Movie Competition Alliance (FFA), the consortium that represents over 300 movie festivals from the world over, has appointed a brand new govt director, Mallory Martin, who was most lately the creative director for the Cleveland Worldwide Movie Competition, IndieWire can reveal solely.
Martin was chosen amongst a pool of 250 candidates, and he or she succeeds Barbara Twist within the positionwho exited Movie Competition Alliance as of January 9 after being elevated to the position in 2022. Grey Rodriguez, at the moment the director of member engagement for the FFA, has been its interim director.
Martin has over 15 years of movie pageant management expertise and sector advocacy, and he or she’s additionally the co-founder of rePRO Movie, a movie group that focuses on reproductive justice and rights. She served as creative director for the Cleveland Worldwide Movie Competition between 2020 to 2025, serving to the group’s pandemic restoration, overseeing a transition within the pageant’s venue, securing sponsorships, grants, and donations, and constructing out a programming slate of round 300 screenings yearly. Martin additionally labored because the director of programming and projection on the Cleveland movie pageant earlier than being elevated into the Creative Director position.
“Mallory Martin is a pacesetter who embodies the spirit and goal of Movie Competition Alliance. She is deeply revered throughout the pageant neighborhood, understands each the creative and operational realities our members face, and shares FFA’s perception that collaboration and advocacy are important to the way forward for impartial exhibition. We’re assured she might be a unifying and strategic chief for our membership and for the sphere. We’re thrilled to welcome her as FFA’s subsequent Government Director,” mentioned Karen Cardarelli, Board President for the Movie Competition Alliance.
“I’m actually honored and energized to step into the position of Government Director of Movie Competition Alliance at such a transformative time for our discipline. Festivals are on the coronary heart of the impartial movie ecosystem, and collectively, we will guarantee they thrive on this dynamic panorama. My imaginative and prescient is to make sure each member pageant, irrespective of its measurement, is aware of that FFA is indispensable to their success: a house base for advocacy, schooling, and significant connection. I’m excited to pay attention, to interact straight with our membership, and to construct on the robust basis already in place in order that collectively we will amplify our collective voice and strengthen the sphere all of us care a lot about. Movie festivals carry us collectively via story; Movie Competition Alliance brings collectively the individuals who make that doable, and I’m honored to steer this neighborhood,” Martin mentioned in a press release.
Martin’s group rePROwhich she co-founded in 2020, helps movies and filmmakers that commemorate bodily autonomy. It started as a digital movie pageant and in 2022 launched a e-newsletter referred to as The Periodical that curates a brief movie, a podcast interview, information, and extra.
Martin has participated in juries and panels at occasions together with the Unbiased Movie Exhibition Convention, The Gotham Week, New Orleans Movie Competition, Milwaukee Movie Competition, Denver Movie Competition, Heartland Worldwide Movie Competition, and extra, and was named to The Cleveland 500’s Management in Motion listing in 2024.
Martin will formally be part of Movie Competition Alliance as govt director on March 9, 2026.
Movie Competition Alliance together with Artwork Home Convergence yearly places on its Movie Exhibition Convention, which IndieWire helped announce the launch of again in 2023. The occasion takes place in Chicago between June 22-25 and is a convention that offers exhibitors the assets they should successfully platform impartial movie.