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International Advisory Board

Irish film director Jim Sheridan (left) chats with Dave Poland of BIFF's International Advisory Board at BIFF 2005.

The Festival’s International Advisory Board (IAB) was set up in 2001. IAB members are based in several of the world’s major film centres – Los Angeles, New York, London, Toronto – and provide general guidance regarding the strategic positioning of BIFF. They act as ambassadors for BIFF as they travel the world to other festivals, and assist in the development of our film programme by providing, or soliciting, top quality independent films for the festival line-up. They also recommend, and solicit, new IAB members.






International Advisory Board Members

Tom Bernard


Mr. Bernard runs Sony Pictures Classics with partners Michael Barker and Marcie Bloom. An autonomous company within Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Pictures Classics was founded in 1992 to distribute, produce and acquire independent films from the United States and around the world. Mr. Bernard formerly served as an executive at Orion Classics and United Artists Classics.


David Poland


Mr. Poland is co-founder, editor-in-chief and publisher of MovieCityNews.com, a movie industry archive that features many of the leading voices in the film industry. He is the author of the widely read, daily entertainment industry column, The Hot Button, and is a former director of the Miami International Film Festival. He has attended BIFF every year since 2000.


Nick Roddick



Nick Roddick taught film and theatre at universities in the UK, Ireland and the USA before becoming a journalist in the early eighties. After a stint with Stills Magazine in London he was editor of Cinema Papers in Australia from 1985-6, followed by a decade as a trade journalist as Editor of Screen International, then Moving Pictures International. He is the author of several books and currently runs Brighton-based Split Screen. He contributes regularly to Sight & Sound and the Evening Standard; is currently building Film File Europe, a pan-European database; and consults for a number of international film festivals.


Alison Swan



Alison Swan first caught the film bug while studying cinema at university in Paris. She returned to Bates College in Maine where she directed a documentary about a mill strike that was used by the workers to lobby for their cause. In 1995, she received an MFA in Film from New York University where she completed four shorts and was awarded the Spike Lee Fellowship. She wrote and directed the feature film, "Mixing Nia", which won top prizes at The Houston International Film Festival, The Acapulco Black Film Festival and at BIFF and was bought by HBO. She has directed television for Nickelodeon, and written screenplays for Twentieth Century Fox and Showtime.