Angle on Producers with Carolina Groppa

In this solo episode, I get candid. I open up about losing my father in January, what grief looks like when you can't afford to stop moving, and the complicated truth about showing up anyway — to the meeting, to the festival, to the mic.
I also dig into eight listener questions from the year-end survey, covering: how I select guests, whether I'm still producing, how independent producers can find financing outside traditional models, tips for batching scenes on a micro-budget shoot, how to pitch yourself for freelance producing opportunities, where to actually network, how to work festivals like Sundance and SXSW, and how to define and achieve your goals in a season of uncertainty.
Raw, practical, and very real...
Thanks for doing this life thing with me!

Pam Carbonero is a seasoned Latina director, producer, writer, and first AD with 15-plus short films, a 12-episode mini-series, and a one-and-a-half hour vertical series under her belt.
When she's not directing, she's working full-time as a first AD across features, commercials, music videos, you name it. And she is a proud anti-gatekeeper. 
But the thing I really wanted to bring her on to talk about is what she built from scratch out of pure necessity: the LA Director's Lab. In 2021, she had an idea for a space where directors could simply practice their craft. She started small: six directors, eight actors, a friend's bar, iPhones, zero professional gear. That was all she needed.
Today, LADL has grown into full two-day workshops with DPs, professional crews, screening days — and most recently, she executive produced five horror short films in three and a half weeks with her community of artists.
Tune in as we discuss mental health, doing the reps, and what makes an exceptional 1st AD.

Marina Stabile is a Brazilian-born, Swiss-raised producer and line producer with over 20 years of experience in film, documentaries, commercials, and digital content. She is also one of my favorite humans and I'm lucky I get to call her a friend.
She grew up in São Paulo, moved to Geneva at 10, attended an international school with 118 nationalities, and knew she wanted to produce after watching the Irving Thalberg Award presented at 3 a.m. on an Oscar broadcast. She studied film and international relations at USC, produced documentaries for the United Nations in Geneva, and returned to the U.S. to earn her MFA in producing at AFI, where her thesis film The Response won a Student BAFTA.
Marina's credits span indie and studio, including Miguel Arteta's Beatriz at Dinner starring Salma Hayek, the Sundance Grand Jury Prize–winning Clemency starring Alfre Woodard, Harrison Ford's The Call of the Wild (as VFX supervisor), Searchlight's Hold Your Breath starring Sarah Paulson, The People We Hate at the Wedding, and the pandemic-shot Untitled Horror Movie alongside fellow producer Bronwyn Cornelius.
Most recently, she produced Josephine — written and directed by Beth de Araújo and starring Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan — which won both the U.S. Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival before being acquired by Sumerian Pictures in a competitive seven-figure deal. The film went on to screen in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival.
In this conversation, we explore how culture impacts your craft, define once and for all what line producers really do, why the best career moves sometimes look like steps backward, and whether Los Angeles is still a special place to make movies.
Enjoy!!
CG

*Brought to you in partnership with GreenSlate*
Bucket list moment unlocked! 🎬 Our first-ever live episode from Sundance is here. I sat down with producer Gary Foster to talk about the seven-year journey of bringing "Bedford Park" to the screen—a deeply personal Korean-American story that almost didn't get made. We tackle: 
How Gary met director Stephanie Ahn 12 years ago when she was an assistant editor, and why he championed her debut feature for seven years
The unconventional move that landed Hyundai as the first major investor with $1 million 
That terrifying moment when he started production without full financing
How changing a key character from Caucasian to Korean-American transformed the entire film
What being a "career producer" actually means
If you've ever wondered what it really takes to get an indie film made in today's landscape: the persistence, the creative partnerships, the calculated risks....this conversation is for you.
xx CG
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Ever wondered how festival programmers decide which films make the cut? For our first episode of 2026, I'm joined by two incredible women who've been shaping the landscape of independent cinema for over a decade.
Ana Souza has been with Sundance Film Festival for 10 years, working alongside some of the most exciting independent filmmakers in the world. Diana Cadavid is currently Director of Industry Programs for the Latino Film Institute (LFI) in Los Angeles, and International Programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) She helped build IFF Panama's programming department from scratch.
In this conversation, we break down:
→ The REAL selection process (spoiler: it's not about who you know)
→ How to map your premiere status strategy BEFORE you finish your film
→ The big film/small film balance that keeps festivals alive (and why you should stop resenting those studio movies)
→ Distribution in the post-COVID era: why the all-night bidding wars are gone, but deals are still happening
→ Why attending festivals WITHOUT a film might be the smartest career move you can make
🔗 READ MY SUBSTACK - The History of Film Festivals: [https://angleonproducers.substack.com/]
🎙️ LISTEN TO THE SHOW
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6UBux9R...
iTunes: https://apple.co/3FDyhmC
JOIN THE AOP COMMUNITY   / carolinagroppa   |   / angleonproducers   📱 TikTok: /   / carolina_groppa   👩🏻‍💻 LinkedIn: / bit.ly/2BqHs8L