dartmouth and received his Masters of Fine Arts in film from NYU. He is currently based in New York City.

Patricia Freed Ackerman,
FPC Special Projects.
36 years of "award winning" filmmaking experience.
Filmmaker, Poet, Publisher, Printer, Achievest, Curator and member of the “Unbearables”
Founder , thin ice press
Member, International Library and Information Studies Honor Society
BA, Creative Writing, New College of California, San Francisco
M.A., Writing/Poetics, New College of Californian, San Francisco
M.S. LIS, Information and Library Science, Pratt Institute, New York, New York
Beta Phi Mu International Library Science Honor Society<<<<
Registration for 2008 is open.

The Program was founded in early 2002 by Ralph Ackerman a working film professional since 1963, in response to his understanding of the growing need to arm emerging filmmakers, film professionals, film students and migrating professionals from other fields such as law and finance with the essential skills to fund, acquire worldwide distribution and the marketing of independent films. Ackerman located a venue for attendees to lodge and attend the Master Intensive course in complete comfort just minutes from the center of Cannes right of the beach in a beautiful French campus of the College International de Cannes.

An International Program
Ackerman organized the Program to promote international cooperation. This is accomplished in the ways attendees are selected to attend and
in the ways the Program collaborates with other programs having similar goals.

The Film Program Cannes is a private professional training program for filmmakers by filmmakers and is not part of the
Official Cannes Film Festival or Film Market

Course and Market/Festival activities:
Central to the Program’s success and uniqueness is it provides its attendees the opportunity to experience a one-of-a-kind program of study, tailored to meet their individual professional or academic goals.
The courses facilitate "intensive" attendee participation, discussion and networking. The "Intensive" is a unique course directed at the use of film markets coupled with the learning of standard producing skills. The intensive course covers the fundamentals of film producing in addition there is useful insider information and assessment of current film market and technology trends in the production and distribution of films.

Master Course Modules include:
1) Understanding the Film Industry and Film Markets
2) Finding, Developing and Packaging for the Investment Market
3) Preparing the Financial of the Package, Contracts, Legal
4) The Producer's Functions During the Making of the Film
5) Completion & Delivery, Festivals and Marketing the Film

Working the Market
Attendees bring their film projects, scripts and funding needs and seek help from the Market and fellow attendees. Attendees are taught the most efficient manner to navigate this massive gathering (s.g. Cannes Film Market) to accomplish their personal and professional goals. The attendees also gain very important insights from fellow professional attendees through classroom discussions and Market assignments. This includes but is not limited to: co-production opportunities, distribution opportunities, and funding opportunities. Attendees also gain life long professional partnerships and friendships with fellow attendees and others attending the Market and Festival.
During this FPC 5th Anniversary year additional film markets/festivals are being added.

The Film Market places the attendee into the daily working of the world's largest and most important professional market/festivals. The Market's hugeness can be a very overwhelming experience with as many as9,476 accredited film professionals from 83 countries, 3,404 registered companies with 1,520 screenings in the 30 theatres of the Marché du Film and over 3,000 professional entertainment journalists attending from the Cannes Market.

Film Program Cannes Faculty:
The Film Program's faculty is renowned for their extraordinary teaching and film industry experience and shares that first hand knowledge with the students on a 24/7 basis during the attendees enrollment.

Ralph Ackerman, Founder &
Director Film Program Cannes (right called a filmmaker's filmmaker on camera on location 1969)
Ralph Ackerman is a champion of alternative-independent filmmaking. He teaches, holds workshops, writes on the subject, and develops new methods to gain its acceptance.
Prior to International Short Film Association the Film Program Cannes was his first film organization effort which marked his entry into the international film arena.

Ackerman made his first film in 1963 which was picked as a highlight of the Ann Arbor Film Festival and on the following year sent on a national tour with the other festival winners.
Recently he has added the new Short Film Corner of the Cannes Market with his latest two short films, Woodstock Festival Artist and A Loaded Gun. Upon his return from the 2nd Short Film Corner he founded the International Short Film Association to address the growing importance of the short film in the many new markets including portable viewing devices. During this 5th anniversity year the FPC and ISFA will be managed under a new dba as the International Film Association (IFA)with it's main office in Paris open early in 2007.
He has been a film judge at many film festivals, has won several awards, and has been involved in film conferences and workshops through out his career. (Ackerman bio continued on the right>>)