Panel Discussion: Save That Movie! Film Restoration in Action—with Industry Professionals

Sunday, May. 18 2025, 11:00

• Ben Model is one of the nation’s leading silent film accompanists, performing on both piano and theatre organ. For more than 40 years, he has created and performed several hundred live scores for silent films on piano and theatre organ. Ben is a resident film accompanist at the Museum of Modern Art (NY) and at the Library of Congress’ Packard Campus Theatre. His recorded scores can be heard on numerous DVD/Blu-Ray releases from Kino Lorber, Milestone and his own label Undercrank Productions, as well as on Turner Classic Movies. Ben’s Undercrank Productions has released many rare undiscovered gems of the silent era, including films starring Marcel Perez, Alice Howell, Baby Peggy and Marion Davies that have been out of circulation since the 1920s, as part of a co-branding arrangement with the Library of Congress. Ben is a regular accompanist at classic film festivals around the U.S.A. and internationally, and he performs at universities, museums and historic theaters. He is also the producer and co-founder of The Silent Clowns Film Series, now celebrating it its 26th season in NYC.
• Deborah Shaffer is an Academy Award winning filmmaker who began making social issue documentaries as a member of the Newsreel collective the ‘70’s. She co-founded Pandora Films, one of the first woman’s film companies, which produced several shorts. Her first feature documentary, The Wobblies, premiered at the prestigious New York Film Festival in 1979. During the 80’s Shaffer focused on human rights in Central America and Latin America, directing many films including:  Witness to War: Dr. Charlie Clements, which won the Academy Award for Short Documentary in 1985, and Fire from the Mountain and Dance of Hope, which played at the Sundance Film Festival. Shaffer directed one of the first post-September 11 films, From the Ashes: 10 Artists followed by From the Ashes: Epilogue, which premiered at the Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals. Her most recent film, Queen of Hearts: Audrey Flack (2019), won the Audience Award and Best Documentary at the Hamptons Documentary Film Festival. She is also the Executive Producer of the Academy Award-nominated short, Asylum, and has directed numerous acclaimed public television programs on women and the arts. She directed and produced To be Heard, which won awards at numerous festivals and aired nationwide on PBS. She has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Irene Diamond Lifetime Achievement Award by the Human Rights Watch Film Festival. As a Steering Committee member of the Women’s Film Preservation Fund, Deborah has shepherded a variety preservation projects from grant application phase to completion.
• Dennis Doros co-founded Milestone Films in 1990 with his wife Amy Heller. Working with film archives and labs around the world, they have restored and distributed independent films, including works by Charles Burnett, Billy Woodberry, Kathleen Collins, Ayoka Chenzira, David Hockney, Kent Mackenzie, Eleanor Antin, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. For the last fourteen years, he has been a consultant to Turner Classic Movies. Dennis and Amy have won numerous awards for their ongoing restoration work. In 2022, Dennis and Amy helped co-found Missing Movies, an organization to help filmmakers clear their lost rights and find their original materials.
• Amy Heller co-founded Milestone Films with her husband Dennis Doros. In 1990, Heller and Doros married and started Milestone in their one-bedroom Manhattan apartment. For the last 24 years they have run the company from their New Jersey home. Milestone is committed to rediscovering and restoring lost, overlooked, and under-appreciated films, with a focus on those made by and about women, African Americans, and members of the LGBTQ+ community. The company has received awards from the National Society of Film Critics, the International Film Seminars, the New York Film Critics Circle, the Fort Lee Film Commission, Anthology Film Archive, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Ashland Film Festival, the Denver Silent Film Festival, the Ambler Theater, and the Art House Convergence. Since 2021, Milestone has partnered with Kino Lorber for the distribution of its library.
• Since joining IndieCollect in 2019, Cameron Haffner has supervised 4K restorations of over fifty films and helped launch the company’s inaugural festival, RescueFest, in 2024. His career spans multiple corners of the independent film world—from post-production at Part 2 Pictures and distribution at Zeitgeist Films, to exhibition at New York City’s Film Forum. Cameron has contributed to film festivals such as the New York Film Festival, Tribeca Festival, and Naples International Film Festival, and currently serves on screening committees for Rooftop Films and the Hamptons International Film Festival. At IndieCollect, he oversees development, digitization, and digital delivery, embracing emerging technologies while supporting the sacred theatrical arthouse experience.

Tickets: $20 (members), $25 (nonmembers)

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