First, to introduce myself: I’m Kate Barker-Froyland, a Brooklyn-based writer/director. For the past several years I’ve been making short films and music videos. My new project in development is called Song One, a narrative feature I wrote about music and falling in love. The movie’s set in New York, and it’ll be my first feature.

I was really excited when I found out I’d be a part of the first year of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s/IFP’s Emerging Visions program, happening all day tomorrow. Each of us (25 filmmakers) has been paired up with a mentor who we’ll be working with during the day, and the idea is for them to guide us afterwards as we pursue our long-term projects and continue on in our filmmaking lives. I’ll be working with Lisa Cortes, executive producer of Precious. Can’t wait to meet her and am looking forward to hearing her perspective on the project, especially because of her experience working in the music industry. My film is all about music and its power to connect people — a ‘music movie’ you could call it — and one of the main characters is a singer/songwriter.

When my short film Match, played at New Directors/New Films this year, it was an amazing experience for me. Just seeing the film screened at MoMA and the Walter Reade Theater with audiences (and where I’ve seen so many movies growing up) was seriously like a dream. One of the things I loved the most about New Directors/New Films was that it wasn’t just about a couple of screenings, but more about being a part of an ongoing community. I met countless passionate and inspiring filmmakers and have kept in touch with some of them. One of them, also a writer/director, will be in this program too (he just finished editing his first feature last week!). I feel like that’s the approach to Emerging Visions also — that it’ll be more of a long-term focus of the program to guide us as filmmakers as we go forward with our projects and careers. Such a cool thing at this stage of development.

The day of activities tomorrow promises to be an inspiring and unique one for sure. With the New York Film Festival in full swing, it’s also a great time for independent filmmakers to come together in a setting like this. Can’t wait to meet the other filmmakers and mentors tomorrow and to see some old and new friends.

That’s it for now! Till tomorrow…