Film Distribution & Marketing

There Are Two Types Of Filmmakers – Shaked Berenson

Filmcourage

Published

March 7, 2026

[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]

Film Courage: Can you talk about the difference between an entrepreneur filmmaker and a work for hire filmmaker?

Shaked Berenson, Producer/Filmmaker: It’s funny Jonathan Wolf used to run the American Film Market [AFM] for about three decades.

He was always saying that there are two types of producers, right?

There is the producer that comes from distribution and they make content because they need it for distribution.

Then they have the people that make movies because they want to make movies and then they need to find distribution.

Usually the former do better than the latter, right?

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In terms of the entrepreneur producer, it’s something of a dying breed.

We used to do that.

That’s how the industry works is that you gather five, six, ten million (whatever it is) you make a film and then you go to Cannes and you take it to market and you sell territory-by-territory and you make your profit like that.

Since a lot of the foreign markets kind of died with the death of the DVD that model is…(Watch the video interview on YouTube here).

About:

Shaked Berenson has marketed, sold, and released over 1,000 films and television series. As a Board Member at the Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA™) and a public speaker, Shaked has been a vocal advocate for independent filmmakers and for shortening the content distribution supply chain.

Shaked started his career as a coder, paying for his UCLA education by designing database architecture and running several e-commerce sites. His rare background in both tech and the film business allowed him to bridge creativity and analytics and design a tool that truly leverages both.