The Nashville Film Festival has announced the program for the 2024 Creators Conference, including panels with film industry professionals and a pitch competition.

The 55th annual Nashville Film Festival takes place from Sept. 19-25 in Nashville, Tennessee. The Creators Conference will take place from the 20-22 at Hilton Green Hills and Soho House.

The three-day Creators Conference is designed to connected filmmakers with industry professionals through panels on industry trends and cultural topics in film and music. This year’s panels will focus on film, screenwriting, and scoring.

The lineup of panelists and moderators includes: Este Haim, Nick Barnes, Steve Barnett, Emily Best, Amanda Burnett, Amanda Culcowski, Dave DeBorde, Rebecca Fons, Alexandra Fredericks, Kelly Frey, Matthew Henderson, Alison Abbey Hudak, Henry Jones, Mariah Kramer, Tracie Laymon, Brian Loschiavo, Bob Rains, Annalisa Shoemaker, Brock Starnes, Ryan Whitaker and Rachel Wolther.

Featured panels include Crafting Compelling Narratives: The Intersection of Screenwriting and Agent Representation, a panel discussing the importance of agents and what they look for when signing writers for representation; Breaking Though: Strategies for Indie Film Distribution Success, a discussion on the intricacies of distributing films to audiences and strategies for marketing; and The Magic of Music in Cinema, a dive into music in film with music publisher Anastasia Brown and music supervisors Julianne Jordan and Julia Michels.

These are in addition to the previously announced panel, In Conversation With Este Haim: Composing Music for Film and Television.

Also Read: Nashville Film Festival 2024 Slate Features Will Ferrell’s Will & Harper

Nashville Film Festival Creators Conference Also Includes Pitch Competition

The crowd at a previous Nashville Film Festival event

The Creators Conference also includes a pitch competition in which 10 finalists will be able to pitch their episodic or feature ideas to an industry panel at the 2024 Nashville Film Festival Pitch Event held on Saturday, Sept. 21, from 1-4 pm at the Hilton Green Hills. There, the pitchers will get live feedback and tips on their pitches. One winner will be selected from episodic and one from feature.

“The NashFilm 2024 Creators Conference program promises an in-depth dive into important industry topics, designed to elevate and inspire creatives at all levels,” said Jason Padgitt, Executive Director of the Nashville Film Festival. “We are proud to present these dynamic, engaging conversations and are grateful for the invaluable contributions of an incredible lineup of filmmakers and industry leaders.”

Creators Conference events are open to the public. Individual tickets, VIP badges, and Creators Conference Badges for festival attendees are available here, along with the full schedule.

The full lineup for the Nashville Film Festival was announced last week, including Netflix’s Will & Harper documentary starring Will Ferrell and Harper Steele.

Will & Harper follows Ferrell and his close friend and former SNL writer, Harper Steele, who recently came out as a trans woman, as they take a road trip to process this new stage in their friendship and reintroduce Harper to the country she loves as her authentic self. The film was directed by Josh Greenbaum. It first premiered at Sundance this past January and was later acquired by Netflix. 

Following the previously announced opening night double-feature of Devo and Rebel Country and the closing night film This Is a Film About the Black Keys, the newly announced films on the lineup also include the stop-motion film Memoir of a Snail, Bob Trevino Likes It, and To a Land Unknown.

Another highlight of the lineup is The Last of the Sea Women, a documentary produced by A24 and Malala Yousafzai through her production company Extracurricular. It follows an extraordinary band of feisty grandmother warriors as they wage a spirited battle against vast oceanic threats.

Main Image: A previous Nashville Film Festival panel, courtesy of NashFilm.