Independent Lens Executive Producer Lois Vossen Selected as Documentary Chairperson for the Magnolia Awards at the 22nd Shanghai TV Festival, June 6-10, 2016
(San Francisco, CA) — Independent Lens Executive Producer Lois Vossen has been named the Chairperson for Documentaries for the Magnolia Awards, the world’s leading international TV competition, bestowed by the Shanghai TV Festival in China. The 22nd Shanghai TV Festival will take place from June 6 to 10, 2016. Magnolia Awards are given in four categories: drama, documentaries, animation and variety shows. Other jurors include renowned Chinese actor Zhang Guoli and Serbian screenwriter and critic Bozidar Zecevic.
“I’m honored to have been selected to be the documentary chairperson for the Festival’s Magnolia Awards,” said Lois Vossen. “Independent Lens has a long tradition of presenting international documentaries and I’m looking forward to seeing new work of filmmakers from around the world. This will also be a unique opportunity to meet with my international colleagues — producers, executives, curators and others — who are dedicated to taking television to the next level.”
As executive producer of Independent Lens, Vossen is responsible for commissioning new work, curating the series, and working closely with ITVS and Independent Lens-funded filmmakers to provide creative feedback and editorial support related to broadcast standards. Independent Lens films have received ten News & Documentary Emmy Awards, two Primetime Emmys, 15 George Foster Peabody Awards, five Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Journalism Awards, and seven Academy Award nominations, and is the 2015 winner of the IDA Award for Best Continuing Series — its third consecutive win. Previously, Vossen was Associate Managing Director of the Sundance Film Festival and Sundance Labs. She serves on the Documentary Peer Panel for the Television Academy, and has been a juror at SXSW, DOC New Zealand, Toronto International, New Orleans, and Palm Springs International film festivals, among others.
About Independent Lens
Independent Lens is an Emmy® Award-winning weekly series airing on PBS Monday nights at 10pm. The acclaimed series features documentaries united by the creative freedom, artistic achievement, and unflinching visions of independent filmmakers. Presented by Independent Television Service, the series is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people, with additional funding from PBS and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. For more visit pbs.org/independentlens. Join the conversation: facebook.com/independentlens and on Twitter @IndependentLens.
About the Shanghai TV Festival
The Shanghai TV Festival (www.stvf.com) began in 1986 and consists of a number of different main activities, including awards, markets and forums highlighting professionalism, internationalism, and foresight. The festival is intended to vigorously promote the core values of socialism, actively boost the development of the film and TV industry from a forward-looking perspective and innovate the way of holding the festival; with its foothold in the leading place of the world's film and TV industry, by sticking to the rhythm of evolution of product innovation, service innovation, and mechanism innovation, and gathering quality resources and industry elites, the festival sparks discussions on heated topics, solves the industry’s perplexity, and leads the industry to upgrade; and, dedicated to the innovative and international development of Chinese television, it helps to bring Chinese TV programs abroad in order to make the festival the highest-level summit of the Chinese TV industry.