Michelle Kaffko
 
 

michelle kaffko

Producer of Marketing and Distribution

Michelle Kaffko is a Chicago-based marketing professional with several years of B2B, B2C, and entertainment marketing and promotional experience. With a background in leading the marketing departments of computer security and technology companies, Michelle uses her experience in business development to fuel her passion for independent filmmaking.

With independent film credits as director of photography and in the distribution departments, she works with fellow artists in promoting their work through consulting, education, and outreach.

She also owns her own photography studio in Chicago. www.michellekaffko.com


Michelle Kaffko's Favorite Films

Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) "This is the film that first got me into film.  After I saw 3 different prints and the 1984 Giorgio Moroder restored version, I was fascinated by how the story changed, the history behind how the film was made, and our need to preserve the film, restore it, and piece the story back together from all the missing pieces that were lost through the years.  So fascinated that I changed my degree from Cinematography to Cinema Studies and Theory as an undergrad."

Harlan County USA (1976)  "Barbara Kopple took a small crew and a 16mm camera to a coal mining town trying to unionize and slept on the floors of the miners' homes for months to get as close to the story as possible- this film is the absolute benchmark for documentary films in my opinion.  I love how the story is pieced together as if the film had been born instead of edited- it unfolds as such a pure narrative that you can really feel like you're right there with the miners in their struggle, and you as a viewer become the camera, just watching everything happen."

Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)  "This is the 'perfect' film in a way... The story is suspenseful and engaging and the characters are intense, well-rounded, and grow.  (And when I first saw it as a kid, I wasn't just afraid of sharks in oceans like everyone else who saw the film... I was actually afraid of a shark biting my legs under my desk at school.)  It was also the first film to open nationally in hundreds of theatres simultaneously as part of a large, carefully orchestrated marketing plan: it was the first blockbuster film and really created a new mold for theatrical distribution."