Film Mentors: Funding - Holly Herrick

Holly Herrick joined the Austin Film Society in 2012 as Associate Artistic Director, overseeing the organization’s celebrated Artist Services and Programming departments. Prior to joining AFS, she served as Deputy Program Director at the Hamptons International Film Festival in New York, where in addition to film programming, she produced the festival’s signature artistic events. Concurrently with her Hamptons work, Holly served as Director of Programming at the Sarasota Film Festival in Florida, and also programmed an edition of the Newport International Film Festival in Newport, Rhode Island. Through her work in festival programming, Holly developed a passion for talent discovery while fostering her deep appreciation for daring, ambitious filmmaking in narrative, documentary and experimental forms. Also during her time in Sarasota, she established a partnership between the festival and Women Make Movies. Together, the organizations produced a symposium for the mentorship and promotion of women filmmakers, which continues to take place there. Holly collaborates with her writer/director husband, Michael Tully, on his films. In 2011, she associate produced his narrative feature SEPTIEN, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and in Austin at SxSW, and was distributed by IFC/Sundance Selects. She co-produced Tully’s upcoming narrative feature, PING PONG SUMMER. Prior to her career in film, Holly studied at New College of Florida, the honors college of the Florida state university system. She researched her undergraduate thesis on Senegalese filmmaker Safi Faye at the African Cinemathèque in Paris, while continuing her literature and cinema studies at the Sorbonne Nouvelle. Holly continues to write about films. Her writing has appeared on the Resources Blog of the Independent Feature Project , the editorial film website Hammer To Nail, and on IndieWire.