Chloe Gbai is the Director for the IF/Then Shorts program. Through a competitive process, IF/Then Shorts identifies and supports original, standalone short documentaries by filmmakers working regionally and representing their communities. In an effort to discover and empower underrepresented voices, each pitch has a different regional focus. Beginning with an open call for submissions, IF/Then and a partner film festival select up to 6 filmmaking teams to present their projects at a live pitch competition at the film festival, before a jury of industry representatives. One filmmaker selected from each competition receives up to $25,000 in completion funding for their short film, year-round mentorship, and the opportunity to participate in the IF/Then distribution initiative.
Chloe joined IF/Then from American Documentary, where she was tapped by the 30-year-old PBS series to bring more short documentaries to its broadcast and streaming platforms. In 2018, she launched POV Shorts, which earned POV its third documentary short Oscar nomination, two News & Doc Emmy nominations and an IDA Awards nomination for Best Short Form Series. She has previously worked at Teen Vogue and Viacom as well as served on review panels and juries for the National Endowment for the Arts, Sheffield Doc/Fest, Austin Film Festival, IDA Awards, Black Public Media, Black Harvest Film Festival, and various other organizations. Her personal work centers around immigration, gender and race. She is a member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia, a member-in-residence of the Meerkat Media Collective, and a 2020 Impact Partners Producing Fellow.
Chloe will be facilitating the From IF/Then To The World: A Case Study On Multi-platform Distribution For Short Docs workshop.
