As part of the ongoing Discover America Week 2016 in Doha, two award-winning directors are coming to town for a lecture on filmmaking at the Virginia Commonwealth University-Qatar (VCU-Q).
Award-winning documentary filmmaker Michael Rossato-Bennett and acclaimed film producer Alix Madigan-Yorkin will talk about their passion, achievements, journey thus far and inspirations at the lecture to be held on February 21 at VCU-Q Atrium during the lunch break at 12.  The session will be moderated by Assistant Professor at VCU-Q Jesse Ulmer.
“The two speakers will talk about their careers, sharing their inspirations and experiences with the audience,” Isabelle St-Louis, Manager of Exhibitions and Lectures at VCU-Q told Community. It is an open-for-all lecture session, followed by a question-and-answer session with the speakers.  
At present, Michael Rossato-Bennett’s production company is working on four documentaries. His film Alive Inside: A Story of Music and Memory is a 2014 documentary film that premiered in competition category of US Documentary Competition programme at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.
It won the Audience Award: US Documentary at the festival. The film deals with the subject of people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and how music therapy can help and ease their suffering
Alive Inside looks at the lack of music in nursing homes and asks questions about how we care for elders. This film will be available to screen as part of his programming of the Discover America Week.
Documentary and through film, Rossato-Bennett strives to incite conversations that interrogate issues related to cultural consciousness.
In addition to Alive Inside, his first feature length documentary offering, Rossato-Bennett has several documentaries in various stages of development, through his production company, Projector Media. Each of those projects is inspired by Rossato-Bennett’s dedication to the collective well-being of society and progressive human change towards the greater good.
Alix Madigan-Yorkin produced Winter’s Bone, directed by Debra Granik and starring Jennifer Lawrence, which was the winner of the Grand Jury Prize for best dramatic feature at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010.
The film tells the story of an unflinching Ozark Mountain girl that hacks through dangerous social terrain as she hunts down her drug-dealing father while trying to keep her family intact. Written by Granik, the film stars Jennifer Lawrence as a teenaged girl in the rural Ozarks of the central United States who, to protect her family from eviction, must locate her missing father.
The film explores the interrelated themes of close and distant family ties, the power and speed of gossip, self-sufficiency, and poverty as they are changed by the pervasive underworld of illegal methamphetamine labs.
Winter’s Bone won several awards, including the Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic Film at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. It also received four 2011 Academy Award nominations: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor.
The film also won The Gotham Award for Best Picture and won two Independent Spirit Awards. Currently, Alix is a staff producer for Anonymous Content, a multimedia company based in Los Angeles.
Discover America Week 2016 is an annual series of events celebrating the US-Qatar partnership. Currently underway, until February 22, this joint effort between the Embassy of the United States and the American Chamber of Commerce in Qatar will highlight American business and innovation, travel, food, music, fashion, art, education and culture.
The week-long series of events will offer information on investing in the United States, revive nostalgic memories about the pop legend Elvis Presley, showcase authentic US arts and fashion, encourage travel and education in the United States and highlight American brands in Qatar.