Enjoy a virtual meeting via Zoom with Partner and Head of the Independent Film Group, Rena Ronson, of UTA to learn the ins and outs of financing, packaging and selling independent films. Ronson will share insights into analyzing scripts, filmmaker/talent packages, budget & finance options, festival and sales strategies, evolving market conditions, and new distribution models.
Rena Ronson heads the Independent Film Group and is a partner at leading global talent and entertainment company United Talent Agency. One of the industry’s pre-eminent packaging and finance executives, Ronson specializes in global film finance, distribution and marketing strategies for independent and co-financed features, helping the world’s most acclaimed independent filmmakers see their work reach global audiences.
Ronson oversees a group of agents known for packaging and representing many high-profile and critically-praised independently financed films from a diverse range of American and international filmmakers, including Greta Gerwig, Asghar Farhadi, Wes Anderson, Michael Showalter, Judd Apatow, Marielle Heller, Haifaa Al-Mansour, Noah Baumbach, James Ponsoldt and Mike White, to name a few.
Most recently, Ronson played an integral role in the 2018 Academy Award nominated films I, Tonya, Call Me By Your Name and Lady Bird, as well as Bryan Fogel’s Oscar-winning documentary ICARUS. Throughout her career, Ronson has been involved in numerous productions and co-productions, packaging, structuring financing and selling hit films, including the Apatow production The Big Sick, Craig Gillespie’s I, Tonya, Amy Schumer’s I Feel Pretty and Ted Melfi’s Hidden Figures.
She also helped structure the intricate UK/Irish/Canadian co-production financing and packaging of the 2016 Academy Award nominated film Room and secured the first-ever co-production between Germany and Saudi Arabia for Al-Mansour’s 2013 film Wadjda. Ronson also is known for working with acclaimed filmmakers on their directorial debuts, including Greta Gerwig’s Ladybird, Don Cheadle’s Miles Ahead, Marielle Heller’s Diary of a Teenage Girl, Jill Soloway’s, Afternoon Delight and Jonas Cuaron’s Desierto, among others.
Prior to joining UTA in 2009, Ronson co-headed William Morris Independent, where she helped create the first global film finance division at a major talent agency. Before becoming an agent, Ronson was a veteran sales and distribution executive, having run Lakeshore International, a division of Lakeshore Entertainment, which she helped establish after leading its acquisition of the TransAtlantic Film library, where she had previously worked.
Ronson is a perennial fixture on annual lists of the top women in filmmaking, including The Hollywood Reporter’s Women in Entertainment Power 100 and Variety’s Women’s Impact. She proudly serves on the board of directors of Women in Film and as an ambassador for its Reframe initiative. Ronson also is deeply involved in the Time’s Up movement that aims to elevate and empower women in the entertainment industry. In 2006, Ronson received “The Independent Hero Award” from the Creative Coalition and in 2008 was honored by WIF with its “Business Leadership Award.”