Experts & Tutors

Thierry is founder and CEO of peacefulfish. He offers 15 years experience in the communication and entertainment industry, bringing together a strong business consulting background, a very good understanding of the content industry worldwide, and a passion for innovative creative projects. At peacefulfish, Thierry is in charge of business development and is Project Director of many of the company's training activities, studies, business & strategy plans.

After graduating in Paris, he worked in London as a business consultant for mainly entertainment and telecom operators, then in France and Germany in Business Development for Vivendi and for ARTE (Franco-German TV station) in Strasbourg. He then completed an MBA at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy and at UCLA in Los Angeles, where he specialized in film financing and e-commerce. Following this, he worked on film projects in the USA with Mandalay Entertainment before becoming Head of Strategic Development for Studio Babelsberg in Potsdam, near Berlin.

Juliane is Senior Partner and Consultant at peacefulfish, specialising in creating fund models and innovative financial instruments for the film and content industry. She is dedicated to developing strategies to support the European film and media industry. In the past 15 years she has been working in film financing, business consultancy for film production companies, strategic advisory for funding institutions and media regulatory authorities and for digital platforms.

She worked on projects of the IST Programme of the European Union and developed several international positioning strategies for countries and regions e.g. in Asia, Europe, and in the United Arab Emirates.

She is part of the expert team of the Mediatech Investment Forum, co-organised several Investor Pitches at International Film Festivals and at the Co-Pilot program in Barcelona. She co-organised the international film finance conference series Global Film Finance in Berlin and Cannes. Juliane previously co-founded a marketing agency specialised in film promotion (now part of ABC EuroRSCG). She was head of programming at Europe’s first internet TV channel. She has a strong background in independent film production in Germany and the US and co-authored numerous film scripts.

She supports the business development of the company and is Project Director and Senior Consultant in many peacefulfish film and content projects, studies, regional advisories, and business training events. She is expert of the Creative Coaching Centre in Berlin, lectures on Cross-Media Content Production and Financing at the Media Business School in Spain and is a frequent speaker at various international film festivals and business summits.

Thomas Gardiner joined The TFF Group in 2010 and is a financer with over 22 years experience in the audiovisual sector. He has been involved in the financing of over 500 films and television programmes, ranging from large US studio structured finance and revolving credit facilities for independent film companies to single picture finance for UK films and European co-productions. The films range across all budget sizes and genres and include titles such as; "Disturbia", "The Good Shepherd", "Che", "Golden Bowl" and "Girl with a Pearl Earring".

Thomas was Deputy Global Head of Societe Generale Media and Entertainment Team based in New York before returning to the UK where he has been working with a range of financiers prior to joining TFF Group and now heads up the Structured Finance Division. Thomas oversees all aspects of credit evaluation, for both film and television production and distribution. In addition to his other responsibilities Thomas is also the COO for the Group.

Neil Gillard advises film producers such as Qwerty Films and Bedlam Productions (producers of "The Kings Speech"). Neil also advises TV production companies such as Carnival (producers of Downton Abbey) and animation companies such as Red Kite. Neil advises games giant Ubisoft, broadcasters such as BT Vision and advertising agencies such as Bartle Bogle and Hegarty on television production issues. Neil co-heads the firm's media finance practice with David Quli, advising a range of banks and funds, including Coutts & Co.

Neil's recent work includes advising:
•   Goldcrest on its financing of the film "The Iron Lady", starring Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher •   Lovefilm on a complex co-operation and revenue sharing transaction, relating to certain video on demand services •   NBC Universal on its financing and production of the television programme "Page Eight" starring Bill Nighy and written by David Hare •   Coutts on its financing of a number of film and television financing transactions, including the film "Welcome to the Punch" •   BskyB on its standard commissioning agreement terms and conditions

Phil is Co-Managing Director of Bankside Films, an international film distribution company as well as the founder and Managing Director of Head Gear Films, and Stargate - both film investment companies.

He provides finance for producers as well as executive producing and international distribution. In the past five years Phil has invested in over $250m of production in more than 50 films.

Other aspects to his career include being a BAFTA voting member; mentor to National Film and Television producing students; regular speaker on the industry circuit; and founder/festival director of the British Film Festival of Kurdistan, Iraq (www.bffk.net).

Phil began producing feature films in the mid 90's with micro budgets that occasionally found more than a micro audience. Prior to the film business, Phil was an advertising and music photographer and sporadically still dusts off his Hasselblad.

Pablo Carrera has recently set up two production companies in the UK, one of which has received Seed EIS advance assurance and is currently fundraising. Alongside this, Pablo currently provides freelance consultancy services to two European companies in the areas of film production and business development. Prior to this, he worked at Future Films/Taurus Asset Finance for over 4 years; first in the Production department, where he looked after the financing of independently produced films, and then at the Structure Finance division, where he was involved in both film and non-film related investments including EIS and the Spanish film tax incentive. Pablo's previous experience lies in both the film and TV space in Spain (where he produced several short films) and France.

Amanda Pyne has worked in the film industry for over 15 years. Specialising in production finance, maximizing recoupment, and managing distribution audits she has worked on hundreds of films including Oscar winners The King's Speech, Brokeback Mountain and Man On Wire. Amanda joined UK Film Council in 2005 and now works part time at the BFI in Production Finance. Her role includes analyzing new production investments liaising with producers, co financiers, broadcasters, sales agents and distributors throughout the life of the film from pre production to distribution. BFI has a portfolio of over 1,000 film investments.

Through her company AP Media, Amanda has been managing worldwide recoupment income and distribution audits for the producers of The King's Speech as well as short term projects for Film Four, Ruby Films and Arts Alliance Media amongst others. She is Freeway Entertainment Group's UK representative.

Amanda began her career at PolyGram as Head Of International Royalty Income, continuing at Universal and Focus Features. Before she was at Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group.